Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c5.s1.12

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.