The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.7

c8.7

It is not possible to be content with such an hypothetical dating. That is why efforts have been made, as had been done much before Max Müller, to fix the absolute dates of the Vedic texts in the light of the astronomical indications contained therein. Unfortunately, neither the effort of Colebrooke, who started from an astronomical text, much later than the Ṛgveda, the Jyotiṣavedāṅga, nor those of H. Jacobi and of B. G. Tilak, based on the interpretation of certain data in the Ṛgveda and dating this text several thousand years before Christ, have been convincing. The interpretations of the proposed texts were not always convincing and even if they were certain, it was not possible to calculate therefrom sure dates of these texts. These latter can always reproduce the astronomical data which are not contemporary to them but which have been inherited by them from an ancient tradition. Their indications cannot be decisive without cross-checking.