Editing a Foundational Work on Classical Indian Medicine: The Printed Editions of the Carakasaṃhitā in Context

This paper presents a first study of the history of the printed editions of the Carakasaṃhitā, one of the two foundational early-classical works of traditional medicine in South Asia (Āyurveda) written in Sanskrit, ever since the publication of its editio princeps by the Bengali physician–scholar Gangadhar Ray in 1868. First, a general survey of fifty-six editions published until 2011, not counting second and further editions, remakes and reprints, is presented and analyzed from various points of view: the supplementation of the text with commentaries and translations, and the involved choice of language; scripts, regions and specific places on the timeline; and persons, such as editors, publishers and printers, and other involved actors. The latter aspect is treated in much detail with a historical focus on the pre-independence period of the present Republic of India, and reveals the relevant scholarly and family networks, with a wealth of prosopographical information gained from the exploration of the rich, hitherto almost completely ignored introductions to the editions of the work written in Sanskrit and Hindi, many of which are presented for the first time in English translation. They also form the substantial textual basis for the subsequent exploration of the multi-faceted motivation and purpose behind the production of the pre-independence editions, commentaries and attached translations of the Carakasaṃhitā in the colonial context. They are mainly the preservation of a traditional scientific heritage, the shaping of a national scientific identity, and the accommodation of ‘foreign knowledge’ in the ancient medical knowledge. Three appendices present (1) a brief tabular survey of the editions of the Carakasaṃhitā published until 2011, (2) an analysis of the intricate history of an important early edition of Cakrapāṇidatta’s Āyurvedadīpikā, the only completely preserved pre-modern commentary in Sanskrit, and (3) a historical discussion of references to plastic surgery and brain surgery in ancient India made by Ramprasad, author of a Hindi commentary on the Carakasaṃhitā attached to an edition published in 1911, in his introduction.