Analytical Study of the Wat Nuea Krasai Medicine Book, Kanchanaburi Province

Abstract

The research on the analysis of the Wat Nuea Krasai medicine book in Kanchanaburi province            is qualitative research. The objectives were 1) to analyze the linguistic wisdom in terms of orthography and writing techniques that appeared in the Wat Nuea Krasai medicine book, 2) to analyze the ritual values ​​and beliefs that appeared in the Wat Nuea Krasai medicine book, 3) to study the names of plants, animals, and elements that appeared in the Wat Nuea Krasai medicine book, and 4) to study the frequency of plants, animals, and elements that appeared in the Wat Nuea Krasai medicine book. The researcher used a qualitative data collection method by collecting document data and analyzing data with content analysis. The results showed that: 1) the study on linguistic wisdom, orthography, and writing techniques found that the records were in the Thai script of the Rattanakosin period and Thai Khmer script recorded words according to their sounds, which were mostly incorrect according to the current orthography. Local dialects and Pali and Sanskrit were used. In terms of writing techniques, there were seven types of beginning and endings: the name of the medicine, the ingredients used, methods of preparing medicines, symptoms of diseases, auspicious words and properties of medicines; 2) rituals were found in two aspects: the rituals in the composition of medicinal recipes and the rituals in the preparation of medicines; 3) beliefs were found in three aspects: the beliefs related to Buddhism, the beliefs in supernatural things, and the beliefs in astrology; and 4) in terms of materials used in preparing medicines, there was a total of 366 types of plant materials, 32 types of animal materials, and 41 types of elemental materials. The top three most common plant materials were white and red sandalwood, garlic, and ginger. The top three most common animal materials were python gall, cockle, and cobra gall. The top three most common elemental materials were alum, salt and rock salt, and saltpeter.