Articles

Sanskrit Medical Scholasticism —Jajjaṭa’s Nirantarapadavyākhyā and Other Commentaries on the Carakasaṃhitā, Cikitsāsthāna 2.1—

Authors

  • Kenneth G. Zysk
  • Tsutomu Yamashita

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21827/5c3f01174756c

Abstract

The Nirantarapadavyākhyā by Jajjaṭa (or Jejjaṭa) is one of the earliest and,
therefore, one of the most important commentaries on the Carakasaṃhitā. This
commentary is incomplete, but sufficient portions survive to allow a study of
the earliest form of medical commentary in India. The extant portions of this
commentary are large sections of the Cikitsāsthāna and part of the Kalpasthāna
and Siddhisthāna. The text of Nirantarapadavyākhyā by Jajjaṭa has never been
critically edited. In this paper, we present a text-critical edition and translation
of the Nirantarapadavyākhyā on the Carakasaṃhitā, Cikitsāsthāna Chapter 2,
Quarter 1 (CaCi 2.1) based on several copies of a lost palm-leaf manuscript
in Malayalam script and the printed edition by Haridatta Śāstrin published
in 1941. In order to follow the intellectual development of potency-therapy
(vājīkaraṇa) in the Sanskrit medical literature, the remaining three extant major
commentaries are also translated from the existing printed editions. These three
commentaries are Cakrapāṇidatta’s Āyurvedadīpikā in the eleventh century,
Gaṅgādhara’s Jalpakalpataru in the mid-nineteenth century, and Yogīndranāth
Sen’s Carakopaskāra in the early-twentieth century.

Published

2019-01-14

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Section

Articles