Vanaspati: Plants and Plant-Life as in Indian Treatises and Traditions c6.t3.20

c6.t3.20

Technically, the scientific treatise dealing with medical problems is the *Āyurveda* or the Science of life. From the statement in the *Charaka*, *Suśruta* and other medical treatises, it is clear beyond all possibility of doubt that there must have existed a monumental treatise of the name marking the intermediate period of transition between the Rig and Atharva Vedas on the one hand and the *Charaka* and *Suśruta* on the other. Without the hypothesis of the existence of such a work, a hypothesis which is very valid, the unbridgable gulf—a gulf of probably a thousand years or more according to Dr. P. C. Roy¹—separating the rudimentary science of Medicine painfully gleaned out of the Vedic texts and the fully developed and scientifically accurate works of Charaka and Suśruta cannot be explained. Some of the ancient authorities traced the origin of the lost work to the Atharva Veda and some to the Rig Veda, but the following statement occurring in the Charaka,¹ seems to be decisive on the point.