On the Date of the Suśrutasaṃhitā
The early scholar Rudolf Hoernle proposed that some concepts from the Suśruta-Saṃhitā could be found in the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa, which he dated to the 600 BCE (see below). Unfortunately, this date is repeated very often, even today, by scholars who are not familiar with the progress of scholarship on the history of medicine in India [e.g., just one example]. However, during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, scholarship on the history of Indian medical literature has advanced substantially.
Reliable historical evidence has now accumulated showing that the Suśruta-saṃhitā is a work of several historical layers. The most detailed and extensive consideration of the date of the Suśrutasaṃhitā is that published by Meulenbeld in his History of Indian Medical Literature (1999–2002). He presented evidence to show that its composition may have begun in the last centuries BCE, but it was completed in its present form by another author who redacted its first five chapters and perhaps another who added the long, final section, the “Later Treatise” (Sanskrit Uttaratantra) which is more than a third of the work. It is likely that the Suśruta-saṃhitā was known to the scholar Dṛḍhabala, a contributor to the Carakasaṃhitā who wrote between the fourth and fifth centuries CE. Additionally, several ancient Indian authors used the name “Suśruta”, resulting in potential misattribution (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. IA, 333-357). In his words:
It is likely that the Suśruta-saṃhitā was known to the scholar Dṛḍhabala (fl. 300–500 CE), which gives the latest date for the version of the work that has survived into the modern era (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. IA, 203-389).
In the book Suśrutasaṃhitā - A Scientific Synopsis, published by the Indian National Science Academy, the historians of Indian science Ray, Gupta and Roy noted the following view, which is broadly the same as Meulenbeld’s:
“The Chronology Committee of the National Institute of Sciences of India (Proceedings, 1952),[9] was of the opinion that third to fourth centuries A. D. may be accepted as the date of the recension of the Suśruta Saṃhitā by Nāgārjuna, which formed the basis of Dallaṇa’s commentary.”
The above view remains the consensus amongst university scholars of the history of Indian medicine and Sanskrit literature.
Hoernle’s view
The scholar Rudolf Hoernle (1841–1918) based his 1907 argument on the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa, a Vedic text from the mid-first-millennium BCE (Proferes, 2020). Hoernle argued that the authors of the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa, were aware of the Suśrutasaṃhitā’s doctrines, and therefore the Suśrutasaṃhitā should be dated based on the composition date of Śatapathabrāhmaṇa (Hoernle, 1907, pp. 8-10). The composition date of the Brāhmaṇa was itself unclear, added Hoernle, but he estimated it to be about the sixth century BCE. However, Hoernle’s view was rooted in the unexamined assumption that the ideas about the human skeleton in the Suśrutasaṃhitā preceded those of the Brāhmaṇa. Strangely, Hoernle seems never to have questioned this unwarranted and unargued assumption.
Hoernle’s date of 600 BCE for the Suśrutasaṃhitā has been robustly challenged by intervening scholarship over the last century and into the twenty-first century. This scholarship was summarized by Meulenbeld in his History of Indian Medical Literature as outlined above.
Central to the problem of chronology is the fact that the Suśrutasaṃhitā was the work of several hands. The internal tradition recorded in manuscript colophons and by medieval commentators makes clear that an old version of the Suśrutasaṃhitā consisted of sections 1-5, with the sixth part having been added by a later author. However, the oldest extant manuscripts include the sixth section, called “The Later Book” (Skt. Uttara-tantra). Early manuscript colophons refer to the whole work as “The Suśrutasaṃhitā together with the Uttara-tantra,” reinforcing the idea that they are a combined work. Thus, it does not make sense to speak of “the date of Suśruta.” Like “Hippocrates,” the name “Suśruta” refers to the work of many authors working over several centuries.
Further views on chronology
As mentioned above, scores of scholars have proposed hypotheses on the formation and dating of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, ranging from 2000 BCE to the sixth century CE. These views have been gathered and described by the medical historian Jan Meulenbeld (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. IA, 341-346).
Authorship
Suśruta is named in the text of the Suśrutasaṃhitā as the author (Sūtrasthāna 1.12), and is presented in later manuscripts and printed editions as narrating the teaching of his guru, Divodāsa. Early Buddhist Jatakas mention a Divodāsa as a physician who lived and taught in ancient Kashi (Varanasi). The earliest known mentions of the name “Suśruta” firmly associated with the tradition of the Suśrutasaṃhitā are in the Bower Manuscript (sixth century CE), where Suśruta is listed as one of the ten sages residing in the Himalayas (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. IIA, 3-12).
After a review of all past scholarship on the identity of Suśruta, Meulenbeld concluded that:
As is obvious from the foregoing, it is rather generally assumed that we owe the main part of the Suśrutasaṃhitā or an earlier version of it to a historical person called Suśruta. This assumption, however, is not based on uncontrovertible evidence and may be illusory. The text of the Suśrutasaṃhitā does not warrant that the one who composed it was a Suśruta. The structure oif the treatise shows without ambiguity that the author, who created a coherent whole out of earlier material, attributed the teachings incorporated in his work to Kāśirāja Divodāsa… (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. IA, 342).
Chinese evidence
Recently, Lu has discussed the reception of the materials of Suśrutasaṃhitā sūtrasthāna, chapter 29 by Chinese Buddhists, especially in the work of the second- and third-century translators of Saṅgharakṣa’s Yogācārabhūmi, An Shigao (ca. 148–180 CE) and Dharmarakṣa (fl. 284 \CE) (Lu, 2025). As Lu says, “The Sanskrit text fixes the baseline wording” of the Chinese translations (ibid., p. 2). This fixes the reception of the Suśrutasaṃhitā in China to the mid- to late second century.
References
- Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India: Osteology or the Bones of the Human Body1907
- Translating Medicine Across Cultures: The Divergent Strategies of An Shigao and Dharmarakṣa in Introducing Indian Medical Concepts to ChinaReligions, Jun 2025
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