Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s3.t3.4

Language: English

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4. It is a well-known fact that the text of Suśruta’s Compendium, after a time, fell into some disorder, which necessitated revision or reconstruction. Several such revisions, or reconstructions, must have been undertaken at different times. The first reconstruction may have been that to which we owe the addition of the Supplementary Section (Uttara Tantra). This is traditionally ascribed to Nāgārjuna, in the second century A.D. (§ 2). Seeing that the traditional text of neither Charaka nor Suśruta existed about 350 A.D., the approximate date of the Law-book of Yājñavalkya, it follows that Nāgārjuna, if he made any reconstruction of the text of Suśruta’s Compendium, can at all events not be credited with the particular reconstruction of Suśruta’s statement on the skeleton. Another revision was made by Candraṭa, the son of Tiṣaṭa. He states this fact himself at the end of his revised text, which he calls a pāṭha-śuddhi or ‘Emendation of the Text’. We have a copy of this revised text in the unique manuscript of the India Office Library, No. 1842 (Cat. No. 2646), described on pp. 927, 928 of the catalogue. So far as a cursory examination permits one to judge, it does occasionally, though not very materially, differ from the Traditional Recension of the Compendium. But in the statement on the skeleton there occurs a noteworthy varia lectio.

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Instead of the erroneous reading udara, abdomen, of the traditional text (§ 29), Candraṭa’s text has akṣa, collar-bone.¹ This circumstance—so far as it goes—makes against the hypothesis that Candraṭa was the author of the Traditional Recension. But there are two stronger objections to it in Candraṭa’s late date and comparative obscurity. The date of Candraṭa is not known; but it cannot well be earlier than the ninth or tenth century, because in his Commentary on the Cikitsā-kalikā² of his father Tiṣaṭa he quotes from the complement of Charaka’s Compendium, which was made by Dṛḍhabala; and the date of the latter must be in the eighth or ninth century (§ 2, cl. 9). He does not quote Bhoja³, while both Cakrapāṇidatta and Gayadāsa quote him, but do not quote each other. Hence it appears probable that the last-mentioned two authors were near contemporaries who were preceded by Bhoja who himself was preceded by Candraṭa. As the date of Cakrapāṇidatta is about 1060 A.D., the date of Candraṭa may be referred to about 1000 A.D. As to the point of obscurity, so much may be taken as certain, that whoever was the author of the Traditional Recension must have been a person of great reputation;

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for otherwise it is inconceivable how his recension should have obtained such paramount authority as to supersede every other recension, and to be the only one found in all existing manuscripts, and exclusively commented on in all known commentaries.¹ Chandraṭa certainly cannot be said to have held such a position. The only ancient medical author who by the uniform tradition of India holds a place equal to that of Charaka and Suśruta is Vāgbhaṭa I. He is the third in the traditional triad of great representatives of Indian medicine: Charaka, Suśruta, Vāgbhaṭa.² It has been shown (§§ 38, 39) that the principle on which the Traditional Recension of the statement of Suśruta is made is certainly one on which Vāgbhaṭa I worked in constructing his own statement. The conclusion therefore seems unavoidable that it was Vāgbhaṭa I who is the author of that Traditional Recension. The fact that the older recensions still existed in the fourth century A.D., at the date of the Law-book of Yājñavalkya, and the consideration that a sufficient interval must be conceded for the text to have fallen into such a state of corruption as to necessitate a thorough revision, or reconstruction, will accord with the early seventh century A.D. as the date of Vāgbhaṭa I, already suggested by other considerations (see § 2). It should, however, be distinctly understood that these conclusions regarding the date and authorship of Vāgbhaṭa I are not put forward as established facts.

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They are, for the present, no more than historical speculations, or rather a working hypothesis, based on more or less conclusive evidence.