Book Review
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2002 Mar / Apr VOL 4 NO 2.
Reviewed by
Dr Padmaja Pai-Shenoy,Mumbai

An Insight Into Plants
Publishers: Homoeopathic Medical Publishers
Dinar, 20 Statio Road, Santacruz (W), Mumbai- 400 054.
Author: Dr Rajan Sankaran
Price: Rs: 900/-
Edition: First, Aug 2002
Pages: 1000

After ‘The System of Homoeopathy’, this is another book in 2 volumes by Sankaran. It is an enormous effort to present in a clear and lucid manner, a much deeper understanding of the remedies in the plant kingdom. To understand his method I quote excerpts from the Foreword by Jan Scholten: " the first step is to understand the botanical family indicated. This is done by complaining the basic sensation of the patient with that of the family. The next step is to differentiate the members of the family by miasms. Sankaran developed 9 miasms that signify a way how they feel about a problem, how it is handled. An example by Sankaran can make the approach more clear. A young woman feels lost in the world as a plane in the sky without direction. This feeling of being lost is common to the family of Magnolianae. It is an expression of the vital sensation of "Strangeous" in that family. The woman feels desperate and wants it to be solved immediately, she needs direction from other people. The desire for help from others and to get it immediately as a relief is typical for the "typhoid" miasm. The remedy in the typhoid miasm in the Magnolianae family is Nux-moschata and that remedy cured the patient."

Sankaran developed the idea that the sensation of the patient is deeper than the mind and body states..... So he developed for it the concept of "vital sensation".

The book contains notes on 15 families and 6 higher orders. In his introduction Sankaran writes..... "A patient needing a mineral remedy perceives a problem in structure whether in - relationships..... profession or performance. The plant kingdom person has a problem with sensitivity and the animal kingdom person issue is that of survival, hierarchy or competitiveness.

In another chapter he gives his concepts evolved over the last two years of his practice.

1. Sensation and action are equal and opposite.
2. The opposite is equally true of whatever is said.
3. There is no one or nothing out there other than myself.

These are very interesting concepts and only a thorough reading of his book will convince the reader of the philosophy behind the concepts.
All in all a noteworthy effort - lives up to the expectation we all have of Dr Rajan Sankaran. Awaiting many more books in the near & distant future from this pioneering Homoeopath.

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