Candraṭa's editing of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, updated October 2026

Update of 2026: new example from the Sanjay Sharma Museum, Jaipur

To the original blog post (below), we can now add the colophon of MS Jaipur Sanjay Sharma Museum RN4MSS 4720:

sauśrute caṃdraṭeneha bhiṣakṭīsaṭasūnunā pāṭhaśuddhiḥ kṛtā taṃtro | ṭīkām ālokya jaijjaṭīṃ| iti sauśrute āyurvedaśāstre uttarasthānaṃ samāptaṃ // 1 // saṃ 1688 varṣe nabhasi mā

Original post of September 2024

Candraṭa was a Sanskrit author on medical topics who lived in the period 900-1050 CE (Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. IIA: 122–125). He is perhaps best known for writing a commentary on his father Tīsaṭa’s treatise, Cikitsākalikā. But Candraṭa wrote several other works, and of most relevance to our project is his “Editorial Corrections to the Suśruta text” (Suśrutapāṭhaśuddhi). Candraṭa himself said that he created this work, in a verse included at the end of his commentary on the Cikitsākalikā:

cikitsākalikāṭīkāṃ yogaratnasamuccayam/
suśrute pāṭhaśuddhiṃ ca tritayaṃ candraṭo vyadhat//

“I created the following three works: the commentary on the Cikitsākalikā, the Yogaratnasamuccaya and the Suśrutapāṭhaśuddhi (`Correction of the Text of the Suśruta’).”

— MS Oxford Bodleian Library Fraser 21 (Aufrecht, 1864, pp. 358, entry no. 852), dated 1530 CE.

An authorial statement is also found in some colophons of the Suśrutapāṭhaśuddhi itself, as is shown on f. 59 of MS London IOLR Taylor 1842 (Eggeling catalogue no. 2646):

[corrected transcription:] sauśrute caṃdraṭeneha bhiṣakṭīsaṭasūnunā /
pāṭhaśuddhiḥ kṛtā taṃtre ṭīkām ālokya jaijjaṭīṃ //

“The correction of readings (pāṭhaśuddhi) in the treatise of Suśruta was done by Candraṭa the son of the doctor Tīsaṭa, after studying the commentary of Jejjaṭa.”

Another MS that has the same statement is MS Bikaner Anup 4391 (Kunhan Raja Catalogue p. 337):

In an undated manuscript of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, śārīrasthāna, from Kurukṣetra, we find the same text in a section colophon, but in a slightly expanded form (MS Kurukṣetra Jawaharlal Nehru Library 19786, f. 78v):

sūtrasthānaṃ nidānena śārīreṇa samanvitaṃ /
samāptaṃ vai turīyaṃ te vakṣyāmy atra cikitsitaṃ //
sauśrute caṃdraṭeneha bhiṣakṭīsaṭasūnunā /
pāṭhaśuddhiḥ kṛtā taṃtre ṭīkām ālokya jaijjaṭīṃ // ḥ // śrīḥ//

“The sūtrasthāna has been completed, with the nidāna and śārīra sthānas, and I will explain the fourth, the cikitsāsthāna. The Correction of Readings (pāṭhaśuddhi) in the treatise of Suśruta was done by Candraṭa the son of the doctor Tīsaṭa, after studying the commentary of Jejjaṭa.”

The Kurukṣetra colophon above has the extra initial statement, “I will explain (vakṣyāmi).” It is not clear whose voice this is. Is it the scribe? But vakṣyāmi is normally an authorial expression, where a scribe would be more likely to say something like likhyate mayā. The second statement, which is the same as that of the London MS, is more straightforward: Candraṭa wrote The Correction of Readings. This sounds like a statement by Candraṭa himself. However, this raises the question of why the statement appears at the end of the Kurukṣetra manuscript, which contains only the Suśrutasaṃhitā, and does not include Candraṭa’s work. However, it is definitely of interest that the scribe of the Kurukṣetra manuscript was aware of Candraṭa’s work and thought of it as a relevant reference to raise in the context of a manuscript of the Suśrutasaṃhitā. This means that several centuries after Candraṭa, the Suśrutasaṃhitā was thought of as a work that he had corrected.

Bibliography

1. Codices Sanscriticas Complectens

   Theodor Aufrecht

   1864

   \cite[#0767]bisw-1998
2. A History of Indian Medical Literature

   Gerrit Jan Meulenbeld

   1999

   URL