146 
Dr. Hoernle— An instalment of the Bower Manuscript [No. 3, 
much more like an elaborate joke. According to him the name Susruta is 
only an Indian adaptation of the Arabic name Suqrat ( Js\yu» ) } which 
itself is a confusion with Buqrat (Tfyb), the Arabic corruption of the 
Greek Hippokrates (ibid., p. 652). And in the name of the city of 
Kasi (Benares), where (as Dr. Haas believes) the medical science is 
said to have originated, he sees an adaptation of the name of the island 
of Cos (kws), which was known to the Arabs to have been the native 
land of Hippokrates (ibid., p. 654). Accordingly he holds, that the 
Susruta was compiled somewhere between the 12th and 15th centuries 
A. D., and is based on information supplied by Muhammadan physicians 
(ibid., pp. 666, 667). 
One of the main pillars of this theory is the opinion held by Dr. 
Haas (and others), that according to the Susruta, Kasi-Benares is the 
place where Hindu medical science took its origin (see ibid., pp. 627, 
665, 654). This opinion is based on the statement, that “ Susruta and 
his companions addressed the Kasiraja Divodasa Dhanvantari in his 
Asrama Now even if it be right to take Kasiraja as a title (‘ king of 
Kasi ’) of Divodasa Dhanvantari, it does not follow that the asrama, 
where the instruction took place, was in or near Kasi. On the contrary, 
all that we know of Indian habits suggests that the meaning of Susruta 
is that when the “ king of Kasi ” communicated his instruction, he had 
resigned his kingdom and retired into an Himalayan retreat, to study 
and practice asceticism. This may be all invention, but it is just what 
would be consonant with the ideas of a Hindu author. But it seems to 
me, our manuscript renders it very improbable that Kasiraja is a title ; 
it may have been so in the thoughts of the author of the modern Susruta, 
but in our manuscript itself it seems to be used rather as the proper name 
of a Muni. This takes aways all force from the argument based on a 
supposed origin of the medical science in Benares. 
But in his main principles, I am disposed to believe, Dr. Haas is 
correct. He distinguishes between an earlier and a later period of the 
literary cultivation of medical science among the Hindus (ibid., pp. 648, 
650). The earlier period extends down to the arrival of the Arabs in 
India, who brought with them the knowledge of Greek medicine. To 
this period, Dr. Haas thinks, the Charaka may belong (ibid., p. 651) 
as well as other treatises, no more now identifiable (ibid., pp. 628, 629, 
657). Two of the earlier works of the second jDeriod Dr. Haas con¬ 
siders to be Vagbhatta’s Ashtanga-hridaya and the Madliava-nidana 
(ibid., p. 649, 650). The Susruta, as already remarked, he places also 
in the second period, but much later, after the 12th century. This may be 
true, so far as the work, now known as the Susruta, is concerned ; but that 
some Susruta existed already in the earlier period, is now indisputably 
proved by our manuscript. It not only proves that a Susruta existed 
