History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c94.157

v7.c94.157

The present author cannot deal at length in this volume with the two questions of identity and of the dates of the two works, as he is mainly concerned with the influence of Yoga on Dharmaśāstra works. He thinks that hardly any cogent arguments have been advanced to positively disprove the identity of the authors of the Mahābhāṣya and of the Yogasūtra. Whether the revision of Caraka's work was done by the same Patañjali is very doubtful. In the Śāntiparva the founder of *Cikitsita* (medicine) is said to have been Kṛṣṇātreya and not Caraka nor Patañjali. The Caraka-saṁhitā uses the expression '*iti ha smāha bhagavān-Ātreyaḥ*' in the beginning of its chapters. Caraka (in I. 1. 23 ff) states that the sage Bharadvāja learnt Āyurveda from Indra. His pupil was Punarvasu Ātreya, who had six disciples viz. Agniveśa, Bheḍa, Jatūkarṇa, Parāśara, Hārīta and Kṣārapāṇi. First, Agniveśa composed a treatise on Āyurveda and read it to Ātreya and then Bheḍa and others did so. In the chapter called 'Tisraiṣaṇīya' in Caraka-saṁhitā (I. 11. 75) Kṛṣṇātreya's view is specially mentioned. Therefore, it appears that Kṛṣṇātreya²²⁹² is different from Ātreya who is reverently mentioned at the beginning of Caraka's chapters. Even the Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa mentions Ātreya as the first propounder of medical science.