Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A History of Indian Medical Literature v3.c42.s4: Date

A History of Indian Medical Literature v3.c42.s4

Language
English

Date

v3.c42.s4.1

Hoernle concluded that characteristics of the script of the Bower MS point to the third quarter of the fourth century A.D. as the period in which the various portions must have been written. ¹⁹⁰ Hoernle's dating is accepted by later authors, with the exception of J. Filliozat, in whose view it is preferable to adhere to a more approximate date, namely the fourth to sixth centuries. ¹⁹¹

v3.c42.s4.2

The period in which the texts composing the Bower MS may originally have been written is more difficult to determine. A number of details of the Bower MS establish any doubt that its texts were copied from an already defective, not always easily legible, and therefore probably old MS. ¹⁹² Consequently, there must have been an interval between the writing of the autograph and the copying by the scribes of the Bower MS.

v3.c42.s4.3

Some peculiarities of the MS may go back to the original author; part II, the Nāvanītaka, and part III contain glosses, indicated as such, which the author may have added to the extracts from earlier authoritative works of which his work is mainly composed. ¹⁹³

v3.c42.s4.4

Hoernle adduced arguments pointing to a succession of copies between the autograph of the Nāvanītaka and its copy in the Bower MS. He was convinced to have discovered indications testifying to a rather considerable interval, perhaps two or three centuries, between the composition of the Nāvanītaka and the copy known to us. Although his reasoning in this matter is not cogent, his conclusions may well be valid.

v3.c42.s4.5

Hoernle tried to prove that the original author of the Nāvanītaka was acquainted with the Bhelasamhitā, the Carakasamhitā before its revision and completion by Dṛḍhabala, and the Suśrutasamhitā, its Uttarātantra included. ¹⁹⁴ His reasoning was based on formulae in the Nāvanītaka that also form part of these treatises, and the references to Bhela and Suśruta in parts I and II of the Bower MS. ¹⁹⁵

v3.c42.s4.6

However, as already clearly pointed out by J. Jolly, ¹⁹⁶ Hoernle's arguments are not conclusive. The way in which Suśruta is introduced in part I, and his relationship with the muni Kāśirāja, disagree with the beginning of the Suśrutasamhitā, which, moreover, does not contain a laśunakalpa, the subject of the conversation between Suśruta and Kāśirāja. The formulae, said to be derived from the Suśrutasamhitā, ¹⁹⁷ are only distantly related to the parallels. ¹⁹⁸ To be true, Bhela is credited with some formulae, which proves that he was already a well-known medical authority, but the majority of the passages of the Nāvanītaka that form part of the Bhelasamhitā are not attributed to him and may be drawn from the floating medical tradition or early treatises, now lost. Caraka and his predecessor, Agniveśa, are not referred to at all, which pleads against borrowing from the Carakasamhitā; ¹⁹⁹ Ātreya, Agniveśa's teacher in the Carakasamhitā, is mentioned, but the formulae ascribed to him are absent from the Carakasamhitā. ²⁰⁰

v3.c42.s4.7

Consequently, it is preferable to suppose, as Jolly did, that the author of the Nāvanītaka drew upon the floating medical tradition and early treatises that have not been preserved. However that may be, the medical parts of the Bower MS (I–III) constitute the earliest collections of recipes known. They give evidence of a long medical tradition, connected with numerous ancient authorities, and may be based on similar collections or other types of medical writings antedating the composition of the saṃhitās of Caraka, Suśruta and others.

v3.c42.s4.8

Bhelasaṃhitā

v3.c42.s4.9

The Bhelasaṃhitā¹ is a comprehensive medical treatise chiefly concerned with internal medicine (kāyacikitsā). It is in many respects of the same type as the Carakasaṃhitā and may be said to belong, as the latter, to the school of Ātreya, although it also contains elements found in the Suśrutasaṃhitā, which gives it an unusual character.

v3.c42.s4.10

The text of the Bhelasaṃhitā has been preserved in a single MS, incomplete and abounding with scribal errors, kept at the Mahārāja Serfoji's Sarasvatī Mahāl Library in Tanjore. ² Several copies of this MS have been made in the course of time, ³ and three editions have appeared, based on the MS itself or its copies. ⁴

v3.c42.s4.11

A fragment of the Bhelasaṃhitā was discovered by H. Lüders⁵ among the MSS brought from Central Asia by A. von Le Coq. This fragment consists of one page from a paper MS, found in Tuyoq, ⁶ that dates from about the ninth century; it contains the text of Nidānasthāna 8.5cd to Vimānasthāna 1.22ab. The readings of this fragment are at places to be preferred to those of the Tanjore MS.

Cites (4)