Page:A History of Hindu Chemistry Vol 1.djvu/44

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

xxvi

also find mention of the same name. It is not, however, easy to establish any connection between these names and our present author. That there was a Vriddha (old) Susruta, exisiting as early as the fifth century A. D., has now been established almost beyond doubt. Dr. Hoernle, to whose profound scholarship and indefatigable labours the world is indebted for the excellent edition of the Bower Ms., has deduced from palæographic evidence that it must have been copied within the period from about 400 A. D. to 500 A. D.[1]—a conclusion at which Prof. Bühler has independently arrived. The work professes to be by Susruta, to whom it was declared by the Muni Kásirája. The origin of the Ayurveda as given in the Bower Ms., is on much the same lines as in the Charaka and the mention in it, among others, of such names as Hárita, Bhela, Parásara, and the Asvins as founders of the science of medicine, would go to prove

  1. On the date of the Bower Ms., See "Journ. As. Soc." LX. Pt. 1. p. 79.