Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s3.t3.4.2

c6.s3.t3.4.2

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 He does not quote Bhoja³, while both Cakrapāṇidatta and Gayadāsa quote him, but do not quote each other.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;