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A History of Sanskrit Literature c34.s2: 2. The Older Saṃhitās

A History of Sanskrit Literature c34.s2

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English

2. The Older Saṃhitās

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The oldest of the extant Saṃhitās is generally held to be that ascribed to Caraka, who according to tradition was the physician of Kaniṣka, whose wife he helped in a critical case. Unhappily we cannot tell the value of such stories when they come to us at a late date. Further, we know from the text itself³ that it is not, as we have it, Caraka’s work, for it was revised by one Dṛḍhabala, who admits to having added the last two chapters and to having written 17 out of 28 or 30 chapters of book vi. Dṛḍhabala, who was a Kashmirian, son of Kapilabala, is ascribed to the eighth or ninth century, and in addition to his more substantial work he revised and altered the text, which, moreover, has come down to us in a very unsatisfactory form. The work does not claim to be original; it appears to have been a revision of a number of Tantras on special topics written by Agniveça, pupil of Punarvasu Ātreya and fellow student of Bheḍa or Bhela, whose Saṃhitā is on that ground asserted by some to be older than that of Caraka. As we have it, part i, Sūtrasthāna, deals with remedies, diet, the duties of a doctor; ii, Nidānasthāna, is concerned with the eight chief diseases; iii, Vimānasthāna, with general pathology and medical studies; it contains a statement of the regulations laid down for the conduct of the newly fledged student: he is to give his whole energies to his work, even if his own life is at stake, never to do harm to a patient, never to entertain evil thoughts as to his wife or goods, to be grave and restrained in demeanour, to devote himself in word, thought, and deed to the healing of his charge, not to report outside affairs of the house, and to be careful to say nothing to a patient likely to retard recovery. The Çārīrasthāna (iv) deals with anatomy and embryology; Indriyasthāna (v) with diagnosis and prognosis; Cikitsāsthāna (vi) with special therapy; and the Kalpa- and Siddhi-sthānas (vii and viii) with general therapy. Caraka, however, as we have him is more than an author on medicine; he gives us information of a considerable number of points of philosophy and develops a form of Sāṁkhya which has erroneously been regarded as old, whereas there is nothing to show that it is not a comparatively late addition to the text. He is familiar also with Nyāya and Vaiçeṣika views, which suggests no early date.¹ The form of the work is prose interspersed with verses, and it has no very ancient appearance, perhaps owing to the work of Dṛḍhabala. We know that it was rendered at a fairly early date into Persian, and that an Arabic translation was made *c.* 800.

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³ Trans. Calcutta, 1890–1911; often ed.

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¹ Dasgupta (*Ind. Phil.*, i. 280 ff.) seeks to prove Caraka early (*c.* A. D. 80), but, even if the contemporaneity with Kaniṣka asserted in China (Lévi, IA. xxxii. 282; *WZKM.* xi. 164) is real, the date of our text is dubious. On Dṛḍhabala see Hoernle, *Osteology*, p. 11; JRAS. 1908, pp. 997 ff.; 1909, pp. 857 ff.

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Suçruta is equally famous with Caraka, and he is named with Atreya and Hārīta in the Bower Manuscript, while the *Mahābhārata*² represents him to be a son of Viçvāmitra, and Nāgārjuna³ is credited with having worked over his text. Moreover, like Caraka, he won fame beyond India, for in the ninth and tenth centuries he was renowned both in Cambodia in the east and Arabia in the west. But his text also is not definitely assured until we have, as in the case of Caraka, the commentary of Cakrapāṇidatta in the eleventh century. We know of the older comments of Jaiyyaṭa and Gayadāsa, and Cakrapāṇidatta is supplemented by the comment of Ḍallana⁴ of the thirteenth century. We have also a revised text of Suçruta prepared by Candraṭa on the basis of the commentary of Jaiyyaṭa.⁵

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² xiii. 4. 55.

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³ Cordier, *Récentes Découvertes*, p. 12.

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⁴ Ed. Calcutta, 1891. See Hoernle, JRAS. 1906, pp. 283 ff.; Jolly, ZDMG. lviii. 114 ff.; lx. 403 ff.

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⁵ Eggeling, IOC. i. 928. Trans. Calcutta, 1907–16.

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The Saṁhitā begins with a Sūtrasthāna, which deals with general questions and makes out that Suçruta's teacher was king Divodāsa of Benares, an incorporation of Dhanvantari, physician of the gods. In Nidānasthāna (ii) pathology is developed;

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Çārīrasthāna (iii) covers anatomy and embryology; Cikitsāsthāna (iv) therapeutics; Kalpasthāna (v), toxicology; and the Uttaratantra, which is clearly a later addition, supplements the work. The view of Hoernle¹ that even this later book is as old as Caraka and the *Bhela Saṃhitā* appears to be quite untenable, for it rests on his erroneous view that the anatomical views of Suçruta were known to the author of the *Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa*, a view which has been disproved.² It is of interest to note the high standard demanded from a doctor by Suçruta; the introduction of the student is based on the formal initiation of a youth as a member of the twice-born; he is made to circumambulate a fire, and a number of instructions are given to him, including purity of body and life; he is to wear a red garment—an idea with many parallels; his nails and hair are to be cut short; he is to treat as if they were his kith and kin, holy men, friends, neighbours, the widow and the orphan, the poor and travellers, but to deny his skill to hunters, bird-catchers, outcastes, and sinners.

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¹ Hoernle, *Osteology*, pp. 8 ff.

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² Keith, ZDMG. lxii. 136 ff.

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The *Bhela Saṃhitā*³ is preserved in a single, very defective manuscript. It contains the same divisions as the *Caraka Saṃhitā*, and what is preserved is mainly in Çlokas, with a limited amount of prose. Where comparison with the *Caraka Saṃhitā* is possible, there seems no doubt that the *Bhela*, which knows Suçruta, presents an inferior tradition. As regards osteology Hoernle⁴ holds that a third version of the system of Ātreya, in addition to those of Caraka and Bhela, is to be found in the *Yājñavalkya* and *Viṣṇu Smṛtis* and the *Viṣṇudharmottara* and *Agni Purāṇas*, but the provenance of this list in *Yājñavalkya* must be regarded as uncertain in the extreme. Moreover, the conclusion drawn by Hoernle as to the original account of Ātreya and its relations to these later versions must be held to be vitiated by an excessive number of suggested corrections resting on modern knowledge of the true number and kinds of bones in the human body.⁵

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³ Ed. Calcutta, 1921; Hoernle, *op. cit.*, pp. 37 ff.; *Bower MS.*, pp. 54 ff.

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⁴ *Op. cit.*, pp. 40 ff.

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⁵ A *Kāçyapa Saṃhitā* is also known, of uncertain date; Haraprasād, *Report I*, p. 9. So there are *Hārīta* or *Ātreya*, and *Āçvina* texts.

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