First, the name. “The Vulgate,” with a capital “V,” is a proper noun referring to a particular edition of the Bible. As the OED says,

1. Designating a translation of the Bible in widespread or common use, esp. that prepared mainly by St Jerome in the late 4th cent.

But “vulgate,” with a lower case “v,” means a commonly-accepted and widely-distributed edition of any classical text. A vulgate has achieve a status as the work in it’s widespread reception. Again, from the OED:

1. Chiefly with lower-case initial. That constitutes (part of) a standard, usual, or accepted version or rendering of a literary work, text, etc.

The 1938 edition of Ācārya

There are probably fifty or more editions of the Sanskrit text of the Suśrutasaṃhitā. The first was published in 1845–1846 in Kolkata by Madhusūdana Gupta (see the project post on printed editions) and formed the basis of early work on the Suśrutasaṃhitā. It is the edition that was excerpted by Böhtlingck and Roth for the Petersburg Wörterbuch, and is therefore the basis of the Suśruta entries in Monier-Williams. Gupta’s edition was also the basis of Hoernle’s translation of the beginning of the text, although he does not say so. It remains a lasting regret that Gupta did not mention the manuscripts upon which he based his seminal edition.

The 1938 edition, edited by Yādavaśarman Trivikramaja Ācārya and published by the Nirnaya Sagara Press of Mumbai, is what our project has designated “the vulgate”. Why is it so important?