The ethno-medical information presented in the work was extracted from palm leaf manuscripts by a famous practitioner of herbal medicine named Itty Achuden.
Part of the botanical information was scrutinized by three Konkani Brahmanas, Appu Bhat, Vinayaka Pandit and Ranga Bhat, and compared to a Sanskrit textbook which they possessed by name “Manhanighantanam” (i.e., Sanskrit Mahānighaṇṭu, meaning "the great lexicon") followed by a process of thorough verification, discussion with other scholars and general agreement.
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The book was compiled by the Dutch Governor of Malabar, Hendrik van Rheede, and published posthumously in Amsterdam between 1678 and 1693.