A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c20.s2.18

v1.c20.s2.18

As I have already mentioned, the quotations attributed to Agniveśa belong to several groups. In my opinion it is impossible to decide whether or not some may be from the old Agniveśatantra, because of the absence of reliable criteria. No one knows what the Agniveśatantra looked like, in spite of assertions to the contrary. 230 P. V. Sharma has advanced the hypothesis that the Agniveśatantra was a work in sūtra style, resembling the Arthaśāstra; Caraka expanded the text, rewrote the descriptions of the assemblies in the form of dialogues and added the summaries at the end of each chapter. 231 The same author has tried to isolate elements of the Carakasaṃhitā that in his view belong to its oldest layer, i.e., the Agniveśatantra. 232