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Strictement liée aux préceptes bouddhistes, la médecine tibétaine est une science millénaire qui se fonde sur des textes traditionnels et sur les enseignements oraux de maîtres érudits. Sa pratique se développe au Tibet comme à l'étranger. La matière médicale est vaste et inventoriée dans les textes médicaux. Son emploi de la part des médecins pour la fabrication des médicaments se reconduit en partie à la tradition. Toutefois, la pratique médicale est constamment en évolution et il existe aussi des usages régionaux. Par ce travail conduit à travers différents terrains d'études, nous enquêtons sur la façon dont de la matière médicale est conçue, désignée et classée par les médecins, sur ses propriétés thérapeutiques et enfin sur les médicaments et leur fabrication, sur les formules, analysant les tendances actuelles et les problématiques liées à cette activité. Ces données seront ensuite comparées avec les informations fournies par les sources écrites. Tibetan medicine is an old science, which is strictly related to Buddhism and relies both on traditional texts and oral knowledge. These medical practices are renowned in Tibet as elsewhere in the world. The Tibetan materia medica is conspicuous and is classified in traditional texts. Substances are used for the preparation of medicines. Although their processing mostly relies on traditional instructions, practices are in evolution and regional trends survive. Through the comparison of the written instructions and the information directly collected on the field in different Tibetan regions, we analyse how the Tibetan pharmacopoeia is designated, identified and classified by traditional doctors. We focus on therapeutic properties of medicinal substances and on the compounding of medicines, analysing the formulae and the production process. We also evaluate the contemporary evolutions associated to these activities.
During spring and summer 1998 at the clinic of the Tibetan refugees' settlement of Dhorpatan (Baglung District, central Nepal) the authors conducted a field study on Tibetan pharmacology and materia medica. Moving to an unfamiliar environment, learned practitioners of Tibetan medicine on the basis of their experience and through the analysis of various plant and environmental features are able to identify the materia medica of the region. This is the case of Dhorpatan, where at the beginning of the 1990s a Tibetan doctor coming from Khyungbo (east Tibet, China) selected the plants that can be employed in therapeutics. As far as the identification criteria are concerned, our field data show that the evaluation of plant morphology is only the first step of the identification process. In fact our informant takes into consideration plant taste, scent and environment of growth, stressing that these features are crucial to assess plant therapeutic properties. Owing to the isolation of the area and to the difficulty of getting all the drugs required, compromises on the identification have to be made. This implies the selection of a few plants that do not have the best therapeutic properties and are substitutes of low quality. The comparison between the botanical identification of the plants selected in Dhorpatan and the ones described in a modern Tibetan pharmacopoeia showed a significant similarity.