Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c5.s1.3

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.