A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c26.s3.24

v1.c26.s3.24

The vagueness of I-ching’s communication was a moving force, actuating many scholars to invent ingenuous reasonings in their efforts to solve the problem and to refute competing theories of colleagues. Rather often, it was overlooked that I-ching was not well informed about Indian medical literature; otherwise, he would never have asserted that only lately 293 an epitome of the eight branches of medicine had been composed, and that, formerly, these were dealt with in separate textbooks. Dṛḍhabala’s revision of the Carakasaṃhitā and, probably, the new version of the Suśrutasaṃhitā with the Uttaratantra appended to it, were already available as complete textbooks when I-ching was in India. Suspicion is aroused too by his explicit statement that one single treatise was the basis for medical practice in the five parts of India.