History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval India, Incorporating the History of Hindu Chemistry by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray c15.81

c15.81

There is much controversy about the age of the Charaka and the Susruta. According to the Chinese version of the Tripitaka a physician named Charaka was attached to the court of the Indo-Scythian King Kanishka who reigned in the second century A.D. According to certain authorities, particularly M. Sylvain Levi, the authorship of the treatise Charaka Samhita is attributed to this Charaka. But it should also be noted that the appellation of Charaka occurs in Vedic literature as a patronymic one. The theories and discussions in the Charaka and the Susruta, particularly in the Charaka, are based on the doctrines of the Samkhya system of philosophy, combined with a methodology derived from the Nyaya-Vaiseshika system. The Charaka, however, is not so systematic as the Susruta, but indulges often in random and irrelevant discourses. In the Charaka Samhita we find that the author is inordinately fond of metaphysical disquisitions in preference to experiments and observations. The Susruta in this respect is far more scientific than the Charaka. This indicates that of the two, the Charaka is by far the more ancient. Again we find only Vedic gods and *mantras* to figure in the Charaka which follows closely the authority of the Vedas. The simple unvarnished prose of the Charaka reminds one of the Brahmanas of the Vedas Between the period of the Atharvaveda and that of the Charaka there must have been composed several medical treatises, each reflecting the spirit and progress of the age. Charaka himself records that he simply based his work on that of Agnivesa, which he completely recast and remodelled. At the time of Charaka there existed at least six standard works by Agnivesa, Bhela Jatukarna, Parasara, Harita and Ksharapani respectively Thus the Charaka, as we now possess it, is by no means the first comprehensive and systematic treatise of Hindu medicine: it represents rather a fairly developed state of the subject. There are chapters in the Charaka Samhita which suggest that it seems to record the deliberations of a congress of medical experts. This is best illustrated by the chapter in the Charaka on "Discourse on the Tastes."