Tibetan medicine processing ensures the safety of clinical application of Tibetan medicine. It is of great significance to analyze the principles of Tibetan medicine processing in the development, inheritance, and innovation of Tibetan medicine. However, due to the late start of modern Tibetan medicine research and the disciplinary division, the current research on Tibetan medicine processing focuses on the exploration and collation of traditional techniques and the analysis of the processing mechanism of Tibetan medicine through chemical and pharmacological research, but its principles and traditional theories have been rarely reported. In view of this, after analyzing the concept, essence, theories, purposes, and functions of Tibetan medicine processing through the integration of Tibetan medicine, Tibetan pharmacology, and clinical research of Tibetan medicine, this study proposed that the essence of Tibetan medicine processing was to change the "five sources" composition of medicinal materials through physical, chemical, and biological means, or the comprehensive means, and the theoretical principle of Tibetan medicine processing was to change or transform the positive and adverse effects or the obvious and recessive effects by altering the "five sources" composition of the drug to maximize the positive effect and minimize the adverse effect and the damage to the body, thereby achieving the purposes of toxicity reduction, efficacy enhancement, and drug property harmonization represented by sharpening, softening, nourishing, and reasonable compatibility. This study is expected to provide references for the construction of the theoretical system of Tibetan medicine processing, the inheritance of processing techniques, and innovative research.
Keywords: Tibetan medicine processing; eight properties; five sources; obvious and recessive effects; positive and negative effects; six flavors.