An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. I: Sutrasthanam — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907)

(3) Pratt's FloNiering Plants. Vol. I P. 57.

(4) These *Simoi (venerable) whom Clemeni of Alexandria has narraleil to have rendered worship to a pjTamid originally dedicated to tiie relics of a god, were the Buddhi!»t Arhals (venerables) Sramanas.

Lalita-Vistaram— T\:iia R^jendra I.ala Milter's Edition. Ch. I.

INTRODUGTION. , IX

the principal centres for disseaiinating Brahm^»nic culture in distant lands, and Hippocrates, though he did his' utmost to liberate medical sciertce iVom the thraldom of speculative philosophy, yet might have thought it necessary tG>tetain only those truths of the Ayurveda which Pythagoras and the Buddhistic brotherhood might have imported into his country, and which do not exactly appertain to the domain of pure metaphysics. Of course, it is quite possible for men of different nationalities to arrive at the same truth cr conclusion independently. There are coincidences i'l science as in art and philosophy, (i) Gravitation and circulation of blood (2) were known ta tfite Indians long before the births of Newton and Harvey in Europe. The celebrated atomic theory was preached in the Gangetic valley some five hundred years before the birth of Christ (3). But well may we ask those, who still adhere to this Hellenic hobby, to look at the reverse side of the picture as well. It may be stated without the least fear of contradiction that the Charaka and Sushruta, through the Channel of Arabic, Persian and Latin translations still form the

Siddhanla Shiromani (Bhaskaracharyaya) GolodhyAya.

iT^^TR ^R ^fq II ???Tg lifqcT' ^^ %-^^ ^^^i t%Tr:, cI^t^ f^q^r

^JTT T\\^^ T.w^^m: I VTT^fl^TaiiT | (BhavaprakasUa).

The Hdrita Samhitd, which according to certain scholars, is older than the Sushruta SamhitS, refers to the circulation of blood in describing I'induroga (Anemia). The disease, he observes, is caused by eating clay which thus blocks the lumen of veins and obstructs the circulation of blood, Bhcivamisra, the celebrated author of Bh^vaprakdsham, and who is a century older than Harvey, has the above couplets bearing on the sufcject.

(3) Vaiseshika Darshana by Kandda.

X Introduction.

»«• basis of all sj-stems of s^ienti^c medicines in the world (i). Of these, the Sushruta Samhit^ is the most representative ;vork of the Hindu system of medicine. It embraces all that can possibly appertain to the science of medicine (2).

Sushruta prior to Charaka :— The general consensus of expert opinion is to place Charaka prior to Sushruta in respect of time. But the Puninas unat^mously describe Sushruta as a disciple of Dhanvantari, the first-propounder of medical science. The long compounds (samasas) used by him, the prose and metrical portions of the Sushruta after the models of Jaimini, Patanjali, and other philosophi,r cal writers who had adopted prose or metre according to the e.xegetic or rationalistic tenor of the subjects in their works, have all been cited to prove Sushruta a contemporary of the Darshanas, or of Buddha. But these may serve, at least, to fix the date of the recension by Nagarjuna, i.e., the Sushruta Samhita as we have it, but can never help to determine the chronology of Sushruta, the disciple of Dhanvantari "who was churned out of the primordial ocean in the golden age (Satya Yuga) (3). On the other hand, if

(l) A, "The great works of Charaka and Sushruta were translated into

Arabic, under the patronage of Kaliph Almansur, in the seventh century.

The Arabic version of Sushruta is known by the name of " KelaleShawshoore-al-Hindi." These translations in their turn were rendered into Latin. The Latin versions formed the basis of European medicine, which remained indebted to the Eastern science of medicine down to the seventeenth century."— History of the Aryan Medical science (Th^kore Saheb of Gondal) P. 196.

B, For tljc indebtedness of Arabic school of Medicine to the works of Indian masters, see Puschmann P. 162.

C. BednVe. Book IV. Ch. IL 286—299. (2) Dr. Wise (Hindu system of medicine).

f^>?fT ^?5^^' ^'n?T^T 5B5f5TfT: II

Garuda PurSnam. Chip. 142, Vs. 5-6.

INTROniTC?ION. , xi

the testimonies of the Puninas -♦have anj- histor^6al worth, we ca!i safely place him somewhere in the Satya Yuga, (age) at least in those dim centuries which immediate})' succeeded the composition of the Atharvan. Charaka, too. in coi^nection with his discourse on the development of the foetal body has cited the opinion of Dhanvantaii (ij on the subject (tiie same as promulgated in the Sushruta S'amhita) & referred his disciples to the Dhanvantari school of surgeons (meaning Sushruta and his school) in cases where surgical aid and knowledge are necessary ; this proves that Sushruta was before Charaka.