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The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c6: Chapter One: Classical Indian Medicine: The Āyurveda

The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c6

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Contents

Chapter One: Classical Indian Medicine: The Āyurveda

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CLASSICAL INDIAN MEDICINE :

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THE PRINCIPAL and oldest texts of the classical Indian medicine are the *Saṃhitās*, the "corpus" said to be of Bhela, Caraka and Suśruta. The first has reached us in one single and incomplete manuscript. The other two are not available in their original form because we know that they have been revised by more recent authors. None of these three texts represents a first effort at systematic description of medical science; on the contrary, all the three suppose an already established tradition, to whose foundation they have not contributed. They limit themselves merely to collecting the facts of the above-mentioned tradition and to teaching it. This tradition claims to have links with the Veda; it is that of the *Āyurveda*, of the "science of longevity", which is considered sometimes as a "secondary part" (*upāṅga*) of the *Atharvaveda*¹ and sometimes as a "secondary Veda" (*upa-veda*) of the *Ṛgveda*.² Theoretically the *Āyurveda* consists of eight "parts" or "articles" which are so well-known as its characteristic members that the expression "eight parts" (*aṣṭāṅga*) is currently used to denote the science of medicine. The texts of Bhela, Caraka and Suśruta, though not observing it, are aware of this division. This division has been popular chiefly with more recent authors.

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¹ Suśr., *Sūtr.*, 1, 3 (...*āyurveda nāma yad upāṅgam atharvavedasya*...), cf. also Caraka, *Sūtr.*, XXX, 20, where it is said that "the doctor should show respect to the *Atharva-veda*, which among the four Vedas, belongs properly to him." (*bhiṣajā...vedānām ātmano’ tharvavede bhaktir ādeśyā*). In Suśr., *Sūtr.*, XXXIV, 6, it is said that "Brahman has given the name of *āyurveda* to that part of the Veda which has eight parts." (*Brahmā vedāṅgam aṣṭāṅgam āyurvedam abhāṣata*) and the same passage, in verse 4, says that "the *Atharvaveda* announces hundred and one deaths" (*ekottaram mṛtyuśatam atharvāṇaḥ pracakṣate*); This is an allusion to *AV*, VIII, 2, 28 which, in effect, refers to "a hundred and one deaths."

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² *Caraṇavyūha*, 38; *Prasthānabheda*, IV.

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*The Legends about the Origins of the Āyurveda* :—According to Suśruta, medicine was created by the Being who exists by Himself (Svayambhū), that is to say Brahman, in 100,000 ślokas. In view of the inability of human beings to learn it in this form, Svayambhū is said to have re-composed it in eight parts and taught it to Prajāpati, who is said to have passed it on to the Aśvins, the Aśvins to Indra, Indra to Dhanvantari appearing in the form of Divodāsa, the king of Kāśi. At last Dhanvantari, on the prayer of a group consisting of Aupadhenava, Vaitaraṇa, Aurabhra, Pauṣkalāvata, Karavīrya, Gopurarakṣita and Suśruta, taught it to men. Suśruta is, therefore, supposed to have recorded the very words of Dhanvantari himself.

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Caraka has the same thing to say concerning the origin of medicine and its transmission upto Indra (Sūtra, I, 4,5). Indra is said to have revealed it to Ṛṣi Bharadvāja, who was sent to him by all the well-known ṛṣis desirous of knowing the means of combatting diseases. Bharadvāja is said to have immediately communicated his knowledge to other ṛṣis. One of them, Ātreya Punarvasu is said to have subsequently trained six disciples: Agniveśa, Bhela, Jatūkarṇa, Parāśara, Hārīta and Kṣārapāṇi (ib., 29-30). Of these, Agniveśa is supposed to have been the first to compose a book for teaching (ib., 31). The *Caraka-saṃhitā* represents itself to the manual “composed by Agniveśa and reconstituted by Caraka”¹ and it claims to reproduce the actual words of Ātreya Punarvasu himself.

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¹ As is indicated by the colophons of chapters which start with the words *ityagniveśa-kṛte tantre caraka-pratisamskṛte*.

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The legend of the origin of the Āyurveda is inseparable from the legends concerning the origin of many other sciences. Almost upto our times, it has been an Indian practice to take back the first teaching of sciences and letters to superior gods. The script is supposed to have been invented by Brahman, Astronomy to have been revealed by Sūrya, the grammar of Pāṇini to have been elaborated by Śiva, in whose mouth besides the Tantras place the teaching of all sorts of things. Indra also, though less frequently, is a god of teaching; tradition ascribes him another grammar and Barth (*Oeuvres*, III, 223) has identified the source of this last association with a passage of the *Taittirīya-saṃhitā* where it is said that Indra made speech distinguishable (VI, 47, end).

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The sources of the legend concerning the origin of the Āyurveda are more complex. It is evident that the Aśvins, because of their reputation as divine doctors, had already been, in good time, designated, as we will see, to play a role in the transmission of the medical science. Because of other legends and because of his relations with the Aśvins, Indra, for his part, was already a suitable character for their transmission. In the *Chāndogya-upaniṣad* (VIII, 15) it is said that the supreme science was given by Brahman to Prajāpati, by Prajāpati to Manu and by Manu to human beings, but a little earlier, the same text (VIII, 7-12) has given all the details of the teaching by Prajāpati to Indra On the other hand, according to the *Rg-veda*, Indra has been aided by the Aśvins “as a son by fathers” (X, 131, 4-5). In his commentary on a repetition of the same passage in the *Vājasaneyas* (X, 33-34), Mahīdhara tells us how the asura Namuci having drunk all the vigour of Indra, the Aśvins and Sarasvatī have, even then, furnished him with the means of killing this asura. This was not the teaching of medicine but this did put him under obligation to the Aśvins. It is, therefore, understandable that Indra easily came to be regarded as having received instruction in medical science from the Aśvins and propagated it in his turn, although there are different traditions some calling Indra the master and some the pupil of the Aśvins. Moreover the *Sautrāmaṇi* ritual associates Indra with the Aśvins; this ritual is even thought to represent the curing of Indra by the Aśvins when the former had fallen ill by drinking too much of soma; here again Indra is indebted to the Aśvins. Clearly, this sum-total of mythological facts contains all the elements which have served to constitute the legend of the origin of the Āyurveda upto its teaching by Indra.

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At the same time, in the light of the indications furnished by the *Chāndogya-upaniṣad*, we can observe that from the period of this text, legends regarding the origin of the science, similar to those of the classical period, had already been current. The two traditions differ as to the pupil of Indra; Dhanvantari, mentioned by Suśruta being a post-Vedic god and Bharadvāja, who is mentioned by Caraka, being a Vedic ṛṣi. But this divergence is only apparent because the two personages are, from antiquity itself, closely interconnected. In effect, the Dhanvantari mentioned by Suśruta is also Divodāsa, and Divodāsa is Vedic and is mentioned in association with Bharadvāja in three passages of the Ṛg-veda: “While protecting, you have made the route circular for Divodāsa, for Bharadvāja, O Aśvins”¹; In hymn VI, 16, Bharadvāja himself invokes Agni: “O thou, pressing these plentiful goods for Divodāsa and serving for Bharadvāja”²; thirdly Indra is told: “Thou hast given by power, O powerful one, treasures to Divodāsa pressing, O very fast one, to singing Bharadvāja.”³ This should suffice to show that these two personalities were closely related to each other, and could easily become the substitutes of each other and that the traditions of Suśruta and Caraka regarding the pupil of Indra, reach back to the same group of ancient data.⁴

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¹ yád áyātam divodāsāya vartír bharádvājāyaśvinā hāyantā. RV., 1, 116, 18.

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² tvám imā vāryā purū divodāsāya sunvaté, bharádvājāya dāśúṣe. RV., VI, 16, 5.

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³ aśikṣo yatra śacyā śacīvo divodāsāya sunvaté, sutakre bharádvājāya gṛṇaté vāsūni. RV., VI, 31, 4.

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⁴ Besides, the Śāṅkhāyanagṛhyasūtras (II, 14, 4) directly associate the name of Bharadvāja with that of Dhanvantari. The Pañcaviṃśa-brāhmaṇa, XV, 3, 7, makes Bharadvāja to be the purohita of Divodāsa. The Jaiminīyabr. [I, 222, (W. Caland), Das Jaim. in Auswahl!, Amsterdam, 1919, No. 82, p. 86] presents Divodāsa as a king desirous of becoming a ṛṣi.

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This conclusion is in accordance with the fact that the doctrinal contents of the two texts are the same. Moreover, this conclusion does not allow us to believe that the names of Divodāsa and Bharadvāja can be linked with historical character. Of course persons with these names have existed, but the two mentioned by medical manuals are surely mythical.

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The introduction of the personage of Dhanvantari seems to constitute the real divergence of the tradition of the Suśruta- *saṃhitā* from that of the *Caraka-saṃhitā*. In India every eminent being can be presented as a god become man. Although he is only a fictive personage, Divodāsa has not escaped this rule. The god whom he incarnates is more recent than himself. Dhanvantari is not mentioned in the Vedic literature, except in its latest stratum, that of the *Sūtras*; generally speaking, though not always, he is a god in the epic and in the Purāṇas and quite often he is a *parvenu* among the gods. At the time of the churning of the ocean by the devas and the asuras, he emerged out of the waves carrying amṛta or the liquid of immortality. (*Mahābh.*, Ādip. 1140; *Rāmāyaṇa*, Bombay, I, XLV, 32; Gorresio, I, XLVI, 30). The *Bhāgavatapurāṇa* sees in him “a part of Viṣṇu” (*Viṣṇor amśa*, VIII, VIII, 34) or, what amounts to the same thing, “part of Vāsudeva” (*Vāsudevāṃśa*, IX, XVII, 4).¹ In the first passage, he is called the “observer of the Āyurveda” (*āyurvedadṛś*) and in both of them it is specified that he has a share in the sacrifice (*ijyābhāj*, *yajñabhuj*). It is also said that Dhanvantari “has obtained as his part in the sacrifice the immortal life to which a stop had been put.”² This insistence of the Purāṇa can be easily explained if it is considered that the participation of Dhanvantari in the sacrifice could not be secured on its own.

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The *Gṛhya-sūtras* had admitted this participation (*Āśvalayanagṛ*, I, 3, 6; 12, 7), but it has been contested for a long time. This is evident from texts such as the *Viṣṇupurāṇa* and the *Harivaṃśa*. According to the former, Dhanvantari was a prince, born as a grandson of Kāśirāja, in the family of Āyus. In an earlier life, he had been born at the churning of the ocean and had obtained the right of being reborn in the family of Kāśirāja to be able to divide the Āyurveda in eight branches and become a participant in the sacrifice (*yajñabhāj*, IV, VIII, 4). The *Harivaṃśa* describes how after his birth from the ocean, he immediately demanded from Viṣṇu his part and place in the sacrifice; this request was not granted as the shares in the sacrifice had been fixed a long time earlier. As a compensation, he was promised divine status and cult in a second birth. He was, then, born as the son of a king of Kāśī (Kāśirāja) who had honoured him and he received the Āyurveda from Bharadvāja.¹ The texts further agree in making Divodāsa the great-grandson of Dhanvantari.² Under this form, the tradition offers us three personages where the Suśruta-saṃhitā knows of only one. Moreover, the fact that the oldest ancestor of the master of Āyurveda, Dhanvantari is known as Āyus, can lead us to think that the legend of Dhanvantari has been forged at leisure.

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It is, in any case, probable that some king of Kāśī had, in antiquity, acquired a reputation in medicine and that the legends, now preserved, might have been the result of the efforts to reconstitute from the Indian point of view, the life and the genealogy of that prince who was accepted as a divine incarnation. If one were to view things from this angle, it will have, at least, to be accepted that extremely ancient mythical personages such as Divodāsa and Bharadvāja have, in various ways, been introduced into these legends. We have already seen that these two last-mentioned ones, sometimes seem to mingle into one. In the Harivaṃśa, a distinction is made between the two, as one of the two is the master of Dhanvantari and the other his great-grandson. But even here at least the notion of a relationship between Dhanvantari and Bharadvāja is present and this relationship goes back at least to the Śāṅkhāyana-gṛhyasūtra (ii, 14) which unites the two names of Bharadvāja and Dhanvantari, just as the Ṛg-veda had made a rapprochement between those of Bharadvāja and Divodāsa. Therefore, it does not go as far away from the tradition as one would have thought at first view, keeping in view the tradition adopted by the Caraka-saṃhitā.

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¹ It makes him the twelfth incarnation of Bhagavanta in this world and calls him Dhanvantara (I, III, 17). cf., in general Louis H. Gray, *The Indian God Dhanvantari* in J.A.O.S., 1922, pp. 323-337.

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² *Yajñe ca bhāgam amṛtāyur avāpa ruddham*... II, VII, 21. Burnouf understands it to mean that he has recovered that part of the *amṛta* which had been taken away by the *asuras* but another reading is *ruddhe*; in this case it is the sacrifice to which a stop had been put.

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¹ Calcutta edition, 1523-1539, Ch. XXIX. The translation (in French) by Langlois (Vol. I, p. 129) is based on the manuscripts (Biblio. Nat., Sanskrit 369 and 382). The text of these two is often better than that of the Calcutta edition.

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² Similarly Bhāgavata, IX, XVII, 5.

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The name of Suśruta on the one hand and that of Ātreya on the other do not let us escape the legend. Suśruta, which signifies “one who has listened well”, may be studied in relation to the epithet bahuśruta, “one who has listened to a lot (of things)”, “an extremely learned person”. As the proper name of a person, this word appears only in the classical texts and in the Suśruta-saṃhitā itself. Ātreya denotes “a descendant of Atri” and Atri is a Vedic personage protected by the Aśvins and Indra.¹ He is one of those “Ancients” by whom human beings trace their link with the gods. In effect, hymn I, 139 of the Ṛg-veda says: “Dadhyañca, Aṅgiras the elder, Priyameda, Kaṇva, Atri, Manu have known my birth; these, the Ancients[and] Manu have known it. Their line goes back to the gods and our navels are in them.”² The legend of the transmission of the Āyurveda from the gods to human beings could find in the Vedic tradition no one more suitable than a personage who was not only the intermediary between the gods and men but also the special ward of medical gods and of the instructor god. Being too divine as he represented Agni³, he could not as well pass for the first human being who learnt medicine from the gods, as did his descendant.

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¹ Bergaigne, Rel. Véd., II, p. 468.

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² Dadhyáṅ ha me anúṣam pūrvo áṅgirāḥ priyámedhaḥ káṇvo átrir mánur vidus, té me pūrve mánur viduḥ. teṣām devéṣu āyatir asmākaṃ téṣu nābhayaḥ. RV., 1, 139, 9.

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³ Bergaigne, Rel. Véd.

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The majority of the hymns of the fifth maṇḍala of the Ṛg-veda is attributed to Atri and to the Ātreyas, each of whom has a personal name in addition to his surname. Among these personal names, that of Punarvasu, the Ātreya of the Caraka-saṃhitā is not found, but one comes across those of Vasūyu, Vasuśruta and Śrutavid which make the reader think of Punarvasu and Suśruta at the same time. Śrutavid signifies “one who knows what he has heard”; this is, therefore, a name quite near to that of Suśruta. Vasūyu can denote, “desirous of riches”. For Vasuśruta, Monier Williams has proposed the probable rendering of “a person renowned for wealth”, a sense which can be brought near to that of the epithet vasuśravas. Punarvasu is simply the name of the constellation of Gemini⁴ and the names of the constellations normally form the personal names with the sense of "born under such and such a constellation" (Pāṇini, IV, 3, 34). In any case, the frequent use of giving a name to the descendants of Atri, where *Vasu* enters as an element, goes back at least to the period when the traditional list of the descendants of Atri, who were authors of the Vedic hymns, was fixed. Moreover, *Vasu* can denote "good" and *Vasuśruta* "one who has listened to good things", that is to say, "learned in good things"; in this case *Suśruta* can be a variant of the same. The doctor *Suśruta*, pupil of Divodāsa could be, in this case, definitely another name of Punarvasu Ātreya, pupil of Bharadvāja. The traditions of the *Suśruta-saṃhitā* and the *Caraka-saṃhitā* agreed here although this accord was not apparent at first view and both of them had probably borrowed from a single source the names of the legendary masters of the medical science. To put it differently, they probably constituted a unique tradition, but with two different series of proper names. Otherwise, one has to attribute to chance all the resemblances and equivalences observed between the names furnished on the two sides. One can ask as to why, if the two traditions are in fact only one, they should present themselves under different forms, but this is something quite natural in India.

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⁴ One could here state that the Gemini are the Dioscuri who, according to the Indo-European pre-history, are related to the Aśvins. In this way, the name of Punarvasu could be the equivalent of that of the Aśvins and could have been applied to a mythical doctor, boru

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Quite frequently the sects or schools imitate one another and resort to plagiarism, by changing the proper names of personages whom they quote. A large number of Buddhist and Jaina legends, or Hindu and Jaina ones, attribute the same facts and gestures to their respective heroes. Naturally the two medical schools, which inherited a common tradition, had to adopt, each of them, a different way of describing the same thing. In any case, both in the *gṛhyasūtras* and in the grammatical tradition, Atri is quite often mentioned along with Bharadvāja¹ and even with Ātreya.² In presenting Bharadvāja and

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¹ For example, *Āśvalāyanagṛhyasūtra*, III, 4, 2; Pāṇini, IV, 1, 117.

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² *Gaṇapāṭha* on Pāṇini, XV, 61 and 62. The *Mahābhārata* (*Bhīṣmap.*, 376) includes "the Ātreyas associated with the Bharadvājas" in an

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[^]: under the astral influence of stars representing the Aśvins, the medical gods. But in ancient India, the Aśvins do not appear to have been identified with Punarvasu; the constellation bearing their name (Aśvayuj, later Aśvins) and to whom they correspond as divinities (*Taitt. S.*, IV, 4, 10) is that of the Ram.

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Ātreya¹ as teachers of medicine, the *Caraka-saṃhitā* has once again made a *rapprochement* between these two names. Of course, here one could ask if this was not there as a souvenir of the fact that at one time a real Bharadvāja had taught Ātreya, but the personage of Bharadvāja is decidedly too mythical and it will be too daring to accord a historical status to his pupil while refusing it to him himself. Most probably the author who has created the legend of the transmission of Āyurveda, as found in the *Caraka-saṃhitā*, has found it proper to suppose that the pupil of Bharadvāja had been the same personage who had been described by tradition.²

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¹ Ātreya Punarvasu and one can observe secondarily, that a supposed author of Vedic hymns (IX, 80-82) is known as Vasu Bharadvāja, that is to say, Vasu descendant of Bharadvāja.

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² The *Bṛhad.-up.*, II, 6, 1-3, in a long list of pupils and masters, whose knowledge goes back to Brahman, there are found successively between Brahman and the most recent masters, the Aśvins, an Ātreya, master of a Bharadvāja, two other Bharadvājas and Agniveśyas. But a large number of other names separate the names of this last series and the relations between Ātreya and Bharadvāja are reversed.

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In any case it is possible that in antiquity a veritable Ātreya was famous as a doctor. In effect several Buddhist texts know of a doctor Ātreya and the sources of these texts appear to be quite independent of the Brahmanic texts and of the *Caraka-saṃhitā*. He is mentioned in the story of Jīvaka, doctor to the king Bimbisāra and to the Buddha, this story not being found in these texts or in this *Saṃhitā*.

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Therefore it is an old story preserved in the Buddhist texts, because, except for certain variations of detail, it is the same in the texts of both the North and the South.³ Ātreya is enumeration of peoples (*ātreyaḥ sabharadvājāḥ*).

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³ Translations collected together by G. N. Mukhopadhyaya in *History of Indian Medicine*, Vol. III, Calcutta, 1929, pp. 681-744. To be completed with E. Chavannes, *Cinq cents contes et apologues extraits du Tripitaka chinois*, Paris, 1911, Vol. II, pp. 55-56( No. 189) and Vol. III, pp. 325-61 (No. 499) with the bibliography of parallel texts, Vol. IV, Paris, 1934, p. 246 (The current title, *Fa kia pi yu king*, read:- various sūtras). See also Mme. Liacre de Saint Firmin, *Médecine et légendes bouddhiques de l'Inde*, Paris, 1916, pp. 24-45. cf. also P. Cordier, *L'enseignement médical dans l'Inde ancienne*, in *Bull. de la soc. franc. d'hist. de la méd.*, 1902, p. 5 of the reprint.

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described here as a renowned doctor of Takṣaśilā (Taxila), in the North-west of India. Jīvaka goes to him to study medicine and it does not take him long to surpass his master.¹ It is true that this renowned doctor is not named in Pali sources but in all these sources as also in others it is said that he resided at Takṣaśilā. Jīvaka and this Ātreya are given to be the contemporaries of the Buddha; they could, therefore, have belonged to the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century B.C. Evidently it is perfectly possible that a doctor, descendant of Atri, could have won renown at Taxila during this period. But it does not follow that this person could be really the same who is referred to in the Caraka-saṃhitā. Hoernle has not hesitated in identifying the two persons², but he has not noticed that his identification raised serious difficulties. Firstly, the surname Ātreya is ascribed in the Caraka-saṃhitā not only to Punarvasu but also to a bhikṣu Ātreya³, (Sūtr., I, 9; XXV, 24).⁴ Secondly, the personal name of the Ātreya who was the master of Jīvaka is given in the Chinese transcription in the Sūtra on the Avadāna of Āmrapālī and has nothing in common with Punarvasu; It is Pin-kia-lo, i.e., Piṅgala.⁵ In the last place, the Caraka-saṃhitā does not give either Takṣaśilā as the residence of Ātreya Punarvasu or any other place in the North-west. It shows him teaching at Kāmpilya on the Ganges, situated in the kingdom of the Pañcālas (Vim., III, 3).¹

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¹ At the time of the surgical treatment of an insect or a reptile lodged in the skull of a patient. This incident forms the subject matter of popular Indian folklore. According to the Tamil sources the master is Agattiyar (Agastya) and the pupil lives at Teraiyar (cf., M. S. Purnalingam Pillai, Tamil Literature, Mannirpalam, 1930, p. 29 and Bull. de la soc. franc. d’hist. de la méd., janv.-fev., 1934, p. 39). For a similar story in modern Hindustani: Garcin de Tassy, Bagh o Bahar, Paris, 1878, p. 44.

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² Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I, Osteology, Oxford, 1907, p. 8.

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³ One could be led to believe that this bhikṣu Ātreya could have more chances of being identified with the Ātreya of the Buddhist sources than Punarvasu. But, besides the fact that this bhikṣu is not necessarily a Buddhist, the title of bhikṣu does not belong exclusively to the Buddhist monks.

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⁴ In this last passage the bhikṣu Ātreya is one of the interlocutors of Punarvasu; there can, in consequence, be no question of mixing them together.

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⁵ Chavannes, Cinq cents contes, Vol. III, p. 334.

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¹ In those parts of the Caraka-saṃhitā which have been revised or re-edited by the latter-day continuator of the book, Dṛḍhabala, and who, because of this fact, has lesser authority, he is shown to be on the Kailāsa (Cik., XIII, 1; XXI, 1) or on the Himavant (Cik., XIX, 1; XXX, 1) but this is a special story-effect.

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One can, therefore, believe that one or more Ātreyas, traditionally known as eminent doctors, have existed, but one cannot admit with Hoernle that the Ātreya Punarvasu who is said to have received the medical science from the mythical Bharadvāja was the Ātreya, who in the Buddhist sources is made a contemporary of the Buddha. The legends of the origins of the Āyurveda, as found in the two medical saṃhitās, do not seem to be based on any historical souvenir. They appear to have been built out of conjectures, based on the data of the Vedic tradition relating to doctor-gods, to their wards and to Brahmanical masters.

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*The Tradition of the Text of the Suśruta-saṃhitā.*—The personage of Suśruta not being historical², the Suśruta-saṃhitā shows itself to be, not as the personal work of a certain Suśruta, but as the anonymously edited manual of a school which had selected a Suśruta for patron. We know, by the very tradition of this school, that this manual has reached us after having been retouched at least once. The commentator Dalhaṇa (XI-XII century A.D.) affirms in effect that Nāgārjuna has been the "reconstructor" (*pratisamskartṛ*) of the *Suśruta-samhitā*.¹ Cordier has put forward the hypothesis that he has also completed the earlier text by adding thereto the last section which now forms part of the *Samhitā* and which is known as *Uttara-tantra*, "Last section (of the book)".

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² Hoernle accepts him as historical (Osteology, p. 8). From the fact that the tradition presents him as a pupil of the king of Kāśī and makes him teach specially surgery, he has inferred that he belonged to the "University of Kāśī" (Kāśī is mentioned as a centre of sciences in the Jātakas). In comparing the nomenclatures of bones in the Suśruta-saṃhitā, the Caraka-saṃhitā and the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa, he had convinced himself that Suśruta had known Ātreya, an author who was a contemporary of the Buddha (VI-V Century B.C.), and that the Śatapatha, whose composition he dated in the VI Century B.C., had followed the Osteological teaching of Suśruta. Ātreya and Suśruta had, therefore, both of them, belonged to the VI century B.C., the former holding school at Taxila, the latter, somewhat younger, teaching at Benares. But where Hoernle sees a reference of Suśruta to Ātreya, the latter is not mentioned in the text; nor is Suśruta mentioned in the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa. The tradition of the Suśruta-saṃhitā has possibly followed the Brāhmaṇa as much as it has been followed by the latter. Both of them may have borrowed from a common source. A. B. Keith has already made a number of reservations on the inferences drawn by Hoernle on this subject (Z.D.M.G., 1908, p. 136). In fact these inferences arbitrarily introduced certain fallacious precisions in the history of the Āyurveda.

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¹ Nibandhasaṅgraha, Sūtrasthāna, I, 1. This fact has, first of all, been pointed out by Umesacandra Gupta, Vaidyakaśabdasindhu, Calcutta, 1894, p. 18 of the Sanskrit preface and 36 of the English preface. This has been placed in proper perspective by P. Cordier, Nāgārjuna et l'Uttaratantra de la Suśrutasamhitā, Anatanavarivo, 1896, and Quelques données nouvelles a propos des traités médicaux sanscrits antérieurs au XII s., Calcutta, 1899, pp. 1 & 8.

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The name Nāgārjuna is that of a Buddhist savant, on whose date the traditions do not agree but who is generally made to be the contemporary of the Indo-Scythian king Kaniṣka and of a Sātavāhana king. Now Kaniṣka seems to have reigned from A.D. 144², the Sātavāhana dynasty also being concurrently in power. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-tsang, who visited India between 629 and 645, also places Nāgārjuna under a Sātavāhana and describes him as a master in the science of preparing elixirs for long life and as a Buddhist savant. In this he was following a widespread tradition which associated the name of Nāgārjuna with Indian alchemy.³ Several texts of alchemy, many therapeutic formulas, a résumé of medicine, considerably condensed but of great authority, the *Yogaśataka*, and a text of black magic, the *Kacchapuṭa* are all ascribed to him.

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² R. Ghirshman, Begram, Cairo, 1946, p. 105.

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³ cf., P. C. Ray, History of Hindu Chemistry, 2nd edn., 1911, Vol. II; S. Lévi, Kaniṣka et Sātavāhana, in J.A., Jan.-March, 1936, p. 104, and ff. Hiuen-tsang (S. Julien, Mémoires sur les contrées occidentales, Vol. II, p. 98) says that Nāgārjuna was well-versed in the science of medicinal herbs, used to take big tablets for maintaining his life and had attained the age of several centuries. This is to make of him a master of the rasāyana, the science of elixirs of youth, which is one of the eight articles of the Āyurveda and is related simultaneously to medicine and alchemy and, in the Suśruta-samhitā, more to medicine because the preparations described therein have chiefly plants for their base.

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It is difficult to accept the attribution of all these texts to the Buddhist savant. The majority of these have nothing Buddhistic about them and some are ascribed to other authors, if we are to trust the colophons of certain manuscripts containing these texts. This is how the Yogaśataka eventually passes as a work of Vararuci while the Kacchapuṭa and the Rasaratnākara (sometimes their titles are interchanged) are ascribed to one Siddha Nityanatha.¹ The alchemical Rasaratnākara could really go back to the period of the Buddhist Nāgārjuna (IInd century A.D.) if it has really been imitated, as thought by L. Wieger, by the Chinese Taoist alchemist of the IIIrd century A.D., Ko-Hong, surnamed Pao-p' on-tseu.² The Yogaśataka is of a later date if the Chinese pilgrim Yi-tsing, writing in the VIIth century A.D., wrote about this text, as being an abridged text of medicine very popular and recently composed. He, however, does not give the name of this manual.³ But as Yi-tsing has not mentioned the name of the author, we do not know if this work was at first ascribed to a Nāgārjuna, who, in this case, would be a more recent homonym of the Buddhist savant, or if the real author has been later dispossessed of his work to the benefit of Nāgārjuna. That is why we do not know if we can identify the "reconstructor" of the Suśruta-saṃhitā mentioned by Dalhaṇa, with the author of the Yogaśataka belonging to the VIIth century, or that it should be believed that the assigning of the name of Nāgārjuna is only an echo of the legend describing the great Nāgārjuna as a master of medicine and alchemy.

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¹ cf., J. Filliozat, "Nāgārjuna et Agastya, médecins, chimistes, et sorciers", Acts of XXth Inter. Congress of Orient., 1938, Brussels, 1940, p. 228.

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² cf., L. Wieger, Histoire des croyances religieuses et des opinions philosophiques en Chine, 3rd edn., Hien-hien, 1927, p. 395. The Arab writer Al-Beroni, of the XIth century, places a hundred years before his own time, an alchemist Nāgārjuna (E. Sachau, Alberuni's India, London, 1910, Vol. I, p. 189). It is to him that a part of the alchemical texts, attributed to the Buddhist savant of the IInd century, should be attributed, but the tradition describing the latter as an alchemist is of a very ancient date, as it was already in usage at the time of Hiuen-tsang.

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³ J. Filliozat, Fragments des textes koutchéens de médecine et magie, Paris, 1948, p. 32.

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Happily we have elsewhere some indices of calculating the date when the text of the *Suśruta-saṃhitā* was finally fixed. The medical manuscript found by Bower in Central Asia, at Koutcha, and published by Hoernle¹, mentions Suśruta, as also Ātreya, Bhela and other authors. Hoernlé has determined the date of this manuscript with a somewhat illusory precision, but which, from the point of view of palaeography, belongs to the period of the IV to the VIth centuries; its script is clearly older than that of the script of Koutcha, of which we have examples dating from approximately A.D. 640.² Therefore, the *Suśruta-saṃhitā*, in its totality, goes back at least to the first centuries of our era. Elsewhere, the texts attributed to Vāgbhaṭa, the *Aṣṭāṅgasaṅgraha* and the *Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā* follow and eventually reproduce the *Suśruta-saṃhitā* as it has reached us. They also reproduce the verses of the *Yogaśataka*, slightly anterior to Yi-tsing (VIIth century). The *Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya* is quoted in the *Kitab al Fihrist* in Arabic, in 988, under the name of *Asankar* or *Astankar*. These two texts, therefore, belong to the period between VII to Xth centuries. The *Yogaśataka* itself supposes the existence of the *Uttaratantra*, the last section of the *Suśruta-saṃhitā*, as it terminates with a similarly named section and, to all appearances, is conceived as the pendant of the whole work. One can, therefore, admit that in the VIIth century at the latest, the *Suśruta-saṃhitā* had been fixed in its present form, having already been re-adapted by the "reconstructor". Only interpolations of detail or variations have crept into the body of the text from that time up to the period of the commentaries which have reached us. The first constitution of the *Suśruta-saṃhitā* goes back much higher. Although it appears to have adopted the same legend concerning the origin of the Āyurveda as the *Caraka-saṃhitā*, as both of them designate the same legendary masters by other names and although it teaches the same doctrine, the *Suśruta-saṃhitā* is not a plagiarism of the *Caraka-saṃhitā*. The school of Suśruta has specialised in surgical treatment or in the application of cautery and the *Caraka-saṃhitā* in such cases refers back to the specialists called “Dhānvantarīyas”, that is to say, to the school of Suśruta¹, which was already constituted along with its original teaching at the time of the *Caraka-saṃhitā*. The language of the *Caraka-saṃhitā* is classical and does not correspond to a definite epoch. Certain parts of the text are in prose combined with mnemonic verses or in alternating verse and prose; other parts are entirely in verse. This manner of presentation brings this text near certain parts, in prose and verse, of the *Mahābhārata* and also of the *Arthaśāstra* assigned to Kauṭilya and which would belong to approximately 300 B.C. if the attribution were correct. Provisionally we can consider the *Suśruta-saṃhitā* as a work of the last centuries before our era, which has reached us during the first centuries of the Christian Era in an already well-defined form.

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¹ The *Bower Manuscript*, in *Archaeological Survey of India*, Vol. XXII, Calcutta, 1893-1912.

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² Passport on wood, cf., S. Lévi, *Le tokharien B., langue de Koutcha*, in J. A., Sept.-Oct., 1913, pp. 321-22; cf., Filliozat, *Fragments*, p. 8, 23 and ff & plates, concerning the script of Koutcha in question.

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¹ *tatra dhanvantariyāṇām adhikāraḥ kriyāvidhau, vaidyānām kṛtayogānām vyadhaśodhanaropaṇe*: “in this case (when the phlegm is ripe), the technique to be employed is the affair of the Dhānvantarīya doctors, who have made themselves experts in cicatrisation by piercing and by detersion.”—Caraka, *Cikit.*, V, 42. *dāhe dhānvantarīyāṇām atrāpi bhiṣajam balam*: “as regards cauterisation, it is the Dhānvantarīyas who are strong.”—Caraka, *Cikit.*, V, 61.

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The Tradition of the Text of the *Caraka-saṃhitā*:—In the *Suśruta-saṃhitā*, the teaching of Divodāsa-Dhanvantari is said to have been transmitted by his direct pupil, Suśruta. In the *Caraka-saṃhitā*, on the contrary, the words of Bharadvāja, the substitute of Divodāsa, are not repeated; it is those of his pupil Ātreya, the opposite number of Suśruta, which are quoted by a pupil of the latter, Agniveśa. From this it appears that the work should be called the *Agniveśa-saṃhitā* rather than *Caraka-saṃhitā*; besides, as we have seen, the colophons make of it the *Agniveśatantra* “reconstructed” by Caraka. Caraka is not, therefore, of the rank of Suśruta but belongs rather to that of Nāgārjuna and there is no one corresponding to Agniveśa in the tradition of the *Suśruta-saṃhitā*. The following table summarises the entire legendary history of the origin and of the transmission of both of the texts and shows the theoretical position of Bhela.²

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² We leave aside the co-disciples of Agniveśa and Bhela such as Hārīta, to whom are attributed *saṃhitās* of questioned authenticity and which, because of this, we will not utilise here. On the *Hārīta*-

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Agniveśa is again a mythical figure. The *Mahābhārata* knows of an Agniveśa or Agniveśya as receiving the secret of the arms (*Dhanurveda*) from Bharadvāja; this was a magic arm of Agni. He communicated this secret to the son of Bharadvāja, Droṇa. Hence, here, Agniveśa receives lessons from Bharadvāja just as he does in the *Caraka-saṃhitā*; the only difference lies in the fact that in the medical treatise he receives it by intermediaries and not directly. The *rapprochement* of the two stories shows that, on both the sides, it is a legend; there is no reason to believe that the Agniveśa, first a pupil, then master of Āyurveda, is a personage more historical than the Agniveśa, at first a pupil, then master of Dhanurveda. It is, even then, possible that a medical author had received the name or surname of a mythical master, as it seems to have happened in the case of Ātreya.

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Brahman

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Prajāpati

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Aśvins

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Indra

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| . . . . . |
| |

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Divodāsa-Dhanvantari Bharadvāja

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Suśruta Ātreya Punarvasu

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| | . . . . . |
| Agniveśa Bhela
| |

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Nāgārjuna Caraka

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Caraka, who is not a pupil of Agniveśa but who revised the work wrongly or rightly ascribed to Agniveśa, has more chances of having been a historical personage. Certain Buddhist

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*saṃhitā*, cf., J.A., 1934, p. 127 & ff. However we should also point out that several Hārītas and Agniveśas have, besides Carakas and the school of Ātreya, constituted various branches of the school of the Black *Yajurveda*, cf., L. Renou, *Les écoles védiques*, in *Cahiers de la soc. as.*, Paris, 1947, p. 134. We will discuss later on the eventual relations between the Carakas and Ātreyas of the Vedic schools and those of the medical ones.

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texts in Chinese talk of a certain *Tche lo kia* or *Tche le*, i.e., Caraka or Cara, who was the doctor of the king Kaniṣka. This fact has been simultaneously recognised by Sylvain Lévi¹ and by Takakusu.² The first source, the *Tsa pao tsang king*³, (which, in Sanskrit reads *Saṃyuktaratnapiṭakasūtra*) is an anthology of tales translated in Chinese, in 472 or a little later, by Ki Kia ye and T'an Yao. It refers only to the friendship of Kaniṣka for his doctor who by his advice keeps him protected from all diseases. The second source, the *Fou fa tsang yin yuan tchouan*⁴, is said to have been translated by Ki Kia ye and T'an Yao; but H. Maspero has shown that the work in its present form is a forgery, composed in China on the lines of other works, towards the middle or the end of the VIth century.⁵ One cannot, therefore, give any credit to the details given in this work, concerning the relations of Caraka and Kaniṣka, the former himself offering his services as a doctor to the king, and by means of clever obstetrical moves, twice saving the queen on her death-bed while in the throes of delivery¹, leaving the king who did not pay much attention to his advice and retiring from the world. It is necessary at least that these details be confirmed by a reliable source. In any case, the fact of the presence of Kaniṣka in the court of Kaniṣka could be true, as it is also attested elsewhere and for the moment, this is all that matters here for fixing the date of the revision by Caraka of the text attributed to Agniveśa. But we cannot be sure that the legend of Kaniṣka has not placed in the court of this prince a celebrity of another epoch, either older, or more recent. It is true that the *Tsa pao tsang king*, translated in Chinese only about three hundred years after the reign of Kaniṣka, existed in Sanskrit before and had, therefore, been composed at a date quite near to that of Kaniṣka. The memory of the real contemporaries of this prince could have been faithfully preserved till then and, in any case if it were the question of a more recent author, the Caraka in question could not have lived a long time after the IInd century.

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¹ *Agniveśam (Agniveśyam) mahābhāgam Bharadvājaḥ pratāpavān, pratyapādayad āgneyam astram astravidām (dharmabhṛtām) varaḥ. agnes tu (agniṣṭuj) jātaḥ sa munis tato bharatasattama, bharadvājam tad āgneyam mahāstram pratyapādayat:* "The ascetic Bharadvāja communicated to the eminent Agniveśa ('sya) the weapon of Agni; the excellent one among the experts of weapons (among the supporters of the Law), the sage born of Agni (the bard of Agni) then communicated, O the best of Bharatas, this mighty weapon of Agni to the son of Bharadvāja."—*Ādip.*, 5107-5108. In brackets the variants of the Poona edn., 1,121, 6-7. The same facts are summarised still further, *Ādip.*, 6465. Reference is made by Droṇa to his studies under Agniveśa, *Ādip.*, 5172 (Sukthankar reads this time Agniveśa, yet the same reading should be kept in the three passages). And again *Ādip.*, 5524-5525, gives Agastya and not Bharadvāja as the teacher of Agniveśa. Last of all, Agniveśa is described by Droṇa (*Droṇap.*, 3476) as having received the magical protection of Bṛhaspati; he is not, therefore, the pupil of only Bharadvāja but this detail is of no importance to our subject.

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¹ *Notes sur les Indo-scythes*, in *J. A.*, Nov.-Dec., 1896, pp. 451, 473 480 & ff.

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² *A Record of the Buddhist Religion* by I-tsing, Oxford, p. lix.

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³ Catalogue by Nanjio, 1329, Taisho Issaikyō, 203, translated by Chavannes, *Cinq cents contes...* Vol. III, p. 1-145 (which summarises, without giving in full, the tales already translated by S. Lévi).

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⁴ Nanjio, 1340, Taisho, 2058.

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⁵ About the date and the authenticity of the *Fou fa ysang yin yuan tchouan*, in *Mélanges d'indianisme...*, Sylvain Lévi, Paris, 1911 pp. 129-149.

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¹ Dr. Liétard in his "Le médecin Caraka", in *Bull. de l'Acad. de médecine*, session of 11 May 1897, p. 3 of the reprint, thought that the operation referred to was the extraction of a still-born child with its feet downwards and that Caraka considered as normal only a delivery with the head downwards, thus following the doctrine of Hippocrates (which could have easily reached him in N. W. India where ruled Kaniṣka) and ignored at that time the more advanced doctrine of Soranus of Ephesus (beginning of the IInd century). But there is nothing in the text which leads one to believe that the child was coming out with feet first or, and that is more important, that Caraka considered a delivery as abnormal if it was not with the head first. It was a case of dystocia and Caraka put his hand in the womb, brought out the child from its envelope, succeeded in extracting it and gave as prognostic the recurrence of the same trouble in case of a new delivery. These vague indications are an honour to his obstetrical cleverness, but they do not reveal anything concerning his theories. Similarly it was not necessary to know the teachings of Hippocrates for knowing that in a case of delivery, the normal presentation is that of the head first.

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On the other hand, even if the doctor of Kaniṣka was effectively called Caraka, we are not certain that he was the same Caraka, who has revised the *Agniveśa-tantra*. Several doctors have possibly had the name of Caraka. The name of Nāgārjuna was that of an alchemist of the Xth century, mentioned by al-Beroni, while in the VIth century it was, for Hiuen-tsang, the name of a great master of alchemy and medicine. It is therefore not excluded *a priori* that our medical author might have been anterior to the epoch of Kaniṣka. The name of Caraka is an old one. It is that of a school of the *Black Yajurveda*, the *Caraka-śākhā*, which consists of, besides other sub-divisions, those whose *saṃhitās* have reached us in a more or less complete form under the names of *Kāṭhaka*, *Kapiṣṭhala-kaṭhasaṃhitā* and *Maitrāyaṇī-saṃhitā*.¹ This school is opposed to that of the *Taittirīyas*, which has given us the *Taittirīya-saṃhitā* and for stronger reasons to the schools of the *White Yajurveda*, represented by the *Vājasaneyī-saṃhitās*. The scholars of the *White Yajurveda* and the *Taittirīyas* often blame the Carakas. A passage of the *Taittirīya-saṃhitā* (VI, 4, 9) could be interpreted as covering under the same reprobation the Carakas and the doctors:

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¹ cf., L. Renou, *Ecoles védiques*, pp. 129, 144, 150 & ff., p. 203 & ff.

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"The head of the sacrifice had been cut. The gods said to the Aśvins: "You are doctors, put back the head of the sacrifice." They replied: "Let us select a boon that the libation be drawn by us right here!" They drew for them the libation of the Aśvins. Then they put back the head so that the (libation) of the Aśvins is drawn for re-establishing the sacrifice. The gods said of them: "They are impure, they are the doctors roving among men." Thus a Brahmin must not take to medicine, because the doctor is impure and unworthy of the sacrifice. After having purified them by the *bahiṣpavamānas*, they (the gods) drew for them the (libation) of the Aśvins. Thus it is that after *bahiṣpavamāna* has been recited, that the (libation) for the Aśvins is drawn..."²

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² *Yajñasya śiro'chidayata, té devā aśvínāv abruvan, bhiṣájau vaí stha, idám yajñásya śíraḥ práti dhattam íti. tāv abrūtām, váram vṛṇavāvahai gráha evá nāv átrāpi gṛhyatām íti. tābhyām etám āśvinám agṛhṇan. tato vaí taú yajñásya śíraḥ prátyadhattām, yád āśvínó gṛhyáte, yajñásya níṣkṛtyai taú devā ábruvann āpūtau vā imaú manuṣyacaraú bhiṣájāv íti. tásmād brāhmaṇéna bheṣajám ná kāryam, apūto hy eṣo'medhyó yó bhiṣák, bahiṣpavamānéna pavayitvā tābhyām etám āśvinám agṛhṇan tásmād bahiṣpavamāné stutā āśvínó gṛhyate. . not.,—Taitt. S. VI, 4,9.*

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The *saṃhitās* of the *Caraka-śākhā* explain the same incident somewhat differently:

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Kāṭhaka, XXVII, 4:

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"The head of the sacrifice has been cut. The Aśvins who did not drink soma were the doctors of the gods. The gods said to them: "You are doctors, put back the head of the sacrifice." They replied: "Let us demand a boon: that we may drink the soma among the gods, that the

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libation be drawn for us.” The gods, having purified them by means of the *bahiṣpavamāna*, drew the libation for them, the pure ones, the ones worthy of the sacrifice. Thus it is that (only) after the *bahiṣpavamāna* has been recited, that the (libation) for the Aśvins is drawn...”¹

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¹ *...Yajñasya vai’siro’cchidyata, atha tarhy aśvinā asomapau bhiṣajau devānām āstām, tau devā abruvan, bhiṣajau vai stha, idam yajñasya śirah paridhattam iti tā abruvatām, vāryam vṛṇāvahai, somapitho nau deveṣu astu, Graho nau gṛhyatām iti, tau devā bahiṣpavamānena pāvayitvā tābhyām śucibhyām medhyābhyām bhūtābhyām graham agṛhṇams, tasmāt, stute bahiṣpavamane āśvino gṛhyate. (ed., Schroeder., Leipzig., 1909. Vol. II, p. 143). The Kapiṣṭhalakaṭha-saṃhitā gives, with small variations about the same text (XLII, 4, ed., Raghuvira, Lahore, 1932, p. 251).*

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*Maitr.*, VI, 6, 2:

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“.....The created head of the sacrifice had been cut. For him the gods searched an expiation. Then, the Aśvins, who did not partake of the soma, were the doctors of the gods. They ran to these two as one rushes to a doctor: “Put back the head of the sacrifice.” They replied: “That we should also have a share in the same.” “Select!” said (the gods). They said: “That the libation be drawn for us, that we may have access to soma-drinking.” The Aśvins then put back the head. (The gods) having purified them by the *bahiṣpavamāna*, drew the libation for them, who had become pure, worthy of the sacrifice. Thus it is that after the *bahiṣpavamāna* has been recited that the (libations) for the Aśvins are drawn...”²

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² *Yajñasya vai sṛṣṭasya ’siro’cchidyata, tāsmai devāḥ prāyaścittam aicchann, átha vā etaú tárhi devānām bhiṣájā āstām aśvínā ásomapau, tā úpādhāvan, yáthā bhiṣájam upadhāvanty evám, idám yajñásya śíraḥ prátidhattam íti. tā abrūtām, bhāgó nā astu, vṛṇāthām íti, pratyádhattām, taú vaí bahiṣpavamánénaiva pāvayitvā tābhyām pūtābhyām yajñīyābhyām bhūtābhyām gráham agṛhṇams, tásmād bahiṣpavamāné stutā aśvínau gṛhyete (ed., Schroeder, Leipzig, Vol. IV, 1886, pp. 79-80).*

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The different *saṃhitās* are thus unanimous in admitting the impurity of the Aśvins who are not soma-drinkers originally although, as says the Rg-veda, the “drinkers of nectar” (*madhupa*, I, 180, 2).³ But the *Taittirīya-saṃhitā* goes a step farther than the rest, it vilifies the doctor and says that the Aśvins are impure like “doctors roving among men.” Certainly, the promiscuity with human beings places them below the gods, but the term employed to say that they are “roving,” *cara*, is a synonym of the name of the Carakas and one may believe that the Taittirīyas have fired a passing shot at the rival school of the Carakas, who have not inserted anything similar in their *saṃhitā*. This will be all the more effective if medicine had a place of honour among them. In that case this will also explain their silence about it. Besides, as regards the *sautrāmaṇi*, the rite of offering liquor (*surā*) to the Aśvins, to Sarasvatī and to Indra, Hillebrandt has supposed a relationship between the fact that there is a *caraka-sautrāmaṇi* and the fact that the medical *Caraka-saṃhitā* makes out a case for liquor.¹ This *rapprochement*, in itself, is not very characteristic because it is quite natural that liquor be praised as medicine in a book of medicine. But, in all cases, the Carakas are not animated against the "cara doctors", as are the Taittirīyas and the doctor Caraka could have been one of them.

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³ *This is explained by Indo-European facts, cf. G. Dumézil, Jupiter Mars Quirinus, Paris, 1941, pp. 124 & ff., where the parallel legends of the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa & the Mahābhārata are given together. The notion of the impurity of doctors has remained a classic thing, cf. Manu, III, 180, IV, 212, although the prohibition ordained by the Taitt, S. to the Brahmin against his practising medicine, has not had the force of Law. The Bhāgavatapurāṇa, IX, III, 26, reminds the reader that the Aśvins had been at first excluded from the offering of soma because they were called “doctors”.*

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