The Keeper of Ancient Herbs: The Story of Dr. Krishna Chandra Chunekar

In 1928, in the sacred city of Varanasi on the banks of the Ganga, a boy named Krishna Chandra Chunekar was born into a world where the old knowledge of healing still lived in the rustle of leaves and the quiet wisdom of the forests. Varanasi has always been a place of learning, and young Krishna grew up surrounded by the fragrance of medicinal plants and the voices of scholars who spoke of Charaka and Sushruta as if they were living teachers.

He trained under great Ayurvedic masters—Sriniwas Shastri and Professor Satyanarayana Shastri—at Banaras Hindu University. He graduated as an Ayurvedacharya (AMS) and later earned a doctorate in Ayurvedic medical science. From the beginning he was drawn not just to treating patients, but to understanding the very substances that healed them: the roots, leaves, barks and flowers that form the heart of Ayurveda.

His life’s work unfolded at the Ayurveda College of the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University. For decades he taught, researched and guided students as Professor and eventually Head of the Department of Dravya Guna—the science of medicinal substances. He retired in 1988, but his influence never faded. He also served as a visiting professor at Gujarat Ayurveda University in Jamnagar.

Colleagues and students regarded him as a living authority on the correct identification of Ayurvedic herbs. In a field where Sanskrit names and botanical realities sometimes drifted apart over centuries, he patiently matched the ancient descriptions with modern science. His most celebrated work, Medicinal Plants of Susruta Samhita (written with C.L. Yadava), carefully clarified the plants mentioned by the great surgeon-sage Sushruta, linking Sanskrit synonyms to precise Latin botanical names. He also produced important studies on the plants of Bhavaprakasha and other classical nighantus (lexicons of materia medica).

His expertise was sought far beyond the classroom. He served on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research, advised the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library project of CSIR, and sat on the Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani Drugs Technical Advisory Board of the Government of India. The World Health Organization even called upon him for work in Nepal. Through it all he remained a true guru in the old sense—patient, precise, and deeply respectful of both tradition and truth.

In 2000 he received the Sri Gyaana Kalyaana Award. The National Academy of Ayurveda made him a Fellow. The Government of India conferred upon him the title of Guru. And in 2013, the nation honoured him with the Padma Shri for his contributions to medicine.

On 12 August 2019, at the age of ninety-one, Dr. Krishna Chandra Chunekar left this world in the same city that had nurtured him. His funeral was conducted with state honours—a quiet recognition of a life spent safeguarding knowledge that belongs to all of India.

One evening, years earlier, a young research scholar had sat before him with a stack of conflicting plant names and a worried expression.

“Guruji,” the student said, “how do we know which plant the ancients truly meant? The names keep changing.”

Dr. Chunekar smiled, the smile of a man who had spent a lifetime walking between two worlds—the forest and the laboratory, the Sanskrit verse and the botanical key.

“The plants do not change,” he replied gently. “Only our understanding does. Our duty is to listen carefully—to the old texts, to the living herbs, and to the patients who still need them. When the name and the plant finally meet, healing becomes possible again. That is the real work.”

And so the scholar from Varanasi who devoted his life to the silent language of leaves left behind clearer paths for every student, researcher and physician who follows. In the quiet persistence of his books and the generations he taught, the ancient pharmacopeia of India continues to speak.