A History of Indian Medical Literature v3.c43.3

v3.c43.3

The Aṣṭāṅganighaṇṭu,¹ a treatise in 408 verses, is, as its name implies, related to Vāgbhaṭa's works. It belongs to Vāhaṭācārya's Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā according to the colophon of one of its MSS,² though its introductory verse states that it is concerned with the drugs mentioned in the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha. Actually, the first part of the work (verses 2–201) describes groups of drugs found in both treatises by Vāgbhaṭa, as is also indicated in one verse of the Aṣṭāṅganighaṇṭu,³ for it is based on the twenty-five groups of chapter fifteen of the Sūtrasthāna of the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya and chapter sixteen of the same section of the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha,⁴ to which one group has been added, making a total of twenty-six. This extra group, the pippalyādigana,⁵ inserted as number three of the series, is also found in the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha, but at the end, in prose, and worded quite differently.⁶ The viratarādigana (103–112), on the other hand, has been taken from the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya, not from the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha, where the names of the drugs composing it are different.