Review of:Lexique des termes de la pharmacopée syriaque
Siam
Bhayro
University of Exeter
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
George A. Kiraz
James E. Walters
TEI XML encoding by
Abigail Pearson
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
2014
Volume 17.2
For this publication, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
license has been granted by the author(s), who retain full
copyright.
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/article/hv17n2prbhayro
Siam Bhayro
Review of: Lexique des termes de la pharmacopée syriaque, Studia Iranica 47
https://hugoye.bethmardutho.org/pdf/vol17/HV17N2PRBhayro.pdf
http://syriaca.org/bibl/####
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, 2014
vol 17
issue 2
pp 367–368
Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is an electronic journal dedicated to the study
of the Syriac tradition, published semi-annually (in January and July) by Beth
Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. Published since 1998, Hugoye seeks to offer the
best scholarship available in the field of Syriac studies.
?File created by Abigail Pearson
Philippe Gignoux, Lexique des termes de la pharmacopée syriaque, Studia Iranica 47 (Paris: Association pour l’avancement des études iraniennes, 2011). Pp. 103; €20.
The contributions of Philippe Gignoux to the study of Syriac medical literature are well known, and have been nicely summarized elsewhere by
Sebastian Brock.
See S. P. Brock, “The Contributions of Philippe Gignoux to Syriac Studies,” in R. Gyselen and Ch. Jullien, eds.,
‘Maitre pour l’Éternité’. Florilège offert à Philippe Gignoux pour son 80e anniversaire (Paris: Association pour l’avancement
des études iraniennes, 2011), 97–108, especially 98–102.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of readers will probably find the most useful feature of this book to be its treatment of Iranian loanwords, a subject
that has featured heavily in Gignoux’s previous work.
See, for example, Ph. Gignoux, “Le traité syriaque anonyme sur les médications,” in R. Lavenant, ed., Symposium
Syriacum VII: Uppsala University, Department of Asian and African Languages, 11–14 August 1996, OCA 256 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1998),
725–733.
The other very useful aspect of this book is that it functions as a handy concordance to the pharmacological terminology present in Budge’s edition of the
Syriac Book of Medicines,
E. A. W. Budge, Syrian Anatomy, Pathology and Therapeutics, or “The Book of Medicines,” 2 vols.
(London: Oxford University Press, 1913).
as well as in the two manuscripts subsequently identified by Gignoux: Paris Syr. 423 and Mingana Syr. 594A.
See Ph. Gignoux, “On the Syriac pharmacopoeia,” The Harp 11–12 (1998–1999), 193–201.
Gignoux’s lexicon, presented entirely in transliteration, contains circa 700 entries, from ʾbgr “nitre, salpêtre” to
twtʾ “mûres.” Each entry gives a gloss, variant forms in parentheses, and a list of references to the sources mentioned above.
Furthermore, if possible, Gignoux also supplies relevant authorities to consult (both ancient and modern) and etymological information with reference to
Greek, Middle Persian, Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit. There is even the odd reference to Akkadian, Armenian, Bengali, Hebrew, Hindi, and Old Persian for
good measure!
One problem with this volume is that the page numbers in the indices are out of sync with the rest of the volume. With practice, however, one
quickly learns how to navigate around this error—the indices are usually only a couple of pages out. My impression is that the indices were compiled prior to
the final typesetting of the volume. This is, however, only a minor irritation.
The present lexicon will prove to be of immense value to those of us who spend a lot of time delving into the treasures of the
Syriac Book of Medicines, for whom it has long been apparent that Budge’s treatment is dated and that a systematic analysis of the
pharmacological terminology is very much a desideratum. For this, therefore, we shall be grateful to Gignoux for many years to come.