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A. Wezler
On the Quadruple Division of the Yogasastra
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drogya, it is highly probable that what Buston has in mind is the same quadruple division as drawn upon in our Yoga texts.
After consulting well-known works of secondary literature on Indian medicine where, however, the quadruple division is apparently not men tioned at all, I decided to turn for help to some of the specialists in this field of learning instead of setting out myself on possibly a wildgoose chase in the impenetrable jungle of the extant Ayurvedic texts (begging pardon for the all too mixed metaphor). It was my colleague R. E. Emmerick who drew my attention to Carakasamhita, sūtrasthāna 9.19, i.e. to the following verse:
involved. Is the assumption at all justified that the division when attested in such texts forms at the same time the scheme on which the actual exposition of the argument of the texts concerned is based? In other words: Can we expect to find the quadruple division attested in an Ayurvedic text in such a manner that this text itself is explicitly or implicitly divided into exactly four systematic parts or chapters corre sponding to the four vyâhas? As to this, it seems expedient to proceed with caution; for, a first
inst such an assumption is the observation, simple though it is, that, in any case in Yoga texts, the caturvyahatva is at best stated to be a divisionary scheme, but that it is nowhere actually made the basis of a corresponding disposition of the material: there is no Yoga text in which this systematic division is taken seriously in such a manner that the exposition actually follows this scheme. A second warning is given by another division of the science of medicine referred to in medical texts themselves, viz. the octopartite division of therapy. Yet, it is not these eight parts of Ayurveda as listed e.g. in the Sušruta. samhita I, 1, 7, or in the Astăngahşdaya I, 1, 5cd-6ab, that matter in the present context, but a fact stressed by J. Filliozat in the introduction to his recent edition of the Yogaśataka, a medical text attributed to Nägărjuna for, referring to an article of C. Vogel's he points out that dans le titre des Asiangasamhita et Asidigahrdayasamhita de Vägbhaga, astanga désigne la science médicale en général et parties de l'ouvrage
What both these observations come to is that it would indeed be well to distinguish between a division of the science of medicine taught somewhere, on the one hand, and the actual internal organisation of medical texts, on the other. Therefore, one has to reckon with the possibility that all one finds in medical texts is simply a reference to the scheme, perhaps even in an offhand manner. The degree of probability that at least this kind of evidence can actually be found is, however, quite high, for the quadruple division is, according to C. Vogel, referred to by yet another witness, and, to be sure, an independant one, viz. Buston (1290-1364) who in his comprehensive History of Buddhism coming to speak of medical works, says : « As for the works on medicine, they teach four (topics): disease, cause of disease, medicament as antidote to disease, and method of curing thereby . Though the suc. cession of the last two members is, again, reversed and the Tibetan gso-ba'i spyod-lam does not fully correspond to the Sanskrit term
hetau linge prasamane roganām apunarbhave/ jnanam caturvidham yasya sa rajarho bhişaktamah //.
Cakrapanidatta does not explain this verse, but there can hardly be any doubt that the fourfold knowledge » spoken of here is practically identical with our quadruple division of the Cikitsasastra; for the expression apunarbhava can be equated with our arogya, the only difference being that by the former health as something regained is para phrased as the not-occurring-again (of a disease) ; further, the term prasamana closely corresponds to our bhaisaiya, at least if taken to denote that by which (a disease) is tranquillized, i.e. cured ; and, finally, as regards the expression linga, here it cannot but meansymptom , and thus it corresponds to our roga, only that it is not the disease itself that is denoted, but its characteristic sign(s), and this is clearly done with the aim of bringing out into proper relief an essential virtue of any physician, viz. to make a proper diagnosis by the symptoms. Particularly noteworthy, however, is that it is not every physician who is expected to have this fourfold knowledge, but only a bhisaktama, an excellent physician, and that he is in addition stated to be fit or worthy of treating) a king .; for, this cannot but imply that the common variety of a bhişaj ordinary people have to depend on need not necessarily be equally well versed in all four parts of the science of medicine. Nevertheless, what is attested in this verse of the Carakasamphitā is clearly a systematic division of the Cikitsaśāstra into four parts and, to be sure, a division which may, inspite of certain terminological and conceptional differences, well be taken to be virtually identical with that referred to by the author of the YBhäsya, etc.; on the other hand, however, it has to be stressed that even if the verse
42. Publications de l'Institut Français d'Indologie, no. 62, Pondichéry, 1979.
43. Viz., On Buuston's View of the Eight Parts of Indian Medicine, in IIJ, VI (1962), pp. 290-95.
44. Op. cit., p. IV. In Vogel's article (the reference should be «p. 291, n. 3, not. n. 2.), however, this is not expressly stated though perhaps implied.
45. The reference is to his article mentioned in fn. 43. 46. Quoted from Vogel, loc. cit., p. 290.
47. Viz, insofar as for obvious reasons the medical treatment itself is given prominence and not the aim it has to achieve.
