Abstract:

Poisons and antidotes knowledge constitute one aspect of medical exchanges along the Silk Road during the mediaeval period. Making use of Jīvaka-pustaka, the Sanskrit-Khotanese bilingual medical manuscript found in Dunhuang, Buddhist texts in Chinese translation, the Indian Ayurvedic books in Sanskrit, the Epic Mahābhārata, together with the Tibetan medical texts and Materia medica from the Western Asia, this paper focuses on a kind of poison called “Halāhala” within the medical books along the Silk Road, examining and elucidating its cultural origins and developments, mythological sources, toxicological context, practical use as well as the images in which it is embodied. The research is aimed at a further interpretation of how antidotes knowledge was derived, transmitted and changed, and thus unveiling various faces of different groups of people presented in the intellectual exchanges of pharmacology. From a broader perspective of Asia, a new instance is hereby proposed in the historical research of the medical cultural interactions along the Silk Road.

Key words: Halāhala, antidotes knowledge, images, the Silk Road, medical exchanges