The book in hand presents an alphabetical list of all the Sanskrit names of the food and drug plants mentioned in Brhattrayi i.e. Caraka Samhita , Susruta Samhita and Astangahrdaya Samhita of Vagbhata together with their references in them. Appropriate Latin names of non-controversial source plants have been incorporated in the headline, while the botanical identities of others have been critically discussed. The discussions are based on the information's collected from the commentaries of Dalhana, Cakrapani and the Hrdayadipaka of Bopadeva. They have been supplemented here and there by the information contained in Dhancantarinighantu, Rajanighantu and those of Madanapala, Kaiyadeva and Bhavamista. It is regretted that the treatment could not be made more broad based by more useful and reliable information likely to be furnished by the older Samhita commentaries and other extant documents on the subject. This lapse was tried to be made good by recourse to field study of drug plants and it is felt that this adventurous programme initiated by the senior author about four decades back has paid us good dividends.

The field work was conducted in the selected forest areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and in certain areas of Kashmir, Kangra, Darjeeling and Nagpur. The results of the first two decades were published in two small Hindi books- Vanausadhi Darsika and Bihar-ki-Vanaspatiyan (1955) and some of them were incorporated in the commentary on Bhavaprakasa Nighantu (1969). The present book sums up the result of our entire work in respect of the identification of Samhita plants.

In order to make it possible for the readers to get an idea at a glance of our success in our venture a list is given here of our conclusions which may be called only tentative in many cases. They are none-the -less fruitful suggestion for future workers and the present day scholars who may be earnestly requested to seek their confirmation or otherwise laying aside their prejudices. It may be noted that some of our views expressed earlier in the two books referred to here in the list as Vanausakhi Darsika and Bihar-ki-Vanaspatiyan have been revised here in the present book as more and more information came to our hand after reference to the Samhitas and their commentaries available to us.