History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c12.19

c12.19

The disācara Aggivesāyaṇa may also be connected with Agniveśa, the semi-legendary physician upon whose doctrines the Caraka Saṃhitā is based.¹⁰ The text states that Atreya, who had learned ayurveda from Bharadvāja, imparted his knowledge to six disciples, Agniveśa, Bhela, Jatūkarṇa, Parāśara, Hārīta, and Kṣūrapāṇi, each of whom produced a sūtra.¹ The names of the five fellow-students of Agniveśa bear no resemblance to those of the five other disācaras, their number and this one name being the only points common to the two groups. We may note, however, that Bharadvāja is here two generations removed from Agniveśa; the same may be said of Bhāraddāi in the list of the paüṭṭaparihāras of Udāī²; here Bhāraddāi is two generations removed from Gosāla, and therefore presumably from Aggivesāyaṇa the disācara. This further tenuous similarity is probably coincidental and we must conclude that there are no certain references to any of the six disācaras outside the Bhagavatī Sūtra.