On May 03, 2017, World Herbal Encyclopedia was released by Hon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Shri Trivendra Singh Rawat, Governor of Uttarakhand, Dr. Krishan Kant Paul, and the Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev.
As per my findings, here is a detailed review of Acharya Balkrishna’s “World Herbal Encyclopedia (WHE)”, touching on its strengths, limitations, and place within both herbal literature and broader knowledge-traditions.
What is World Herbal Encyclopedia (WHE)?
The World Herbal Encyclopedia is a collection of 111 books based on medicinal plant, written by Acharya Balkrishna and his Patanjali research organization. The World Herbal Encyclopedia is a new way to learn about medicinal herbs. The goal of this series is to meet the need for a comprehensive database of medicinal plants used around the world for therapeutic purposes.
There are 111 books in WHE. The first 102 volumes are on medicinal plants, and they are arranged alphabetically by kingdom from lower to higher plant categories. Volume 103 lists all of the plants' annexes that have healing effects in different ways. The next seven volumes talk about the history of medicine around the world. The last book tells the story of the World Herbal Encyclopedia project. This series of books shows how to identify medicinal plants by their "Vedic names" and real-life photos of the plants.
"World Herbal Encyclopedia" isn't really a guide for herbalists to choose cures. It's more of a collection of herbal knowledge from different times, places, and cultures. Its worth comes from its preservation, breadth, documentation, and ability to serve as a reference.
What is Good in 'World Herbal Encyclopedia'?
The size of the project is amazing. It is a huge job to write down tens of thousands of plant species, make a list of hundreds of thousands (or more) of local and common names, and find synonyms and references in modern books and manuscripts.
The encyclopedia keeps a lot of folk and tribal healing methods that could otherwise stay oral or be forgotten. The cultural and medicinal knowledge is broad since it includes traditions from several medical systems and numerous local languages.
There are a lot of botanical images and paintings, which are not just with identification but also with connecting traditional descriptions with scientific botany.
The fact that it has a lot of local names in a lot of different languages and that it talks about healing traditions from all over the world makes it more valuable. It is not only a regional Ayurvedic work but also an attempt at a global herbal encyclopedia.
The WHE is a great reference book for botanists, ethnobotanists, historians, and conservationists. It connects different sources, including manuscripts, field observations, and so on.
Importance and Contribution
The WHE is an important book in herbal literature because it is one of the most complete efforts in recent years to gather, protect, and share information about medicinal plants from all around the world, including knowledge from indigenous people.
It helps people learn more about the variety of plants, traditional medical systems, and why it's important to protect them.
The WHE is a treasure trove for people who study medicinal plants and want to protect their cultural legacy.
It also shows how herbal information could be stored in the modern world, using multimedia, different languages, cross-referenced books, and digital portals.
Limitations
One objection is that a lot of the information, especially knowledge that comes from manuscripts or traditions, may not have been thoroughly reviewed by other experts or tested in experiments. The encyclopedia is more of a starting point than an end point for someone looking for clinical-grade information including dose, toxicity, and clinical studies.
The combination of Sanskrit names, local names, and possibly new binomial nomenclatures created by the author or team may not always follow the rules for naming things that are used around the world. That could make things confusing for people who work in conventional botany or pharmacognosy.
Herbal efficacy is contingent upon numerous variables, including growth circumstances, preparation methods, local variances, and interactions. Consequently, a comprehensive compendium may erroneously imply uniformity across locations or traditions that may exhibit significant disparities. For example, a plant that has a certain common name in one place might not be the same as the botanical species in another place.
