Each of the Vedas covers the role of ritual in a different sphere of life. The last, the Atharva-veda, is held by believers to have originally contained the basis of Ayurvedic medicine.
Atharvangiras, the old name from the Atharva-veda, suggest a twofold approach: pacificatory-curative practices and the practices of witchcraft and sorcery. Both practices were alike in the hands of priestly magicians and ‘medicine-men’ who dominated the scene before and during the Rgvedic period.
Atharva-veda was rearranged and revised perhaps around 800 BC in samhitas by the physician Charaka and the surgeon Sushruta.
Sushruta and Charaka both wrote encyclopedia medical treatises called samhitas.
The Charaka Samhita may not have been written in its present form until the first century AD. The Charaka Samhita mainly deals with Internal medicine. It is divided into eight parts and 120 chapters.
It also refers to over vegetable 300 drugs, the remainder being from animal and mineral sources. Charaka’s work contains the comprehensive theory and knowledge of Ayurveda, summarizing the ancient oral tradition in the form of lessons.
The current version of the Sushruta Samhita might date to the seventh century AD. Although a text on surgery, it mentioned nearly 400 vegetables drugs. Sushruta Samhita is a comprehensive work that especially details the practice of India surgery, which was as already noted highly advanced.
The number of plant medicines cited in these two works (Sushruta and Charaka) is greater than that of any other ancient people who left record of such matters.
Medicine in ancient India
