English
It may not be out of place here to mention the fact that the Samkhya philosophy summed up in the Sarira-sthana of Susruta is decidedly the Samkhya philosophy of Igvarakrsna, which, as I have elsewhere pointed out, is later than the Samkhya philosophy so elaborately treated in the Caraka-samhita:. This fact also sug- gests that the revision of Susruta was executed after the composition of Isvarakrsna’s work (about A.D. 200), which agrees with the view expressed above that the revision of Susruta was the work of Nagar- juna, who flourished about the fourth or the fifth century a.D. But it is extremely improbable that the elaborate medical doctrines 1 History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 1, pp. 313-322- XII] Ayur-veda Literature 429 of an author who lived at so early a date as the sixth century B.c. could have remained in a dispersed condition until seven, eight or nine hundred years later. It is therefore very probable that the main basis of Susruta’s work existed in a codified and well- arranged form from very early times. The work of the editor or reviser seems to have consisted in introducing supplements, such as the Uttara-tantra, and other chapters on relevant occasions. It does not seem impossible that close critical and comparative study of a number of published texts of the Susruta-samhita and of unpublished manuscripts may enable a future student to separate the original from the supplementary parts. The task, however, is rendered difficult by the fact that additions to the Susruta-samhita were probably not limited to one period, as has already been pointed out above. _ It is well known that Atri’s medical teachings, as collected by Agnivesa in his Agnivesa-tantra, which existed at least as late as Cakrapani, form the basis of a revised work by Caraka, who is said to have flourished during the time of Kaniska, passing by the name of Caraka-samhita'.. It is now also well known that Caraka did not complete his task, but left it half-finished at a point in the Cikitsd-sthdna, seventeen chapters of which, together with the books called Siddhi-sthana and Kalpa-sthana, were added by Kapilabala’s son, Drdhabala, of the city of Paficanada, about the ninth century a.D. The statement that Drdhabala supplemented the work in the above way is found in the current texts of the Caraka- samhita®. Niscala Kara in his Ratna-prabha describes him as author of the Caraka-parisista, and Cakrapani, Vijayaraksita and Aruna- datta (A.D. 1240), whenever they have occasion to quote passages from his supplementary parts, all refer to Drdhabala as the author. The city of Paficanada was identified asthe Punjab by Dr U.C. Dutt in his Materia Medica, which identification was accepted by Dr Cordier and referred to a supposed modern Panjpur, north of Attock in the Punjab. There are several Paficanadas in different parts of India, and one of them is mentioned in the fifty-ninth chapter of the Kasi-khanda; Gangadhara in his commentary identifies this with Benares, assigning no reason for such identification. Hoernle, however, thinks that this Paficanada is the modern village of 1 On Caraka’s being the court-physician of Kaniska see S. Levi, Notes sur * les Indo-Scythes, in Fournal Asiatique, pp. 444 sqq- 2 Caraka-samhita, v1. 30 and Siddhi-sthana, vi. 8. 430 Speculations in the Medical Schools [cH. Pantzinor (“five channels” in Kashmir) and holds that Drdhabala was an inhabitant of this place. There are many passages in Caraka which the commentators believe to be additions of the Kasmira recension (Kasmira-patha). Madhava quotes a number of verses from the third chapter of the sixth section, on fevers, which verses are given with the omission of about twenty-four lines. Vijaya- raksita, in his commentary on Madhava’s Nidana, says that these lines belong to the Kasmira recension. Existing manuscripts vary very much with regard to these lines ; for, while some have the lines, in others they are not found. In the same chapter there are other passages which are expressly noted by Cakrapanidatta as belonging to Kagmira recensions, and are not commented upon by him. There are also other examples. Hoernle points out that Jivananda’s edition of 1877 gives the Kasmira version, while his edition of 1896, as well as the editions of Gangadhara, the two Sens and Abinas, have Caraka’s original version. Madhava never quotes readings belonging to the Kasmira recension. Hoernle puts together four points, viz. that Caraka’s work was revised and completed by Drdhabala, that there existed a Kasmira recension of the Caraka- samhita, that Drdhabala calls himself a native of Paficanada city, and that there existed a holy place of that name in Kagmira; and he argues that the so-called Kasmira recension represents the re- vision of the Caraka-samhita by Drdhabala. Judging from the fact that Madhava takes no notice of the readings of the Kagmira recension, he argues that the latter did not exist in Madhava’s time and that therefore Madhava’s date must be anterior to that of Drdhabala. But which portions were added to the Caraka-samhita by Drdhabala? The obvious assumption is that he added the last seventeen chapters of the sixth book (Czkitsa@) and the seventh and eighth books?. But such an assumption cannot hold good, since there is a great divergence in the counting of the number of the chapters in different manuscripts. Thus, while Jivananda’s text marks Arsas, Atisara, Visarpa, Madatyaya and Dvivraniya as the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth chapters of Cikitsa and therefore belonging to the original Caraka, Gangadhara’s text 1 asmin saptadasadhy& kalpah siddhaya eva ca ndsadyante ’gnivesasya tantre Carakasamskrte tan etan KGpilabalah sesan Drdhabalo ’karot tantrasyasya maharthasya piiranartham yathayatham. VI. 30. 274. XIII] Ayur-veda Literature 431 calls the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth chapters Unmada, Apasmara, Ksataksina, Svayathu and Udara. The seven- teen chapters attributed to Drdhabala have consequently different titles in the Gangadhara and Jivananda editions. Hoernle has dis- cussed very critically these textual problems and achieved notable results in attributing chapters to Caraka or Drdhabala!. But it is needless for us to enter into these discussions. Mahamahopadhyaya Kaviraj Gananatha Sen, merely on the strength of the fact that the Raja-tarangini is silent on the matter?, disputes the traditional Chinese statement that Caraka was the court-physician of Kaniska. There is no ground to believe as gospel truth a tradition, which cannot be traced to any earlier authority than Bhoja (eleventh century), that Patajijali was the author of a medical work, and that therefore Patafijali and Caraka could be identified. His comparisons of some passages from Caraka (iv. 1) with some sitras of Patafijali are hardly relevant and he finally has to rest for support of this identification on the evidence of Ramabhadra Diksita, a man of the seventeenth or the eighteenth century, who holds that Patajfijali had written a work on medicine. He should have known that there were more Patafijalis than one, and that the alchemist and medical Patafijali was an entirely different person from Patafjali, the grammarian. The most important commentary now completely available to us is the Ayur-veda-dipika, or Caraka-tatparya-tika, of Cakrapani- datta. Another important commentary is the Caraka-panjika by Svamikumara. He was a Buddhist in faith, and he refers to the commentator Hariscandra. The Caraka-tattva-pradipika was written in later times by Sivadasasena, who also wrote the Tattva- candrika, a commentary on Cakradatta. We hear also of other commentaries on Caraka by Baspacandra or Vapyacandra, Isana- deva, Isvarasena, Vakulakara, Jinadasa, Munidasa, Govardhana, Sandhyakara, Jaya nandi and the Caraka-candrika of Gayadasa. Among other ancient treatises we may mention the Kasyapa- samlita, discovered in Kathmandi, a medical dialogue between Kasyapa, the teacher and Bhargava, the student. It is interesting to note that it has some verses (MS., pp. 105-110) which are identical with part of the fifth chapter of the first book of Caraka. There is another important manuscript, called Bhéaradvaja- 1 $.R.A.S., 1908 and 1909. 2 Pratyaksa-sdariram, introduction. 432 Speculations in the Medical Schools [cH. samhita, which contains within it a small work called Bhesaja- kalpa, a commentary by Venkatesa!. Agnivega’s original work, the Agnivesa-samhita, which was the basis of Caraka’s revision, was available at least up to the time of Cakrapani; Vijayaraksita and Srikanthadatta also quote from it?. Jatikarna’s work also existed till the time of the same writers, as they occasionally quote from Jatitkarna-samhita®. The Parasara-samhita and Ksarapani- samhita were also available down to Srikanthadatta’s, or even down to Sivadasa’s, time. The Harita-samhita (different from the printed and more modern text) was also available from the time of Cakrapani and Vijayaraksita, as is evident from the quotations from it in their works. Bhela’s work, called Bhela-samhita, has already been published by the University of Calcutta. It may be remembered that Agnivesa, Bhela, Jatikarna, Parasara, Harita and Ksarapani were all fellow-students in medicine, reading with the same teacher, Atreya~-Punarvasu; Agnivesa, being the most intelligent of them all, wrote his work first, but Bhela and his other fellow-students also wrote independent treatises, which were read before the assembly of medical scholars and approved by them. Another work of the same school, called Kharanada-samhita, and also a Visvamitra-samhita, both of which are not now available, are utilized by Cakrapani and other writers in their commentaries.