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The Sanskrit text of the Siddhasāra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

R. E. Emmerick
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Extract

The Siddhasāra of Ravigupta, son of Durgagupta, is known in three main versions, the original Sanskrit, the Tibetan, and the Khotanese. Each is important for certain reasons. The Sanskrit text is important mainly because of its date. Although the extant MSS are late—they have been assigned to A.D. 1374 and 1443 respectively —the original must be earlier than A.D. 1000, after which date we have no Khotanese. It is likely to be considerably earlier, but we have no evidence at present to enable us to fix the date with precision. If the Jinamitra who, with Ādityavarman and Candra, translated the Tibetan version is the same as the Jinamitra who took part in the compilation of the Mahāvyutpatti in the first quarter of the ninth century, the date of the composition of the Sanskrit text must precede A.D. 800. The occasional line is identical with one in Suśruta or in Caraka, but in a land of floating traditions this may not amount to much. In the colophon, preserved imperfectly in one of the two Sanskrit MSS and given in full in Tibetan, Ravigupta acknowledges only two sources by name: Dhanvantari and Ātreya, the two sages who are usually held to have been involved in the transmission of medical knowledge from on high. This too is unhelpful.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of SOAS , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , February 1971 , pp. 91 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1971

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Footnotes

1

Abbreviations

Das = S. C. Das, A Tibetan-English dictionary, Calcutta, 1902, repr. 1960.

Hilgenberg and Kirfel = L. Hilgenberg and W. Kirfel, Vāgbhata's Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā, ein altindisches Lehrbuch der Heilkunde, Leiden, 1941.

Jäsohke = H. A. Jäschke, A Tibetan-English dictionary, London, 1881, repr. 1958.

Jolly, Medicin = J. Jolly, Medicin (Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, III. Bd., 10. Ht.), Strassburg, 1901.

KT = H. W. Bailey (ed.), Khotanese texts, I–VI, Cambridge, 1945–67. Vols. I–III, second ed., Cambridge, 1969.

Editions

Caraka: Caraka-saṃhitā, with the commentary Āyur-veda-dīpikā of Cakra-pāṇi-datta, ed. Narendra-nātha-śāstrin, 2 vols., Lahore, 1929.

Suśruta: Suśuta-saṃhitā, ed. Vaidya Jādavji Trikamji Āchārya and Nārāyaṇ Rām Āchārya ‘Kāvyatīrth’, Bombay, 1945.

Vāgbhaṭa: Aṣṭāṇga-hṛdayam, ed. Yadu-nandana Upādhyāya, Banaras, 1950.

References

2 See Gambier-Parry, T. R., A catalogue of photographs of Sanskrit MSS purchased for the administrators of the Max Müller Memorial Fund, OUP, 1930, pp. 45–7 (items 49 and 50)Google Scholar. Nepal Saṃvat 494 and 563 respectively, i.e. A.D. 1373 and 1442, if the NewĀr Saṃvat began on 20 October A.D. 879 (so Smith, V., A catalogue of the coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, I, Oxford, 1906, 281)Google Scholar.

3 Codices khotanenses, Copenhagen, 1938 Google Scholar.

4 KT, I, 2 ff.

5 BSOS, VIII, 1, 1935, 117–42.

6 ‘The preface to the SiddhasĀra-śĀstra’, in [Henning, W. B. and Yarshater, E. (ed.)], A locust's leg: studies in honour of S. H. Taqizadeh, London, 1962, 31–8Google Scholar.

7 Bailey's lei-la is a simple misreading or mistyping.

8 asra- is given as a synonym of kuṅkuma- in the Dhanvantari-nighaṇṭu (ĀAnandāśrama Sanskrit Series, 33), Poona, 1896, p. 95 Google Scholar:

kuṅkumaṃ rudhiraṃ raktam asṛg asraṃ ca pῑtakam

kāśmῑraṃ cāru bāhlīkaṃ saṃkocaṃ piśunaṃ varam.

9 Note jayā (p, y distinguished in the Cambridge MS) in the Yogaśataka, 6, where also the Tibetan version has 'a-ru-ra. Cf. also Dhanvantari-nighaṇṭu, p. 27:

agnimantho 'gnimanthanas tarkārī vijayantikā

vahnimantho 'raṇῑ ketuḥ śrīparṇῑ karṇikā jayā.

10 BSOS, VIII, 1, 1935, 118 Google Scholar.

11 Laufer, B., Sino-iranica, Chicago, 1919 Google Scholar, repr. Taipei, 1967, 324–8.

12 tulā = pala-śatam (Siddhasāara-nighaṇṭalca B 95 r 4). So Dutt, U. C., The materia medica of the Hindus, Calcutta, 1877, 8 Google Scholar.

13 See Nobel, J., Ein alter medizinischer Sanskrit-Text und seine Deutung (Supplement to JAOS, No. 11), 1951, p. 26, nn. 74, 75Google Scholar.

14 Bhela-saṃhitāa, ed. Śukla, Girijādayālu, Varanasi, 1959 Google Scholar.

15 cf. also Caraka, , Ci. 21.34 Google Scholar: śāntāṅgāra-prakāśo 'ti-rakto vā.

16 Derge (N, P ñen-bskor).

17 Nobel, J., Udrāyaṇa, König von Rorulca, II, Wiesbaden, 1955 Google Scholar.

18 gāyatrī- = khadira- (Siddhasāra-nighaṇṭaka B 92 r 2).

19 Not druṅ as Bailey at N 216 a 7, KT, I, 103.

20 khar D, N, P. Misread as kha-na a t N 216 b 7, KT, I, 105.

21 M⋯langes Fuad Köprülü, Istanbul, 1953, 54 Google Scholar.

22 Medicin, 97.