________________
322
A. Wezler
it also stands clearly in contradiction to unequivocal passages in Buddhist texts themselves!
There is, however, still another striking feature in the Vyadhisūtra passage one should not silently pass over as done by de la Vallée Poussin. What I am referring to is the fact which cannot but be styled as strange that the physician conversant with the four angas is characterized as worthy of [treating] a king (räjärha), befitting a king (rajayogya), and is, finally, said to class with the king's property (rajangatve ca samkhyam gacchati). It would seem hardly necessary to state that these predicates can by no means have to do with the frequent designation of the Buddha as vaidyaraja.
Yet one might feel induced to refer to the well-known fact that Buddhist monks off and on succumbed to the temptation of acting as medical practitioners, and that for many reasons they might have even tried to qualify as royal physicians. But though it has to be admitted that historical social reality is reflected in (Buddhist) texts in this regard, too, in the passage under discussion there is no indication whatsoever that we have to do with such a case.
I think I should not any longer avoid coming to the point which, of course, is the following: the characterization of the physician as rajarha, etc., in the Vyädhisûtra cannot consistently and convincingly be accounted for but by assuming that it was retained when the exposition of the quadruple division of the science of medicine was taken over from another source. Another particular feature that was simply retained was the order of enumeration of the four skills of a physician which, significantly enough, does not perfectly correspond to the traditional order of succession of the Four Noble Truths. And this source
94. In view of the parallels in the Abhidharmakosa, viz. pp. 136.15.3, 114.23, 115.9, and in Pali texts (e.g. AN I.244.8-10 where the stock phrase rajdraha rajabhogga (sic!) ranño angan l'eva sankham gacchati, said of a thoroughbred horse, is met with, or AN 1.284.11-12, etc.) one would expect here rather rajdigam iti ca... Yet, the text as it is transmitted can, I think, be accepted if -tva is taken to denote a collective idea and is construed in accordance with J. S. SPEIJER, Sanskrit Syntax, repr. Kyoto, 1968, 238. It should, however, be noted that "tve ca in Sanskrit might go back to Pali tveva which latter, quite often met with, is according to an information kindly given me by my friend O. von Hinüber a wrongly sanskritized form for teva (<ity eva). In rendering... sankhyam gacchati I follow the proposal of the PD pp. 570 and 664; as for the expression rajanga, cf. CPD s.v. anga.
95. bhisakka is styled an adhivacana of the Tathagata at AN IV.340.5-6; as for vaidyardja itself cf. the book of R. Birnbaum (cf. fn. 76) as well as the Hōbōgirin s.v. byd, p. 230. ff.
96. Cf. e.g. A. L. BASHAM, The Wonder that was India, London, 1954, p. 499, and R. BIRNBAUM, op. cit., p. 6 ., p. 20 f. (with further references); as noted by the latter, the Suvarpaprabhāsottamasutra even describes how Sakyamuni [himself] in a past life studied all the principles of medicine in order to aid his contemporaries, a legend which not only has grown out of particular Mahäyänistic ideas, but is also most probably due to the wish to make the Buddha himself the prototype of what a Buddhist monk had become in the course of time.
On the Quadruple Division of the Yogasăstra
323
cannot have been a Buddhist text; it was in all probability a medical text, or, at least, the science of medicine. This conclusion, though cogent in itself, is further and most clearly corroborated by the fact that the only Sanskrit medical text in which the four systematic parts are at all mentioned, viz. the Carakasamhită, surprisingly enough comes to speak of them only in connection with the description of the qualifica tions of a rajärho bhişaktamaḥ" and shows the same order of enumerating them. To regard this striking agreement as quite an accident would, no doubt, be nonsensical. Of course, one cannot be absolutely sure that it was this verse of the Carakasamhita which was the source drawn upon by the author of the Vyadhisūtra, for the alternative possibility, viz. that both go back to a common, though unknown source, cannot be ruled out with certainty. But this much seems clear: the fact that the science of medicine falls into four systematic parts, viz. those mentioned in quite a few different texts, was discovered first by medical men.
To return now to the central question" as formulated at the outset of this paragraph. It has to be stated that Buddhist sources do not by any means support the assumption that « les "Quatre Vérités" du Bouddhisme sont empruntées à la médecine; on the contrary, they give clear evidence that the science of medicine with its four systematic parts was drawn upon only for the sake of illustration; it is but the following hypothesis these sources warrant to frame: the obviously old comparison of the Buddha to a physician, of his teaching to a medicine and similar ideas were in the course of time elaborated, but it was not until the quadruple division of the science of medicine originating in medical circles became known to Buddhist authors that the Four Noble Truths as such were by way of comparison paralleled to the corresponding parts of the Cikitsäsästra, though a full parallelism, i.e. regarding the order of succession also, was achieved only by a second step. However, it seems that the full importance of this systematic division was not realized by medical men, but significantly enough by quite different people, viz. those Yoga and Buddhist authors who applied it for the first time to their respective doctrines of salvation.
Therefore, one cannot but draw the final conclusion that there is not the slightest evidence for the assumption that this fourfold division of the science of medicine it was that inspired the Buddha to his Four
97. As there were already similar idioms in Buddhist tradition (cf. p. 316 and fn. 94), it was quite easy for Buddhist authors to seize on this suggestion of medical
texts.
98. In contradistinction to the authors of the Höbögirin who (loc. cit.) voice the opinion that la question de savoir si le bouddhisme a "emprunté" ses quatre Vérités à la médecine n'a guère d'intérêt, I find this question extremely interesting. and not only because many Buddhologists do believe in this borrowing; but I differ also from Oldenberg in that I am less pessimistic as to the possibility of finding an answer to it, though, of course, only a hypothetical one.
