Charaka
A figure from the books
#Charaka
Charaka · fl. c. 100 BCE – 200 CE
In the books · 1 chapter
Who this is
Medicine — the editor-physician of the Charaka Saṃhitā, the foundational compendium of kāya-cikitsā, internal medicine, and with the Suśruta Saṃhitā one of the two pillars of Āyurveda.
“The book that founded Indian medicine was not written by one man — an old compendium was revised by Charaka and completed centuries later by Dṛḍhabala — and it spends as many pages teaching doctors how to argue, examine and behave as it does teaching them how to cure.”
The big idea, in the book's words:
“Disease has causes, not curses — and a doctor's opinion is only as good as the reasoning behind it. The Charaka Saṃhitā built medicine as an argued discipline: examine, infer, debate, and swear an oath before you touch a patient.”
From the book
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