The Physician Who Signed His Name

MS Sparsha How Itty Achudan's botanical wisdom survived three centuries to reclaim its place in history In April 1675, inside a Dutch fort in Cochin, a traditional Indian physician signed a certificate in an old Malayalam script that few people today can read. The document authenticated the botanical knowledge he had shared with a Dutch governor compiling an ambitious book on the plants of Malabar. More than 350 years later, that signature remains one of the most enduring testimonies to an Indian healer whose contribution history could easily have forgotten. His name was Itty Achudan, a hereditary physician from Kodakarapalli in Karappuram, belonging to the Kollatt family of traditional healers. His story is an extraordinary reminder that behind many celebrated works of scholarship lie indigenous experts whose knowledge made them possible, even when their names remained in the shadows. The Dutch governor of Cochin, Hendrik van Rheede, was engaged in documenting the rich botanical diversity of the Malabar coast. Introduced to Achudan by the ruler of Cochin, Veera Kerala Varma, van Rheede recognised the value of the physician's specialised knowledge. Achudan was invited to the fort, where he spent several days dictating the names, properties and medicinal uses of plants, drawing upon generations of accumulated family wisdom and traditional palm-leaf manuscripts. On April 20, 1675, Achudan signed a certificate affirming the accuracy of the information he had provided. Written in Kolezhuthu, an old Malayalam script, it identified him as a hereditary Malayalam physician born into the Kollatt house of Kodakarapalli. The certificate was printed at the beginning of the first volume of the monumental work that emerged from this collaboration. Published in Amsterdam from 1678 onwards, the Hortus Malabaricus comprised 12 volumes documenting 742 plants of the Malabar region. It became an important reference in botanical literature, with its descriptions and illustrations contributing to the development of plant science in Europe. Van Rheede, however, did not live to see the work fully established in the world of scholarship. He died aboard a ship off Bombay in 1691. While European scholars studied the work, much of its knowledge remained inaccessible to Indian readers for centuries because the original text was in Latin. The story of its rediscovery and interpretation would eventually bring another remarkable individual into the picture. Enter Kattungal Subrahmanyan Manilal, popularly known as K. S. Manilal. As a young botany student, he came across the Hortus Malabaricus in the library collections of the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun. What began as an encounter with an old botanical text grew into a lifelong mission to make its contents accessible to Indian scholars and readers. There was one formidable obstacle: Manilal did not know Latin. Undeterred, he sought help from Catholic priests and bishops familiar with the language and gradually equipped himself to undertake the translation. The task demanded much more than linguistic skill. Plant names, descriptions and classifications had to be examined against modern botanical knowledge, as scientific taxonomy had evolved considerably since the seventeenth century. The undertaking consumed 35 years of painstaking research. The English translation was published by the University of Kerala in 2003, followed by a Malayalam edition in 2008. Manilal also authored a separate study in 1996 examining Itty Achudan's role in the creation of the Hortus Malabaricus. His scholarship received national and international recognition. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020, the Janaki Ammal Taxonomy Award and the Dutch Order of Orange-Nassau. He died in Thrissur at the age of 86, leaving behind a significant contribution to botanical scholarship and the recovery of India's scientific heritage. The story of Itty Achudan and K. S. Manilal is more than a tale of an old book. It is about knowledge passed down through generations, a physician whose expertise crossed oceans, and a scholar who devoted decades to unlocking its contents. Achudan's signature endured because it was preserved in a work that travelled far beyond his homeland. Manilal ensured that the wisdom behind that signature could finally be understood by a wider audience. One signed a certificate in 1675. Another spent 35 years translating the book that carried it. Between them, they rescued a remarkable chapter of Indian knowledge from the margins of history. Sometimes, an unsung hero needs only a signature to leave a mark. Sometimes, it takes another unsung hero centuries later to make the world read it.