A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c23.s2.20

v1.c23.s2.20

S. Dasgupta,¹⁴⁰ who accepts that a Nāgārjuna was the reviser, observed that an ardhaśloka, incorporated in the current text of the Suśrutasaṃhitā (Ni.3.13ab), is quoted as a variant ascribed to Nāgārjuna in Gayadāsa’s commentary (ad Ni.3.12), which may mean that it is an interpolation.¹⁴¹ Another quotation from Nāgārjuna, found in Narahari’s Vāgbhaṭamaṇḍana, presents a variant of Ni.8.14 disagreeing with the reading accepted by Gayadāsa and Dalhaṇa, which is hard to explain, unless we assume that a later reviser changed Nāgārjuna’s reading again. S. Dasgupta also suggested that the process of making additions to the Suśrutasaṃhitā continued until rather late times. He advanced that parts of the material on bastikriyā (Ci.37–38) were still unknown to Cakrapāṇidatta who, though very well conversant with the Suśrutasaṃhitā, ignores this material in his commentary on the Siddhisthāna of the Carakasaṃhitā and does not use it in his own Cakradatta; this made S. Dasgupta infer that the relevant particulars were added in the twelfth century, since Dalhaṇa did know the material in question and explained it in his commentary.