Dr Pranjivandas Manekchand Mehta MD,MS,FCPS 1889–1981 and Caraka Samhita (1949)

Abstract

Pranjivandas Manekchand Mehta (1889–1981), MD, MS, FCPS, also known as Dr P M Mehta, was an Indian physician and surgeon in Bombay, who then became the personal physician of the Maharajah Jamsaheb of the former Princely State of Nawanagar, Gujarat, British India. The Jamsaheb appointed Mehta as the Chief Medical Officer of Nawanagar, and with the guidance of the French radiologist, Jean Saidman, oversaw the construction of the first solarium in India. Mehta persuaded the Jamsaheb to fund an institution dedicated to Ayurvedic studies, named the Shri Gulabkunverba Ayurvedic Society, the precursor to the first Ayurveda college in India, and he became the Director of the Central Institute of Research on Indigenous Systems, which later came under the umbrella of the Institute of Teaching and Research in Ayurveda, Jamnagar. P M Mehta was instrumental in establishing a medical college in Nawanagar's capital, now known as the M. P. Shah Medical College, Jamnagar. His work in Ayurvedic medicine and assembling a group of Sanskrit scholars led to a detailed translation of the ancient Sanskrit medical text Çaraka Samhita, also spelt Charaka Samhita, into English, Hindi and Gujarati, published in six volumes in 1949. In 2022, the World Health Organization and the Indian Government established the Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in India, and chose Jamnagar as its location, noting that that was where graduate-level Ayurvedic studies began. Mehta's efforts in Ayurvedic education and the Çaraka Samhita translations have largely been forgotten over several decades, and a recently issued reprint omits the mention of his name. The aim of this paper is to give some glimpses into Mehta's life and his role in the revival of Ayurveda in India, during the lead-up to and during the early years of independent India.