A History of Indian Medical Literature v3.c43.13

v3.c43.13

The third type of evidence adduced by P.V. Sharma consists of some words in the Aṣṭāṅganighaṇṭu which may be indicative of its date. These words are harayonī (290) as a synonym of rasendra, i.e., mercury, pārvatībīja (290) as a synonym of abhraka, i.e., mica, both pointing at a rather developed state of rasaśāstra, and pūti (299), i.e., civet, which is also found in the Paryāyaratnamālā (794) and the Siddhayoga (22.79). For the above reasons and in view of the fact that certain drugs introduced in the tenth century or later, such as akarakarā, ahiphena, mastagī and rūmī, as well as pārasīyavavānī, which occurs for the first time in the Siddhayoga, are absent from the Aṣṭāṅganighaṇṭu,¹⁹ P.V. Sharma concludes that the work was written before the ninth century.²⁰ In support of this date he finally tries to demonstrate that Mādhava’s Paryāyaratnamālā, assigned by him to the ninth century, represents a more developed state of knowledge than the Aṣṭāṅganighaṇṭu.²¹ All this evidence, taken together, establishes, in P.V. Sharma’s view, that the Aṣṭāṅganighaṇṭu was probably composed in the eighth century.²²