Talk:Sushruta Samhita
Discussion page of Sushruta Samhita
More actions
Talk
Discussion for: Sushruta Samhita • View • Links • Related changes
Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.
Page scope
The page treats the Sushruta Samhita as a cannabis source: the passages read as cannabis since 1894, what each says, how the reading spread and how it was reassessed.
Data verification
Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
Sources
- Wujastyk, "New Manuscript Evidence for the Textual and Cultural History of Early Classical Indian Medicine" (2013), pp. 141 (date), 145–147 (commentators, variant readings, the Kathmandu manuscript NAK 9/699). The chapter is on Zenodo.
- Bhishagratna (ed. and trans.), An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita: vol. II (Calcutta, 1911), p. 685 (Kalpasthāna 2, the root poisons); vol. III (Calcutta, 1916), p. 41 (Uttaratantra 11, the fomentation of the eye). Both volumes are on Wikimedia Commons.
- Grierson, note in the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission's report, vol. III (1894), pp. 246–247.
- Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, report, vol. I (1894), ch. X, para. 459, pp. 174–175.
- I. C. and R. N. Chopra, Bulletin on Narcotics (1957), the section on cannabis in Ayurvedic medicine.
- Aldrich, Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 9 (1977), p. 228.
- Meulenbeld, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 15 (1989), pp. 60–64 and 67, with notes 3, 4 and 12.
- Wujastyk, in Ayurveda at the Crossroads of Care and Cure (2002), p. 55.
Where the sources disagree
- Verse numbers. The eye verse is Uttaratantra 11.3 in Grierson, 11.5 in Meulenbeld (who used the 1938 Bombay edition of Jādavji Trikamji Ācārya) and verse 4 of chapter 11 in Bhishagratna. Grierson's two vijayā passages are "Ut. XXIV, 20" and a passage in chapter 39 cited by page ("page 415, 20"); Meulenbeld cites Ḍalhaṇa's commentary on Uttaratantra 24.21 and 39.196 for vijayā as harītakī. The sources do not say whether these are the same verses.
- Vijaya or vijayā in Kalpasthāna 2. Bhishagratna's translation prints Vijayā as the last of the eight root poisons. Meulenbeld states that the Sanskrit compound ends in vijaya, not vijayā.
- The Chopras' summary. They give three uses (antiphlegmatic, catarrh with diarrhoea, biliary fever) as uses of "cannabis leaves". Grierson gives the first for bhaṅga and the other two for vijayā, which he took to be myrobalan in those passages.
- Date. Grierson dates the work "before the eighth century A.D." Wujastyk gives about 250 BCE for its earliest content and about 500 CE for its general form.
Uncertain points
- Wujastyk writes that the Kathmandu manuscript's importance holds "if the manuscript's date holds up to scrutiny". Its colophon date, 877, comes from Dimitrov and Tamot (2007), whom he quotes.
- The article gives the passages in Bhishagratna's English. The Sanskrit wording of Uttaratantra 11.5 and Kalpasthāna 2.5 is described from Meulenbeld, who quotes the compound endings but not the full verses.