Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c5: Section I. Introduction: Medical Schools, Chronology

Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c5

Language
English

Contents

Section I. Introduction: Medical Schools, Chronology

c5.2

§ 1. Explanation of Terms: Medical Authors, and their Works

c5.3

1. THE theory of the Ancient Indians regarding the skeleton, or the bony frame of the human body, has been transmitted to us in three different systems. These are the systems of Ātreya, Suśruta, and Vāgbhaṭa.

c5.4

2. Ātreya, the Physician. Ātreya was not so much a surgeon as a physician. He is said to have had six pupils; and his teaching of medicine is said to have been committed to writing by all six in the form of a Samhitā, or Compendium. It may, therefore, antecedently, be expected that we shall find their six medical compendia to agree in all essential points. At present, however, no more than two of them are known to us. These are the Compendia of Agniveśa and Bheḍa (or Bheḷa).

c5.5.1

3. Charaka and Dṛḍhabala. As to the latter, the Bheḍa Samhitā, we know, at present, of the existence of but a single manuscript (§ 12). The former, the Agniveśa Samhitā, has had a changeful history. In its original form it has not survived, though it appears to have still existed in the eleventh century when the commentator Chakrapāṇidatta (§ 2, cl. 11) quotes it.¹ At present it exists only in a redaction undertaken, at a much later date, by a Kashmir physician, called Charaka. He, however, appears never to have completed it. Possibly death may have intervened. In any case, the concluding portion of the redaction, about one-third of the whole work, was supplied, several centuries afterwards, by another Kashmir physician Dṛḍhabala, the son of the physician Kapilabala. The entire compendium consists of eight sections (sthāna). The portion contributed by Dṛḍhabala comprises, as we know from the same Chakrapāṇidatta,² the last seventeen chapters of the sixth, and the whole of the seventh and eighth sections. In the preparation of this portion, Dṛḍhabala, as he himself informs us,³ utilized a large number of existing treatises. Among these may have been Agniveśa’s original Compendium, but his main sources, as a comparison of their respective works shows, appear to have been the Aṣṭāṅga Saṃgraha, or Summary of Medicine, of Vāgbhaṭa I, and the Nidāna, or Pathology, of Mādhava.

c5.5.2

But Dṛḍhabala did not limit himself to his complementary task: he also revised the portion written by Charaka himself. He was, as he himself informs us in a passage at the end of the eighth section,⁴ a native of a settlement (pura), called Panchanada, i. e. five-streamland. In India the confluence of streams is apt to be treated as a sacred place of pilgrimage (tīrtha); and there are there several such places called Panchanada. Anciently one of them appears to have existed in Kashmir, near the confluence of the rivers Jhelam (Vitastā) and Sindhu. Its place is indicated by the modern village of Paṇtzinōr (lit. five channels), which lies close to what was the original site of that confluence, before its removal to its present site, in the latter half of the ninth century, in the reign of King Avantivarman. It is this Kashmiri Panchanada, which probably was the home of Dṛḍhabala.¹ The early commentators of the eleventh and thirteenth centuries (e. g. Chakrapāṇidatta and Vijaya Rakshita) often refer to a Kashmiri Recension (*Kāśmīra pāṭha*) when commenting on passages of the earlier portion of the Compendium, i. e. the portion written by Charaka himself.² The probability is that in all these cases the reference is to Dṛḍhabala’s Revision of Charaka’s work;

c5.5.3

for in references to the concluding portion of the Compendium, Dṛḍhabala, as a rule, is quoted by name as its author.³ It seems clear from their method of quotation that the medical writers of that period were fully aware of the exact share which Dṛḍhabala had in Charaka’s redaction of Agniveśa’s original Compendium. At a still earlier period, Mādhava, when he quotes Charaka’s redaction in his *Nidāna*, or Pathology, shows no acquaintance with the revised version of it made by Dṛḍhabala. At the present day the latter’s share in the redaction of Charaka is practically forgotten in India, and the whole work is there known simply as Charaka’s Compendium (Caraka Saṃhitā). In the present dissertation it will always (unless otherwise specified) be referred to under that name. For all practical purposes it may be understood that Charaka’s Compendium represents Ātreya’s system of medicine, as handed down by his pupil Agniveśa. At all events, this is certain in respect of the passages relating to the bones of the human body. For these passages are contained within that portion of the Compendium which is the production of Charaka himself; and the existence as early as the sixth century B.C., of the osteological system contained in them, is guaranteed by references to it in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, a Vedic work of that age (§ 42).

c5.6

¹ e. g. in his glosses on the Treatment of Fever (Jvara-cikitsita), Tübingen MS., No. 463, fol. 356 a, l. 1.

c5.7

² Ibid., fol. 534 b.

c5.8

³ See Caraka Saṃhitā, ed. Jīvānanda Vidyāsagara (1896), p. 827.

c5.9

⁴ The passage is omitted in Jīvānanda’s edition of 1877, apparently by some accident. It is given in the edition of 1896, p. 930, ver. 78; also in the edition of Gaṅgādhar, p. 90, as well as in the edition of the two Sen, p. 1055. Its genuineness is attested by Chakrapāṇidatta’s commentary, Tübingen MS., No. 463, fol. 639 a, l. 2.

c5.10

¹ See Dr. Stein’s Translation of the *Rājatarangiṇī*, ch. iv, 248, v, 66 ff.; also his account of the removal of the confluence, vol. ii, pp. 239 ff., 419 ff. The usual identification of Panchanada with the Panjab is untenable; for Dṛḍhabala clearly indicates a locality (*pura*), not a country, as his home. Dr. Cordier, in his *Récentes Découvertes*, identifies it with ‘Panjpur au nord d’Attock, Pañjab’, on the authority, as he has informed me privately (letter of January 13, 1905), of ‘an Indian Nāgri map lithographed in Benares’ and of ‘the Indian Post-Office Guide’. I am afraid he has been misled by his authorities. Dr. Stein, whom I asked to verify on the spot, writes to me (letter of March 1, 1905) that there is no Panjpur in the region of Attock, nor in ‘the latest edition of the Indian Postal Guide’. There is, however, an isolated ridge known as Panjpīr, or ‘Hill of the Five Pīrs’, in the Yusufzai Plain, NNW. of Attock, a Muhammadan place of pilgrimage. This appears to have caused the confusion; but between Panjpīr and Panchanadapur there can obviously be no connexion. See also my article on ‘the Authorship of the Charaka Saṃhitā’ in the *Archiv für die Geschichte der Medizin*, 1907.

c5.11

² e. g. Chakrapāṇidatta, on *Jvara-cikitsā*, in Jīv. ed. (1896), pp. 455, 456; or Tübingen MS., No. 463, fol. 348 *a*, l. 7 and fol. 348 *b*, l. 2. Also Vijaya Rakshita, on *idem*, Jīv. ed., pp. 453-4, in *Madhukoṣa*, Jīv. ed., p. 29; also on *Arśas-cikitsā*, Jīv. ed., p. 549 (or ed. 1877, in *Madhukoṣa*, p. 71; again on *Yakṣma-cikitsā*, Jīv. ed., p. 522, in *Madhukoṣa*, p. 95.

c5.12

³ e. g. by Chakrapāṇidatta, in *Sūtra Sthāna*, ed. Harinath Viśarad, p. 123. Also by Vijaya Rakshita, in *Madhukoṣa*, Jīv. ed., pp. 84, 120, 124, 147, 152, 162, 179, 180.

c5.13

4. *Versions of Ātreya’s System.* Of Ātreya’s theory of the skeleton, then, we possess two versions: one by Agniveśa, contained in Charaka’s Compendium, the other by Bheḍa (or Bheḷa), contained in Bheḍa’s Compendium. In the present dissertations these two versions will be spoken of as the ‘Medical Version’ of Ātreya’s theory. There exists, however, also another version of that theory, which has been handed down in the ancient Law-book of Yājñavalkya (Yājñavalkya Dharmaśāstra), and three other non-medical works (§ 14). This version, in the following pages, will be referred to as the ‘Non-medical Version’. By this term, unless otherwise specified, Yājñavalkya’s Law-book must always be understood, as being the most reliable source of that version. It will be shown subsequently (§ 24) that there is some good reason for believing that this Non-medical Version really represents a third medical version of Ātreya’s theory, going back to another pupil of Ātreya, different from Agniveśa and Bheḍa, but whose name is no longer known.

c5.14

5. *Suśruta, the Surgeon.* In contrast with Ātreya, the physician, Suśruta was a surgeon. While the former professed general medicine (Āyurveda, or the Science of life), the latter made surgery (Śalya) his special study. Suśruta, likewise, wrote a Compendium (Saṃhitā) of General Medicine (Āyurveda), but, agreeably with his profession, its main concern was with surgical matters. It thus treats of some subjects, such as surgical instruments, which are not noticed at all in the Compendium of Charaka.¹ Moreover, it omits all mention of some diseases in the treatment of which surgery, at that time, did not enter. For this reason, from the point of view of general medicine, Suśruta’s Compendium, of course, had the appearance of incompleteness. Hence after some time (§ 2, cl. 5), an anonymous writer composed a Supplement (Uttara-tantra) which treated of all the subjects unnoticed by Suśruta. Among the latter were even subjects belonging to minor surgery (Śālākya), which circumstance shows that, for example, the surgical treatment of some eye-diseases (as cataract, &c.) was still unknown in the time of Suśruta. At the present day the whole work, inclusive of the Supplement, is known simply as Suśruta’s Compendium (Suśruta Saṃhitā), and in the present dissertation (unless otherwise specified) it will be quoted under that name. In order to distinguish, however, Suśruta the Supplementor, or Suśruta II, from the original Suśruta, the latter is sometimes designated by Indian commentators ‘Suśruta the elder’ (vṛddha Suśruta). For our present purpose it is important to notice that the passages relating to the bones of the human body occur in the original work of Suśruta the elder. At the same time, it is quite possible that the Supplementor, in addition to his proper task, may have subjected the original portion of the compendium to some amount of revision. But from indications in the before-mentioned Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (§ 42), it is not probable that this occurred in the case of the passages in question.

c5.15

¹ Suśruta devotes two whole chapters (the seventh and eighth of the Sūtra Sthāna) to the description of surgical instruments, and one whole chapter (the twenty-fifth) to the principles of surgical operation. Charaka appears to speak of surgical operations in two places of his Compendium. The operation of laparotomy is described in the Cikitsita Sthāna, ch. xviii, verses 179 ff. (Jīv. ed., p. 653); and an operation for the extraction of a dead foetus is briefly mentioned in a clause of the Śarīra Sthāna, ch. viii, § 64 (p. 364). In neither of these cases, however, is any surgical instrument named. Moreover, chapter xviii (on Udara) was not written by Charaka at all, but by Dṛḍhabala, who extracted his information from Suśruta’s Compendium (Cik. Sth., xiv, pp. 454-5), where the appropriate instrument (vrīhimukha, a kind of trocar) is named; and the clause in chapter viii is probably a similar interpolation of the same Dṛḍhabala.

c5.16

6. *Vāgbhaṭa I.* Vāgbhaṭa knew both Compendia, of Charaka and of Suśruta. He refers to both these medical writers by name, and quotes, or at least utilizes, their works. In his time Charaka’s Compendium was still incomplete, but Suśruta’s Compendium had already received its Supplement. This is particularly shown by Vāgbhaṭa’s treatment of the diseases of the eye, which are dealt with in Suśruta’s Supplement, while in Charaka’s incomplete work they are not described at all. Vāgbhaṭa wrote a Compendium on General Medicine, which, on the model of the Supplemented Compendium of Suśruta, he divided into six sections (*sthāna*),¹ and to which he gave the name of Summary of the Octopartite Science (*Aṣṭāṅga Saṃgraha*).² The name indicates Vāgbhaṭa’s object. It was to gather up into a harmonious whole the more or less conflicting medical systems current in his time, especially those contained in the Compendia of Charaka and Suśruta. In pursuance of this object he introduced, especially with reference to the diseases of the eye, many modifications in the classification and nomenclature which had hitherto been accepted in medicine. It also led him to the adoption of compromises—by no means always successful—of which, as the present dissertation will show, his exposition of the skeleton presents a conspicuous example.

c5.17

¹ The concluding section is called *Uttara Sthāna* in Vāgbhaṭa’s Summary, but *Uttara Tantra* in Suśruta’s Compendium. The latter consists of five *Sthāna* and an *Uttara-tantra*, while the former is made up of six *Sthāna*. The difference in the nomenclature is significant. Suśruta’s original work consisted of only five sections (*sthāna*), to which, at a later date, a supplementary treatise (*tantra*) was added. On the other hand, the division into six sections (*sthāna*), inclusive of the supplementary treatise, was first devised by Vāgbhaṭa for his own work.

c5.18

² Indian Medicine is divided into eight branches: (1) Internal Medicine (*Kāya Cikitsā*); (2) Major Surgery (*Śalya*); (3) Minor Surgery (*Śālākya*); (4) Daemonology (*Bhūta-vidyā*); (5) Toxicology (*Viṣa*); (6) Tonics (*Rasāyana*); (7) Aphrodisiacs (*Vṛṣa*); (8) Paedotrophy (*Kumāra-bhṛtya*).

c5.19

7. *Vāgbhaṭa II.* On the basis of Vāgbhaṭa’s Summary a much later namesake of his, whom I shall designate Vāgbhaṭa II, wrote a new work, in the name of which a return is made to the older usage, by calling it the Compendium of the Essence of the Octopartite Science (*Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya Saṃhitā*). With reference to him the author of the Summary (*Saṃgraha*) is sometimes called, by Indian commentators, Vāgbhaṭa the elder (*vṛddha Vāgbhaṭa*).

§ 2. Chronology

c5.s1.1

1. It will naturally be expected that some information should be given regarding the chronology of the works and their authors mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Unfortunately there still exists very great incertitude with respect to their absolute, and to some extent even to their relative, dates. On a future occasion I hope to enter more fully into the discussion of the chronological question: for our present purpose the following statement will suffice.

c5.s1.2

2. *Origin of Medicine.* According to the Indian medical tradition the knowledge of medicine had a twofold origin. On the one hand, it was delivered by the god Indra to the sage Bhāradvāja, and by him to Ātreya: on the other, it descended from Indra to Dhanvantari (also called Divodāsa, and Kāśīrāja), and from him to Suśruta. This tradition traces medicine from a mythical, through a semi-mythical, to an historical beginning. It may be taken to mean that Ātreya, the physician, and Suśruta, the surgeon, were understood to be the first founders, in their respective departments, of medicine as a science. Before them there existed only what may be called medicine men, who practised medicine as a witchcraft, and the source of whose knowledge was claimed to be supernatural.

c5.s1.3

3. *Ātreya and Suśruta.* According to another, non-medical, line of Indian tradition, preserved in the Buddhist *Jātakas*, or Folklore, there existed in India in the age of Buddha two great universities, or seats of learning, in which ‘all sciences’ (*sabba-sippāni*, or *sarva-śilpāni*), including medicine, were taught by ‘professors of world-wide renown’ (*disā-pāmokkha ācariya*, or *diśā-prāmukhya ācārya*). These two universities were *Kāśī*, or Benares, in the East, and the still more famous *Takṣaśilā*, or Taxila (on the Jhelam river) in the West. In the latter university, in the time of Buddha or shortly before it, the leading Professor of Medicine was Ātreya.¹ He, accordingly, should have flourished at some time in the sixth century B.C. As one of the names of Suśruta’s teacher is Kāsīrāja, which literally means King of Kāsī, he may not unreasonably be referred to the university of Kāsī, or Benares. This would place the origin of surgery, as a science, in the East of India. As a matter of fact, the origin, at least of ophthalmic surgery, is uniformly placed by Indian tradition in the eastern province of Bihar, being credited to Nemi, the ‘lord of Videha’ (or Tirhut). Regarding the date of Suśruta we have the following indications. He must have been acquainted with the doctrines of Ātreya. With reference, for example, to the bones of the human body, he introduces his own exposition with a remark pointing out the difference between Ātreya’s system and his own in respect of the total number of the bones (see § 27). This proves that Suśruta cannot have been anterior to Ātreya. On the other hand, there are indications in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, a secondary Vedic work, that the author of it was acquainted with the doctrines of Suśruta (see §§ 42, 56, 60, 61). The exact date of that work is not known, but it is with good reason referred to the sixth century B.C. (see § 42). The probability, therefore, appears to be that Suśruta was a rather younger contemporary of Ātreya, or, let us say, a contemporary of Ātreya’s pupil Agniveśa.

c5.s1.4

¹ The famous physician Jīvaka, a contemporary of Buddha, is stated to have studied medicine in the Taxila University, under Ātreya (see Rockhill’s Life of Buddha, pp. 65, 96).

c5.s1.5

4. The Atharva Veda. As bearing on the very early date of both Ātreya and Suśruta, we have a rather significant piece of evidence in the Atharva Veda. That work, in its tenth book, contains a hymn on the creation of man (see § 43), in which the several parts of the skeleton are carefully and orderly enumerated in striking agreement more especially with the system of Ātreya as contained in Charaka’s Compendium.² The date of the Atharva Veda is not exactly known, but it belongs to the most ancient, or primary Vedic, literature of India. It cannot be placed later than the sixth century B. C., because references to it are found in secondary Vedic works, such as the *Satapatha Brāhmaṇa* above referred to. The larger portion of it (Books I-XVIII), indeed, admittedly belongs to a much earlier period, possibly as early as about 1000 B. C.; and the hymn in question is included in this older portion. Moreover, within that portion it belongs to a division (Books VIII-XII) which bears a distinctly hieratic character. It thus takes us back to that prehistoric, or semi-mythical age of the ‘medicine men’ who combined the functions of priest and physician. This period, as already stated (clause 2), Indian tradition represents by the name of Bhāradvāja, and to him it actually ascribes the authorship of one of the hymns (the twelfth of the tenth book) of that hieratic division.¹

c5.s1.6

² There are numerous other passages of a similar character in the Atharva Veda. The whole evidence is reviewed by me in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1906, p. 915 ff., and for 1907, p. 1 ff.

c5.s1.7

¹ On the date of the *Atharva Veda*, see pp. cxl-clxi in Professor Lanman’s edition of Whitney’s Translation of the *Atharva Veda Saṃhitā*; also Professor Macdonell’s *Sanskrit Literature*, pp. 185-201.

c5.s1.8

5. *Charaka and Nāgārjuna.* According to a Buddhist tradition² Charaka was the trusted physician of the celebrated ‘Indo-scythian’ King Kanishka. Unfortunately the date of Kanishka himself is still in dispute, opinions varying from the first century B. C. to the third century A. D.³ The preponderance of evidence appears to me in favour of Kanishka’s reigning in the middle of the second century, *circa* 125-150 A. D. There exists an Indian medical tradition which assigns the revised and supplemented edition of Suśruta’s original work to Nāgārjuna.⁴ If he should be the well-known Buddhist patriarch of that name who is said to have been a contemporary of King Kanishka, his date would practically coincide with that of Charaka. Accordingly the original Compendia of Agniveśa and Suśruta would have been revised and re-edited at much the same time.

c5.s1.9

² Discovered by Professor Sylvain Levi, *Indian Antiquary*, vol. xxxii, p. 382; *Vienna Oriental Journal*, vol. xi, p. 164.

c5.s1.10

³ See V. A. Smith, *Early History of India*, pp. 225-6; Dr. Fleet, in *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society*, 1906, p. 979 ff.; Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar, in *Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society*, vol. xx, p. 269 ff.

c5.s1.11

⁴ See Daḷḷana’s Commentary to Suśruta’s Compendium (ed. Jīvānanda), p. 2; also Dr. Cordier’s *Récentes Découvertes*, pp. 12, 13.

c5.s1.12

6. *Vāgbhaṭa the Elder.* Regarding the relation of Vāgbhaṭa I to Charaka and Suśruta the elder, his posterity is proved by his referring to both these writers by name, and sometimes even quoting their actual words.¹ His relation to Suśruta II, the Supplementor, is less certain. So far as known to me, he never actually quotes from him; still his Summary (*Saṃgraha*) presents numerous indications of a decided posterity. His treatment, e. g. of the diseases of the eye, though in its general lines agreeing with that of the Supplementor, yet in its more artificial and scholastic method of classification—Vāgbhaṭa I counting ninety-four diseases against the seventy-six in the Supplementor's more natural system—suggests his posterity to Suśruta II. The place assigned to Vāgbhaṭa I by later Indian Medicine, in its traditional series of the three men, Charaka, Suśruta, Vāgbhaṭa, makes in the same direction; for there can be no doubt that, in that series, the term Suśruta refers to the Supplemented Compendium which is now known under Suśruta's name. If Suśruta II is rightly placed in the second century A. D., as a contemporary of Charaka, Vāgbhaṭa I is, of course, also posterior to him. Indeed, there is good reason for placing Vāgbhaṭa I as late as the early seventh century A. D. The Buddhist pilgrim, Itsing, who resided ten years in the Nalanda monastery (in Bihar), from about 675-685 A. D., states in his *Record of Buddhist Practices* that the ‘eight arts (i. e. branches of medicine, ante, footnote 2, p. 6) formerly existed in eight books, but lately a man epitomized them, and made them into one bundle (or book)’, and he adds that ‘all physicians in the five parts of India (i. e. the whole of India) practise according to his book’. ² Seeing that Vāgbhaṭa I's Compendium bears that precise name of ‘Epitome (or Summary, *Saṃgraha*) of the Octopartite Science’, the conclusion seems warranted that Itsing was referring to that Summary. If so, Vāgbhaṭa I cannot have preceded Itsing by any very long interval of time; nor may the interval be made too short, because time was necessary for the diffusion of the Summary as a standard work ‘throughout India’. Accordingly Vāgbhaṭa I may be placed early in the seventh century, or about 625 A. D. This estimate of his date is supported by certain structural features of his Summary, which are explained in §§ 38-40. It is, further, in agreement with the progressive decadence in the knowledge and practice of anatomy and surgery, which is apparent in the medical writings subsequent to the time of Suśruta II. One of the results of the present dissertation is to bring out the contrast between the treatment of the bones of the human body in the hands of Suśruta and Vāgbhaṭa I. While that of the former exhibits a remarkable familiarity with the structure of the skeleton, the latter’s treatment of the subject is so replete with inconsistencies and incongruities as to show that in the time of Vāgbhaṭa I practical anatomy had fallen into disuse. At a still later time, in the Compendium of Vāgbhaṭa II, the information about the skeleton is limited to the bare statement that the total number of bones is 360.¹ Again, the surgical treatment of certain diseases of the eye, such as cataract, which occupies a considerable space in the Supplement (Uttara Tantra) of Suśruta II, is much less prominent in the Summary (Saṃgraha) of Vāgbhaṭa I, while in the subsequent writings of Mādhava, Dṛḍhabala, and Vāgbhaṭa II it is altogether ignored. The dates of the latter three authors fall somewhere, at no great intervals, in the period from the 7th-9th centuries A. D.; and facts, such as those just mentioned, indicate the place of Vāgbhaṭa I to be intermediate, yet much nearer to them than to Suśruta II, and thus tend to confirm the assignment of the former to the early seventh century A. D.

c5.s1.13

¹ By name, e.g. in *Saṃgraha*, Bombay ed., vol. i, p. 246; vol. ii, p. 421. Again quoted from Charaka, *ibid.*, vol. i, pp. 20, 93; vol. ii, pp. 212, 213, *et passim*; from Suśruta I, *ibid.*, vol. i, pp. 109, 121, 177, 247; vol. ii, p. 303, *et passim*.

c5.s1.14

² See Professor Takakusu's Translation, p. 128; also *Journal Royal Asiatic Soc.*, 1907, p. 413 ff.

c5.s1.15

¹ Contained in half a verse, Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya, Śārīra Sthāna, ch. iii, ver. 16 a (1st ed., vol. i, p. 548).

c5.s1.16

7. *Mādhava, Dṛḍhabala, and Vāgbhaṭa II.* With regard to the chronological position of the three authors, Mādhava, Dṛḍhabala, and Vāgbhaṭa II, two points are quite certain. In the first place, all three are posterior to Vāgbhaṭa I. This, to start with, is a necessary inference from their attitude, as above explained (clause 6), towards anatomy. But there is positive proof. Mādhava cites Vāgbhaṭa I by name, and also quotes from him anonymously.¹ Dṛḍhabala, though he does not name Vāgbhaṭa I as his authority, quotes from him very frequently.² Also his total of ninety-six diseases of the eye is based on Vāgbhaṭa I’s total of ninety-four (see p. 13). As to Vāgbhaṭa II, according to his own statement,³ his Compendium (Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya Saṃhitā) is based on the Summary (Aṣṭāṅga Saṃgraha) of Vāgbhaṭa I, and reproduces it copiously. In the second place, all three are anterior to Chakrapāṇidatta, whose date is about 1060 A. D. The latter names Dṛḍhabala, and expressly specifies the extent of his contribution to Charaka’s Compendium.⁴ He also frequently quotes Dṛḍhabala as the author of the last section (Siddhi Sthāna) of that Compendium.⁵ As to Vāgbhaṭa II, quotations from him, by name, are very numerous in Chakrapāṇidatta’s Commentary on Charaka’s Compendium.⁶ Mādhava’s anteriority to Chakrapāṇidatta necessarily follows from the fact of his preceding (see p. 13) both Dṛḍhabala and Vāgbhaṭa II. These three medical authors, accordingly, must have their place somewhere between the seventh and eleventh centuries A. D.

c5.s1.17

¹ By name, in Siddhayoga, i, 27, cf. Saṃgraha, vol. ii, p. 1, l. 8. Quoted, in Nidāna (ed. Jīv.), ii, 22, 23, cf. Saṃgraha, vol. i, p. 266, ll. 2–5.

c5.s1.18

² Caraka Saṃhitā (ed. Jīv., 1896), Cikitsita Sthāna, xvi, ver. 31, p. 624, cf. Saṃgraha, vol. ii, p. 26, ll. 7, 8; ibid., xvi, verses 53 ff., p. 626, cf. Saṃgraha, vol. ii, p. 27, ll. 8 ff.; ibid., xvi, ver. 64 b, p. 627, cf. Saṃgraha, vol. ii, p. 27, l. 19; ibid., xvi, verses 76 ff., p. 628, cf. Saṃgraha, vol. ii, p. 28, ll. 20 ff.; ibid., xvi, ver. 97, p. 638, cf. Saṃgraha, vol. ii, p. 108, ll. 15 ff.; et passim.

c5.s1.19

³ See Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya, Uttara Sthāna, ch. 40, ver. 82 (1st ed., vol. ii, p. 826).

c5.s1.20

⁴ See Chakrapāṇidatta’s Commentary, in Tübingen MS., no. 463, fol. 534 b.

c5.s1.21

⁵ e.g. Chakrapāṇidatta’s Commentary (ed. Visarad), p. 123, ll. 18, 19, cf. Caraka Saṃhitā (ed. Jīv., 1896), Siddhi Sthāna, vi, ver. 3, p. 887; ibid., p. 238, ll. 15, 16, cf. Siddhi Sthāna, vi, ver. 19, p. 888.

c5.s1.22

⁶ e. g. in Visarad’s edition, p. 15, ll. 17, 18, cf. Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya, Sūtra Sthāna, ch. i, ver. 3 (1st ed., vol. i, p. 6); ibid., p. 124, ll. 12, 13, cf. Aṣṭ. Hṛd., ibid., ch. xiii, ver. 33 (vol. i, p. 282); ibid., p. 250, ll. 22, 23, cf. Aṣṭ. Hṛd., Nidāna Sthāna, ch. x, ver. 21 (vol. i, p. 772). — As Vāgbhaṭa II so extensively reproduces the text of Vāgbhaṭa I, it is important to note that in this, as well as in the preceding footnotes concerning Mādhava and Dṛḍhabala, only such passages have been selected as evidence as are found only in the Saṃgraha of Vāgbhaṭa I, or in the Saṃhitā of Vāgbhaṭa II, according as the case in hand required.

c5.s1.23

8. *Mādhava*. Coming now to the chronological place of Mādhava, Dṛḍhabala, and Vāgbhaṭa II, relatively to one another—a point still involved in much obscurity—the trend of the available evidence appears to make for the following positions. In the first place: Mādhava is anterior to Dṛḍhabala. There are two facts which seem to be conclusive on this point. One concerns the enumeration of the diseases of the eye. Suśruta II, giving a detailed list, counts seventy-six such diseases, while Vāgbhaṭa I, recasting the list of Suśruta II, makes out a total of ninety-four. Mādhava, who elects to abide by Suśruta II's method of counting, nevertheless increases the total to seventy-eight,¹ by adding two diseases of the eyelashes. Vāgbhaṭa II simply adopts the list of Vāgbhaṭa I. Dṛḍhabala, attempting a compromise, states the total to be ninety-six.² He does not explain how he arrived at that total, nor, indeed, does he give any details at all, but simply refers the curious on the subject to other medical authorities. In these circumstances it may be concluded that Dṛḍhabala obtained his total of ninety-six by adopting Vāgbhaṭa I’s total of ninety-four (which corresponds to Suśruta II’s total of seventy-six) and adding to it the two new diseases set up by Mādhava. It thus follows that Mādhava is anterior to Dṛḍhabala. The second fact concerns the so-called Kashmir Recension (*Kāśmīra-pāṭha*) of Charaka’s Compendium. Vijaya Rakshita, in his commentary (called *Madhukoṣa*) on Mādhava’s Pathology (*Nidāna*), notices several passages, cited by Mādhava from Charaka’s Compendium, where the Kashmir Recension differs from the Recension quoted by Mādhava. The inference is that Mādhava cites the passages as written by Charaka himself; that the Kashmir Recension was not known to him, and that, in fact, that Recension was not yet in existence. Seeing that the Kashmir Recension was the work of the Kashmir physician Dṛḍhabala (§ 1), it follows that Dṛḍhabala is posterior to Mādhava. No doubt every link in this chain of inference possesses no more than probable force; still, the cumulative effect of the two arguments is to raise the presumption that, as a fact, Mādhava is anterior to Dṛḍhabala.¹

c5.s1.24

¹ The memorial verses, as commonly printed in Mādhava's *Nidāna*, giving a total of seventy-six, are spurious and false. Jīvānanda's edition gives them at the end (p. 347), but Udoy Chand Dutt's edition at the beginning (p. 220) of the chapters on the diseases of the eye. Moreover, they do not agree with Mādhava's own text; for they omit the two diseases of the eyelashes (*pakṣma-kopa* and *pakṣma-śāta*), mentioned by Mādhava at the end of the last of those chapters (Jīv., p. 347, verses 22, 23; U.C. Dutt, p. 236). Adding these two diseases, the total becomes seventy-eight. The various systems of enumerating the diseases of the eye adopted by Suśruta II, Vāgbhaṭa I, Mādhava, and Dṛḍhabala respectively, are very complicated. It is impossible, in the present case, to state more than the simple facts. In a subsequent dissertation on the diseases of the eye I hope to have an opportunity of explaining the details.

c5.s1.25

² In *Caraka Saṃhitā*, *Cikitsita Sthāna*, ch. xxvi, ver. 222 (Jīv., p. 761). The edition published by the two Sens reads seventy-six (p. 884, l. 4); but this is a mere reprint from Gaṅgādhar's Berhampore edition (p. 575), for which there is no known manuscript authority. It appears to be an 'emendation' of Gaṅgādhar himself. All existing MSS. read ninety-six; e. g. Tübingen MSS., No. 458, fol. 632 *a*, l. 2; and No. 459, fol. 216 *b*, l. 5; India Office MSS., No. 335, fol. 419 *b*, l. 1, and No. 359, fol. 153 *a*, l. 7; Deccan College MS., No. 925, fol. 334 *a*, l. 6.

c5.s1.26

¹ It is true that the commentator Vijaya Rakshita (c. 1240 A. D.), in an explanatory statement on *Nidāna* (ed. Jīv., p. 147), xxii, 5, ll. 1, 2 = *Caraka Saṃhitā*, *Cikitsita Sthāna*, xxviii, ver. 24 (Jīv., p. 773), apparently implies the posteriority of Mādhava to Dṛḍhabala. But it should be observed that the object of Vijaya Rakshita is not to make a chronological, but an exegetical statement. The chronological implication may not have been intended by him, even assuming that in the thirteenth century the exact chronological relation of Mādhava to Dṛḍhabala was still within the knowledge of medical writers.

c5.s1.27

9. *Dṛḍhabala*. In the second place, Dṛḍhabala is anterior to Vāgbhaṭa II. The latter, in one of the concluding verses of his Compendium,² refers to the very insufficient character of the information on the diseases of the eye to be found in Charaka’s Compendium as compared with that given in Suśruta’s Compendium. Seeing that that information is contained in one of Dṛḍhabala’s complementary chapters,³ Vāgbhaṭa’s remark proves that he was acquainted with Dṛḍhabala’s completion of Charaka’s Compendium. Moreover, Vāgbhaṭa II not infrequently revises the versified form in which prose passages had been quoted by Dṛḍhabala from the Summary (*Saṃgraha*) of Vāgbhaṭa I.¹ Lastly, it may be noted that Aruṇadatta, in his commentary on Vāgbhaṭa II’s Compendium, expressly refers to Dṛḍhabala’s edition of the Compendium of Charaka as the source of one of the verses of Vāgbhaṭa II.² This last point is particularly effective. The verse in question occurs in the introductory portion of the nineteenth chapter of Charaka’s Compendium on the Treatment of Chronic Diarrhoea³ (§ 99, cl. 2). In that portion Dṛḍhabala summarizes in versified form the prose account of the subject in the Anatomical Section of the Summary of Vāgbhaṭa I.⁴ That it is really a summary of Vāgbhaṭa I’s account is obvious from the fact that his terms and phrases are as far as possible retained by Dṛḍhabala. Vāgbhaṭa II still further summarizes the summary of Dṛḍhabala; and that his doubly summarized account is really based on the latter, but not on Vāgbhaṭa I, is shown by the fact that it contains none of the terms and phrases of the latter, but retains intact three of the verses (among them the

c5.s1.28

² See *Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya*, *Uttara Sthāna*, ch. xl, ver. 83; in the 1st ed., vol. ii, p. 826.

c5.s1.29

³ Viz. the twenty-sixth chapter on *Trimarmīya*, in the *Caraka Saṃhitā*, *Cikitsita Sthāna*, verses 221–56 (Jīv. ed., 1896, pp. 761–4). The fact that Vāgbhaṭa II simply speaks of Charaka’s Compendium

c5.s1.30

¹ e. g. the prose direction in *Saṃgraha*, *Cikitsita Sthāna*, ch. xvii (vol. ii, p. 99, l. 23), is expressed by Dṛḍhabala in a single verse (*Caraka Saṃhitā*, *Cik.*, xviii, ver. 85 *a*; Jīv., p. 646), while Vāgbhaṭa II gives it in two verses (*Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya*, *Cik.*, xv, verses 96 *b*, 97 *a*, in 1st ed., vol. ii, p. 285). Other examples are: Vāgbhaṭa II in *Cikitsita*, xv, verses 61 *b*-63 (vol. ii, p. 279) and verses 91 *b*, 92 (vol. ii, p. 284), compared with Dṛḍhabala, in *Cik.*, xviii, verses 67 *b*-69 (Jīv., pp. 644-5) and verses 80, 81 (Jīv., p. 645), and with Vāgbhaṭa I’s prose in *Cik.*, xvii (vol. ii, p. 98, ll. 9-12, and p. 99, ll. 21-23).

c5.s1.31

² See *Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya* (1st ed.), vol. i, p. 571, l. 19. The verse in question is 62 *b*, 63 *a*, in the third chapter of the *Śārīra Sthāna*.

c5.s1.32

³ See *Cikitsita Sthāna*, *Grahaṇī-roga*, xix, ver. 14, in Jīv. ed., 1896, p. 656.

c5.s1.33

⁴ See *Aṣṭāṅga Saṃgraha*, *Śārīra Sthāna*, ch. vi, in the Bombay ed., vol. i, pp. 230 ff.

c5.s1.34

without any reference to Dṛḍhabala’s authorship of the chapter in question creates no difficulty. As observed in § 1, the whole work, inclusive of Dṛḍhabala’s complement, came to be known simply as Charaka’s Compendium; and it is not at all uncommon to find Dṛḍhabala quoted as ‘Charaka’; e. g. by Vijaya Rakshita in his *Madhukośa* (Jīv., 1901), pp. 159, 161, 163.

c5.s1.35

verse in question) of Dṛḍhabala.¹ This state of things was evidently realized by Aruṇadatta, for, as already stated, he expressly mentions Dṛḍhabala as the source of Vāgbhaṭa II.

c5.s1.36

¹ Namely, verses 59, 60, 62 in Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya, Sārīra Sthāna ch. iii (1st ed., vol. i, pp. 566, 567, 569).

c5.s1.37

10. *Their Dates.* The evidence of Arabic sources points to the seventh or eighth century for Mādhava, and that of Tibetan and other sources to the eighth or ninth century for Vāgbhaṭa II.² According to the evidence, already explained, Dṛḍhabala takes his place intermediately between Mādhava and Vāgbhaṭa II. Accordingly it is probable that all these three medical writers come in the period from the seventh to the ninth century, at no very great interval from one another. In any case none of them can be later than *c.* 1060 A. D., the date of Cakrapāṇidatta.

c5.s1.38

² For details and authorities see Professor Jolly’s *Indian Medicine*, §§ 5, 6, pp. 7–9.

c5.s1.39

11. *Commentators and their Dates.* Of early commentators on the Compendia of Charaka and Suśruta, and on the Summary of Vāgbhaṭa I, whose works have come down to us, the following may be mentioned.

c5.s1.40

On Charaka’s Compendium we have Cakrapāṇidatta’s Commentary, called *Caraka Tātparya Ṭīkā* (i. e. Explanation of Charaka’s Meaning) or *Ayurveda Dīpikā* (i. e. Light on General Medicine). Its author is known to have lived about 1060 A. D.

c5.s1.41

On Suśruta’s Compendium we have Ḍallaṇa’s commentary, called *Nibandha Saṃgraha*, or Summary of Commentaries. The earliest known quotations of this work are by Hemādri and Vāchaspati,³ who lived about 1260 A. D.; and as Ḍallaṇa himself quotes Cakrapāṇidatta, he should be placed in the twelfth century. He frequently quotes also a commentary (*pañjikā* or *candrikā*) by Gayadāsa (or simply Gayin), called *Nyāya Candrikā*, or Reasoned Elucidation. Gayadāsa, therefore, cannot be placed later than the eleventh century, and he may have been a contemporary of Cakrapāṇidatta, seeing that neither appears to quote from the other.⁴

c5.s1.42

³ According to information by letter (October 30, 1904) from Dr. P. Cordier.

c5.s1.43

⁴ See Professor Jolly in the *Journal of the German Oriental Society*, vol. lviii, p. 114 ff.; and Dr. P. Cordier’s *Récentes Découvertes*, p. 15.

c5.s1.44

On the Compendium of Vāgbhaṭa II we have a commentary by Aruṇadatta, called *Sarvāṅga Sundarī* (i. e. Excellent in all Branches of Medicine).¹ On the Pathology (*Nidāna*) of Mādhava there exists a commentary, called *Madhukoṣa* (i. e. Receptacle of Honey), the joint work of Vijaya Rakshita and his pupil Śrīkaṇṭhadatta, and another by Vāchaspati, called *Ātaṅka Darpaṇa* (i. e. Mirror of Diseases). The latter, as he himself states (in verse 4 of his Introduction), consulted the *Madhukoṣa* for the purpose of writing his own commentary, and Vijaya Rakshita controverts a certain doctrine of Aruṇadatta regarding the structure of the eye.² Vāchaspati further states (in verse 5 of his Introduction) that his father Pramoda was chief physician at the court of ‘Mahamada Hammīra’, that is, of the Amīr Muizzuddīn Muhammad (the celebrated Muhamed Ghori) who reigned in Delhi from 1193 to 1205 A. D. Moreover, Vijaya Rakshita quotes Guṇākara who wrote the *Yogaratnamālā* in 1239 A. D.³ Accordingly we obtain the following approximate dates:

c5.s1.45

¹ The title makes a pun: it also means ‘a woman beautiful in all her limbs’.

c5.s1.46

² It concerns the true position of the so-called *bāhya paṭala* or outer cover of the eyeball, i. e. the cornea *plus* aqueous humour. See *Aṣṭāṅga Hṛdaya*, *Uttara Sthāna*, ch. xii, ver. 1 (in 1st ed., vol. ii, p. 516).

c5.s1.47

³ Information by letter (October 30, 1904) from Dr. P. Cordier. The quotation occurs in the *Madhukoṣa* on *Nidāna*, v, 7 (Jīv., p. 68). On the date of Guṇākara, see Peterson’s *Report*, 1886–92, p. xxvi.

c5.s1.48

Aruṇadatta, about 1220 A. D. Vijaya Rakshita, about 1240 A. D. Vāchaspati, about 1260 A. D.

c5.s1.49

12. *Bhāskara Bhaṭṭa* and *Bhava Miśra*. To a slightly earlier date than that of Chakrapāṇidatta belongs a medical author, Bhāskara Bhaṭṭa. He appears to have lived about 1000 A. D.⁴ He wrote a tract on Anatomy, called *Śarīra Padminī* (i. e. Lotus among Works on Anatomy). The state-

c5.s1.50

⁴ See *Epigraphia Indica*, vol. i, p. 340. The *Śarīra Padminī* was brought to notice by Dr. P. Cordier in his *Récentes Découvertes*, p. 30.

c5.s1.51

For further information on the commentaries on Suśruta’s Compendium, see my Article in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of London for 1906, p. 283.

c5.s1.52

ments on the skeleton, contained in this treatise, reproduce the doctrine of Suśruta, as modified by Vāgbhaṭa I (see § 36).

c5.s1.53

A very much later author, who also reproduces Suśruta's doctrine on the skeleton, and who will be mentioned occasionally in the following pages, is Bhāva Miśra. He lived in the sixteenth century, and wrote a voluminous compilation, of no originality, from previous medical writings, under the name of *Bhāva Prakāśa* (i. e. Manifestation of the Truth).

Linked texts (12)