A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c26.s3.30

v1.c26.s3.30

Hoernle tried to defend as a much better solution that I-ching had the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha in mind. His arguments were that its title agrees with an epitome of the eight branches, that it was a recent work in the latter part of the seventh century, the period of I-ching’s stay in India, and that it was current during that period. He ruled out the Hṛdaya as a treatise with a much less suggestive title, and, also, because of his opinion that the Hṛdaya cannot be placed earlier than the eighth century. The considerable disagreements between the names of the eight aṅgas, their contents and their order, as found in I-ching’s work on the one hand and both Saṃgraha and Hṛdaya on the other, are in this way completely played down and the Saṃgraha is allotted a much more prominent place than it ever had. The thesis that I-ching alludes to the Saṃgraha was repeated in Hoernle’s work on Indian osteology. 299