The Charaka Samhita

The Charaka Samhita tells its own history. It presents itself as the teaching of the sage Ātreya Punarvasu, written down by his pupil Agniveśa. A redactor named Caraka later revised Agniveśa's treatise. By the time of Dṛḍhabala, born in the town of Pañcanada, a third of it had been lost, and he wrote the missing parts himself: 17 chapters, usually taken to be the last 17 of the book on therapeutics, and the whole of the last two sections. The surviving text is generally regarded as his final redaction.

No firm date exists for any of these men. Jan Meulenbeld, in his History of Indian Medical Literature, placed the Caraka compilation between about 100 BCE and 200 CE and Dṛḍhabala around the fifth century CE. Older estimates ran much earlier: in 1969 I. A. Menon and H. F. Haberman gave about 1000 BC for Agniveśa and 300 to 200 BC for Caraka. Sylvain Lévi found a physician named Caraka at the court of King Kaniṣka in the Chinese Buddhist Tripiṭaka and took him for the author, while an Indian tradition identified Caraka with the grammarian Patañjali. The editors of the 1949 Jamnagar edition judged the Patañjali identification improbable.

The work has eight sections, covering general principles, causes of disease, specific determination, anatomy, prognosis from the senses, therapeutics, pharmaceutics and toxicology, and success in treatment. The 30th chapter of the first section lists all 120 chapters. Among the topics are the qualities of a good physician and nurse, quackery, which diseases are curable, dosage, diet and a healthy daily routine, along with remedies for poisoning and snake and insect bites.

A teacher initiated the medical student before the sacred fire, Brahmins and physicians. The student promised to stay celibate, speak the truth, eat no meat and carry no arms, and to work day and night for the relief of patients, never deserting or injuring one even to save his own life or living. He was not to reveal the customs of a patient's household or announce an approaching death where it would shock the patient. He was also to refuse treatment to enemies of the king, the wicked, the dying, and women who came without a husband or guardian.

According to the 1949 editors, Alberuni referred to an Arabic translation by Ali ibn Zain of Tabaristan, made for the princes of the Barmecide family, and another Arabic version was made from Persian on the order of Yahya ibn Khalid.