Dhanvantari according to Gayadāsa -- MS Cambridge CUL Add.2491
Jason has discovered a historically important statement in Gayadāsa’s commentary on the Śārīrasthāna.
As mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, the Nyāyacandrikā by Gayadāsa (fl. ca. 1000, Bengal) is one of the important early commentaries on the Suśrutasaṃhitā. It was discussed by Meulenbeld (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. 1A: 380-383).
Gayadāsa on Śārīrasthāna 1.2
Gayadāsa first discussed the title and opening statement of chapter 1 of the Śārīrasthāna. Then he came to the immediately following phrase “यथोवाच धन्वन्तरिः”, “as was declared by Dhanvantari,” which appears in almost all printed editions of the Suśrutasaṃhitā and which has already been the subject of a paper from this project (Birch et al., 2021).
While transcribing MS Bikaner Anup 4389, Jason noted the following statement by Gayadāsa:
यथोवाच धन्वंतरिरिति प्रतिसंस्कर्तृसूत्रं॥
“As Dhanvantari declared” is a statement by the editor.
This deserves some unpacking. First, it is unexpected that Gayadāsa referred to the Dhanvantari phrase as a sūtra. This term usually refers to a laconic technical statement in a text such as Pāṇini’s grammar or the Yogasūtra, rather than a prose phrase. Second, is his use of the term प्रतिसंस्कर्ता “editor, reviser.” The term can be used to refer to someone who rewrites, edits or supplements an original text. In the context of medical literature, the most famous person referred to with this term is Ḍṛḍhabala (fl. ca. 300 CE) who, by his own admission, revised the Carakasaṃhitā and actually wrote seventeen chapters of the Cikitsāsthāna and the whole of the Kalpasthāna and the Siddhi sections of that work (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. 1A: 130). Thus, it is quite a strong term to use, invoking the idea not of someone who makes minor changes, but of someone who may perform wholesale rewriting of a text.
We have some reflections on the meaning of this term प्रतिसंस्कर्ता by the commentator Ḍalhaṇa. In his comments on the very opening of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, Ḍalhaṇa divided the statements of the work, which he called sūtras, into four categories: those of a reviser, of a partisan person, of a student or of a teacher (Ācārya & Ācārya, 1938, p. 1):
ननु, कतमत्सूत्रमिदं? चतुर्विधानि हि सूत्राणि भवन्ति; तद्यथा- प्रतिसंस्कर्तृसूत्रम्, एकीयसूत्रं, शिष्यसूत्रं, गुरुसूत्रं चेति।
Ḍalhaṇa noted that some people did not accept the existence of a reviser, while others did so. He went on to describe the role of such a reviser:
किमेततत्स्वकपोलकल्पितं सुश्रुतेनोक्तम् , अथवा यथैव गुरुणोदीरितमिति पृष्टः प्रतिसंस्कर्ता सुश्रुतमुखेनेदमाह - यथोवाच भगवान् धन्वन्तरिरिति। इदं प्रतिसंस्कर्तृसूत्रं, यत्र यत्र परोक्षे लिट्प्रयोगस्तत्र तत्रैव प्रतिसंस्कर्तृसूत्रं ज्ञातव्यमिति; प्रतिसंस्कर्ताऽपीह नागार्जुन एव।
To the question, “Was this stated by Suśruta as something he made up by himself, or was it uttered by the preceptor [Divodāsa] exactly as it is?” the reviser, speaking through Suśruta’s mouth, replied: “As the Blessed (bhagavān) Dhanvantari spoke.” This is the reviser’s aphorism. Wherever the perfect tense is used to indicate an event not personally witnessed by the speaker, it should be recognized as a statement coming from the reviser. Furthermore, the reviser here is none other than Nāgārjuna.
The verb उवाच “he spoke” in the phrase “Dhanvantari spoke,” is in the perfect tense, which in traditional sanskrit grammar is defined as being the past time that could not be witnessed (भूते, परोक्षे). This is why Ḍalhaṇa made this grammatical point. In his view, therefore, the language implies that the reviser is separated by a significant period of time from the author of the work. The reviser is answering an implied question: “is this medical treatise the work of the revered teacher Dhanvantari or is it the work of the human pupil Suśruta?”
Thus we see that Ḍalhaṇa is again echoing a statement from Gayadāsa on this point. It is to be presumed that this whole discussion by Ḍalhaṇa is copied more or less from Gayadāsa’s Nyāyacandrikā. But unfortunately that part of the Nyāyacandrikā does not survive. It is particularly distressing that Gayadāsa’s own original remarks on this question of the different voices or registers in the text do not survive: it would have been be so interesting to know his views on this important topic in his own words.
A remaining open question relates to Candraṭa (fl. ca. 900-1050). We presume that Candraṭa preceded Gayadāsa in time. Was Candraṭa the “reviser” that Gayadāsa had in mind? As mentioned in a previous blog, Ḍalhaṇa seems to have been unaware of Candraṭa.
Finally, the identity of “medical” Nāgārjuna has been comprehensively discussed by Meulenbeld (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. 1A: 363–368). As Meulenbeld noted there,
In my opinion it does not have much sense to engage in discusssions on the number of different Nāgārjunas to be distinguished. The large number of very diverse works ascribed to Nāgārjuna and the material relating to his life are in favour of the hypothesis that Nāgārjuna developed into a legendary figure, who was not only a philosopher, but also an alchemist and a colourful wizard, to whom all kinds of writings could be attributed by Buddhists, Hindus and Jains.
Meulenbeld reflected further on the Nāgārjuna referred to by Ḍalhaṇa in the context of his remarks on the layers of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, but in spite of much scholarship on the topic, the issue remains inconclusive (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. 1A: 339-341).
Appendix: Surviving portions of the Nyāyacandrikā
Very little of the Nyāyacandrikā survives. Today, we have only the following manuscript fragments:
Sūtrasthāna
Nidānasthāna
- MS Bikaner Anup 4390 (Paris BnF Cordier 1177 & 1235 are copies of Anup 4390)
Śārīrasthāna
Kalpasthāna
- MS Bikaner RORI 5157 (This is probably part of the same scribal production as Jaipur RORI 6838.)
The only fragment to be published is the commentary on the Nidānasthāna, which was edited and included by Yādavaśarman Trivikramji Ācārya in his 1938 edition of the Suśrutasaṃhitā (Ācārya & Ācārya, 1938).
References
- Further Insight into the Role of Dhanvantari, the Physician to the Gods, in the SuśrutasaṃhitāAcademia Letters, 2021
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- श्रीडल्हणाचार्यविरचितया निबन्धसंग्रहाख्यव्याख्यया निदानस्थानस्य श्रीगयदासाचार्यविरचितया न्यायचन्द्रिकाख्यपञ्जिकाव्याख्यया च समुल्लसिता महर्षिणा सुश्रुतेन विरचिता सुश्रुतसंहिता1938
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