Part 2 - Charaka, Sushruta, and their predecessors

There have been, from time out of memory, four different schools of medical treatment, flourishing side by side in India, viz., treatments with (1) mercury and metals, (2) vegetable drugs, (3) spells and incantations, and (4) surgical instruments. Both Charaka and Sushruta belonged to the second and the fourth classes of physicians, and have all along been the most popular, and widely known, though by no means the best and the earliest, of Indian authors of medical treatises. The cheapness of vegetable drugs and the facility of preparing such drugs are some of the reasons which account for the popularity of Charaka and Sushruta. Belonging as they did to the organic school of Ayurvedic chemistry, both Charaka and Sushruta paid more attention to herbal than to metallic drugs, and did not encroach much upon the domain of the metallic chemists. Yet, the medicinal use of metals and minerals was not quite unknown to these compilers. Both of them were acquainted with the medicinal use of many of the metals and ores. There is a distinct reference to the use of mercury in Sushruta, although Charaka is silent about it.

The diction and style of Charaka approaches more closely to the Vedic language than to the language used in such books as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. It appears therefore that Charaka, the author, flourished in the pre-historic age, and is not to be identified with Charaka, the Court physician of Kaniska.

The same remark also applies to Sushruta. There is a clear reference in the Mahabharata to Sushruta, son of the sage Viswamitra, who learnt the science of medicine from Divodasa, king of Kashi, and complied a medical treatise in his own name. There is a sufficient evidence to show that Sushruta, referred to in the Mahabharata, and Sushruta, the author of the famous medical compilation, are one and the same person.

This leads us to an enquiry into the age of the Mahabharata, which was undoubtedly composed long after the Sushruta Sanhita had been composed and widely known. There is a well-known passage in the Mahabharata, which furnishes some clue to the probable date of the composition or recasting the great epic.