The Ttreatise “Khan’s Treasury” – on Methods of Treatment” as a Source of Information about the Adaptation of Medical Measurements in Mongolian Traditional Medicine

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the early adaptation and development of the medical and pharmaceutical measurements system in traditional Mongolian medicine as shown in the example of the treatise “Khan Treasury” – about methods of treatment”. This work is a little-known translation into the classic Mongolian language of one of the oldest Tibetan medical treatises “GyalpoKorzo”, that belongs to the medical tradition of the Sakyapa school (11th century). The purpose of this study is to reveal the traditional medicine features of Mongolian peoples’ metric system on the example of the said work. The authors use a comparative historical method and historical-lexical analysis. The medical metric terminology available in the Mongolian text of the “Khan Treasury” was identified and systematized, the origin of the measurement units used in it, was determined. The scientific novelty is that new data have been obtained on the adaptation by Mongolians of the complex system of knowledge accumulated in traditional medical systems. It is shown that the studied lexical layer reflects economic and living conditions of nomads, features of cultural ties in East and Central Asia. The example of measurement terminology shows that Mongolians, while adapting and mastering Buddhist knowledge, apart from directly borrowing new categories and concepts, tried to rethink them in the realities of their own culture. Text and analytical materials of medical treatise “Khan Treasury” – about methods of treatment” are housed in the diachronic corpus of the old Mongolian language and will serve as the basis for the creation of a machine translation system based on artificial intelligence technologies (“deep learning”).

Keywords

• mongolian medicine
• units of measurements
• diachronic body
• historical lexicography