Dear David and all, I rather doubt that searching for a Persian medical text will be very useful. As Aleksandar and Agnes point out, the word was very widely borrowed, so it may not have come directly from a Persian source. An even in Persian, it seems to have been in use from at least Middle Persian on. The form you find in the KCT, jagrI, moreover, suggests that it was likely not a literary transliteration in this case.
So the question to ask is why, of all the Persian words there are, was the word for liver, it seems, particularly widely diffused? I have no idea, but if you search "Iranian street food" you will find that liver dishes are quite prominent, so I suppose that culinary culture is as good a bet as any. happy hunting, Matthew Matthew T. Kapstein Professor emeritus Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, PSL Research University, Paris Associate The University of Chicago Divinity School Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences https://ephe.academia.edu/MatthewKapstein https://vajrabookshop.com/product/the-life-and-work-of-auleshi/ https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501716218/tibetan-manuscripts-and-early-printed-books-volume-i/#bookTabs=1 https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501771255/tibetan-manuscripts-and-early-printed-books-volume-ii/#bookTabs=1 https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/60949 Sent with [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/mail/home) secure email. On Friday, August 8th, 2025 at 5:49 AM, David and Nancy Reigle <[email protected]> wrote: > A big thank you to all who have replied to my question, all helpful. Since > Dominik has kindly verified that the term jagrī does not occur in the etext > versions of any classical Āyurvedic text, and that it does not occur in the > ninth century MS of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, we may accept Matthew's good > suggestion that it comes from the Farsi word jigar. Now the question is: What > Persian medical text would have been available in India in the 10th-11th > century? > > Thank you, > > David Reigle > Colorado, U.S.A. > > On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 9:58 AM Dominik Wujastyk <[email protected]> wrote: > >> This strikes me as certainly the right answer, Matthew; thank you for >> finding it! It's really interesting to see a Farsi medical loanword in the >> tenth-eleventh century KCT. Just to confirm, the term jagrī does not appear >> in the ninth century MS of the Suśrutasaṃhitā (or in later versions of the >> text available to me). Nor do I find it in the etext versions of any >> classical Āyurvedic text. >> Best, >> Dominik
_______________________________________________ INDOLOGY mailing list [email protected] https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
