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Sushruta Samhita

Palm leaves of the Sushruta Samhita or Sahottara-Tantra from Nepal, stored at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The text is dated 12th-13th century while the art is dated 18th-19th century.

The Sushruta Samhita (Sanskrit: सुश्रुतसंहिता, lit.'Suśruta's Compendium', IAST: Suśrutasaṃhitā) is an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and one of the most important such treatises on this subject to survive from the ancient world. The Compendium of Suśruta is one of the foundational texts of Ayurveda (Indian traditional medicine), alongside the Charaka-Saṃhitā, the Bhela-Saṃhitā, and the medical portions of the Bower Manuscript.[1][2] It is one of the two foundational Hindu texts on the medical profession that have survived from ancient India.[3]

The Suśrutasaṃhitā is of great historical importance because it includes historically unique chapters describing surgical training, instruments and procedures. [2][4][page needed] One of the oldest Sushruta Samhita palm-leaf manuscripts is preserved at the Kaiser Library, Nepal.[5]

  1. ^ Meulenbeld 1999, pp. 203–389 (Volume IA).
  2. ^ a b Rây 1980.
  3. ^ Wendy Doniger (2014), On Hinduism, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0199360079, page 79;
    Sarah Boslaugh (2007), Encyclopedia of Epidemiology, Volume 1, SAGE Publications, ISBN 978-1412928168, page 547, Quote: "The Hindu text known as Sushruta Samhita is possibly the earliest effort to classify diseases and injuries"
  4. ^ Valiathan 2007.
  5. ^ Kengo Harimoto (2011). "In search of the Oldest Nepalese Manuscript". Rivista degli Studi Orientali. 84: 85–88.

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