The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c6.17.1

c6.17.1

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.