RESUMEN
This article provides the most updated dataset of Latin botanical identifications for the materia medica in Tibetan medicine, known as Bö Luk Sowa Rigpa (Tib. Bod lugs gso ba rig pa), or the "Tibetan knowledge field of healing," often denoted in English simply as Sowa Rigpa. As one of the major scholarly Asian traditional medical systems, Sowa Rigpa is the principal health resource for populations across Tibetan regions of China, Mongolia, Bhutan, Nepal, India, and culturally-related areas of Russia. The geography represented by this medicinal plant dataset extends across the entire Tibetan plateau, its adjacent ranges, the wider transregional Himalayas, central Asia and much of the Indian subcontinent. Data collection drew from textual analysis of the seminal works of the Tibetan medical canon, including the Four Medical Treatises, Crystal Orb and Rosary among others; as well as the contemporary definitive work Stainless Crystal Mirror of Materia Medica by Gawé Dorjé. Study authors applied the same classification system as Gawé Dorjé, yet reanalyzed specimens according to a database cataloging research on regional herbarium botanical specimens, geographic distributions and regional plant chemistry studies, and confirming proper identification with the most current modern botanical taxonomies. Subsequently, almost 700 of the most commonly used materia medica were selected for compilation. Thus, this dataset represents updated botanical identifications and confirmations from both early and contemporary sources. Botanical specimen names were entered into spreadsheet format with Gawé Dorjé's categories listed alongside Deumar Tendzin Püntsok's early standard. Enclosed raw data are written in Unicode Tibetan font to retain fidelity to entries in the classical texts, with parallel columns in standard Wylie Tibetan transliteration and phonetic transcription. Latin botanical names are updated for each materia medica specimen using Kew's Medicinal Plant Names Services (Kew-MPNS) with missing entries supplied by World Flora Online (WFO) and Flora of China (FoC). This dataset is the first publicly available comprehensive ethnobotanical identification of Sowa Rigpa materia medica with Latin binomial nomenclature. This dataset was developed to inform botanical and pharmacological analysis of the Tibetan medical materia medica repertoire as well as make comparative analyses of related materia medica in other Asian medical systems.
RESUMEN
This article shares the comprehensive dataset and five visualized examples of disease categories in Tibetan medicine, or Sowa Rigpa (Tib. Gso ba rig pa), translated as the "knowledge field of healing." Sowa Rigpa is a scholarly Asian traditional medical system rigorously transmitted through canonical texts and oral teachings originating in Tibet with an extensive pharmacopeia, comprehensive treatment repertoire, and nuanced etiological explications of its nosology of diseases. This medical tradition is practiced across a broad region of Asia, particularly in Tibetan regions of China, Himalayan regions of India (Ladakh, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh), Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, Russia, and recently in Europe and North America. The data herein depicts disease classifications listed in the encyclopedic compendium "Oral Instructions Treatise" (Man ngag rgyud) of the Tibetan medical classic, the Four Medical Treatises (Rgyud bzhi), compiled in written form during the twelfth century CE. Visualized examples depict etiological relations among diseases in five of the fifteen major categories of disease: rLung Illnesses, Béken Illneses, Pediatric Conditions, Eye Conditions and Tropical Infectious Diseases. Disease names were entered into spreadsheet format and categorized by etiological hierarchical structure. Data are written in Unicode Tibetan font to retain fidelity to entries in the classical text, with parallel columns in standard Wylie transliteration. Subsets of the data are visually depicted through a graphic platform called Interactive Tree of Life to demonstrate etiological associations. This dataset is the first publicly available enumeration of the specific diseases, classifications and etiological relationships from the Tibetan medical classic. The data are linked to the article entitled "Tibetan Medical Informatics: An Emerging Field in Sowa Rigpa Pharmacological & Clinical Research" (Dhondrup et al., 2020).