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Journal of the European Ayurvedic Society 4 (1995)
a little suspicious of the author, and reckons with the possibility that he saw his main task in just assembling assiduously all the "data" which prima facie can be passed off as confirmation of his original "idea".
In fact, in the end one cannot but wonder what remains of the multistoreyed building erected by Zysk once it has been stripped of those parts, some of them clearly weight-bearing, which
. are due to misinterpretations of text passages, . are first recognised as possibilities, but a little later treated as
facts, • are but one out of a number of equally possible interpretations,
or
represent conclusions not really deserving to be styled as such. A skeleton of steel girders, tightly joined to each other, or just the ruins of a collapsed structure?
Ironically Zysk may nevertheless ultimately be right. What I have in mind is first of all material not drawn upon by him, like e.g. the many, though stray, references to medicine in other parts of the Vinaya, or statements like e.g, that of Carakasamhita Cikitsästhāna 1,54(Ef.) ac cording to which tapodhanas like the Vaikhănasas and Välakhilyas became people whose lifespan is unlimited by taking the rasayana called brahma, or a verse like Sušrutasanhita, Sütrasthana 37,8:
gopalās tāpasa vyadha ye canye vanacärinah
mülāhārāś ca ye tebhyo bhesajavyaktir isyate, in which the group of people to be consulted about-effective-medication is, however, significantly larger than that envisaged by Zysk.
