A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c23.s2.30

v1.c23.s2.30

Hemarājaśarman 162 developed his own theory on the author of the Uttaratantra. He called attention to the absence of colophons, of the same type as those in the Carakasaṃhitā, pointing to a revision of the Suśrutasaṃhitā. 163 He also stressed that an interest in surgery cannot be detected in any of the writings attributed to authors called Nāgārjuna. The presence of Suśruta as a physician interested in the properties of medicinal substances in the Upāyahṛdaya, 164 by some ascribed to Nāgārjuna, pleads against the latter’s involvement in the Suśrutasaṃhitā. Moreover, Buddhist influences are entirely lacking in Suśruta’s work. Decisive evidence is, according to Hemarājaśarman, found in a MS of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, dating from the year 633 of the Newar era (A.D. 1511). The colophon of this MS reads, at the end of the Kalpasthāna, ‘suśrute śalyatantre’; the colophon at the end of the appended nighaṇṭu has ‘sauśrutyāṃ saṃhitāyāṃ mahottarāyām’. Hemarājaśarman concluded from this that the Uttaratantra was added to Suśruta’s text by a Sauśrutācārya belonging to Suśruta’s lineage; the nighaṇṭu must have been written by the same ācārya, because items found in the Uttaratantra only are incorporated in it. Hemarājaśarman supposed that this ācārya revised Suśruta’s text by filling in incomplete parts. He suggested that the Sauśrutācārya of the MS he studied was one of the saśrutas mentioned in the Mahābhāṣya.¹⁶⁵