PREFACE xxiii
has the merit of showing the precaiiousncss of the assumptions of such influence. Part of the argument for Indian influence rests on the belief in early dates for the Indian schools of thought, and it is clear that there is great difficulty in arriving at definite con- clusions on this issue. Thus Professor Das Gupta 1 places the Lankavatara before Acvaghosa, but the text we have seems to know the Vijnanavada school and the barbarian inroads of c. A. D. 500. Much stress has of late been laid on the Sarhkhya philosophy, 2 as it is presented in the Sarhhita of Caraka, but it seems to be overlooked that we have not the slightest proof that this or any special part of the text is really Caraka's. 3
Some light has been thrown by the discoveries of manuscripts in East Turkestan on the Bheda Saihhita* A paper manuscript with a fragment of the text, which can be assigned to the ninth century A. D., suggests strongly that the text published from a single Telugu MS. presents a version of the Sarhhita which has suffered alteration, a chapter on raktapitta in the Nidanasthana having been replaced by one on kasa. Another manuscript frag- ment, written on leather, from South Turkestan or Northern India, dating probably from the end of the second century A. D., say a hundred years before the manuscript of the Kalpanamandi- tika and fifty years after the manuscript of Acvaghosa's plays, is of interest, as it preserves a tradition of a doctrine of eight or ten rasas as opposed to the six which Caraka and Sucruta recognize, and which are generally accepted in Indian medicine. It is possible that we here have a trace of an older medical system, which was ultimately superseded by the system of Atreya, on which the work of Caraka is based.
The vexed issue of the indebtedness of Arabia and Europe to India for the numerical system has been reconsidered by Sukumar Ranjan Das, 6 who has dealt at length with Dr. Kaye's views.
1 Hist, of Indian Phil., i. 280.
Ibid., 1. 280 f., 312 ff.
5 Cf. Hoernle, Archivf. Gesch. d. Medizin, i. 30 ff. ; Jolly, Munich Catal., p. 48. The list of Tantrayuktis in viii is, of course, by Drdhabala, who again used the Uttaratantra of Sucruta ; Ruben, Festgabe Jacobi, pp. 354-7.
1 H. Liiders, Festgabe Garbe, pp. 148 ff. ; for the doubtful character of Caraka's text, see also pp. 154 f.
5 IHQ. ii. 97-120; iii. 356-75. See also D. E. Smith, Hist, of Math., vol. ii, ch. ii.
