The discovery of an Ayurvedasutra among the palm-leaf manuscripts with a Jaina physician in Mysore and the acquisition of a copy of it at first and of the palm-leaf manuscript itself later for this Library may not in these circumstances be considered as a gain of no value. On examination the work is found to contain Ayurveda Sutras in five Prasnas and a commentary on the same by some scholar called Yoganandanatha, who, judged by the name, seems to have been a follower of Tantric cult and a logician as indicated by the style of his commentary. The Oriental manuscript Libraries in Tanjore and Madras have on inquiry been found to contain manuscripts of the Sutra text having sixteen Prasnas. Copies of these two manuscripts together with a copy of the Sutra text in the Library of the late native physician, D. V. Gopalachar in Madras were obtained for purpose of collation and edition. Clerical errors were however so numerous both in the text and the incomplete commentary that for sometime the edition of the work seemed to be an almost hopeless task. Constant perseverance in the restoration of the text and commentary resulted in bringing the work to the form in which it is now presented in print. There is however evidence in the text itself to prove that the present edition is far from satisfactory and that until the discovery of some more manuscripts there can be no complete and satisfactory restoration of the text.
At the close of both the first and the second Prasnas there is recited as an aid to memorising the sutras a sort of mnemonic called Chittha string of words consisting of the words of each of the decades of divisions into which the sutras of the Prasna are divided. The present order of the reading of the sutras however, is not in accordance with the Chittha. The first two words of the third decade of the sutras in the first Prasna appear in the twenty-ninth instead of the thirtieth Sutra, indicating thereby the omission
