Vagabhata: The most followed Physician of Ayurveda

                     

The very famous and highly followed Ayurveda treatise of "Astanga Samgraha" and "Astanga Hrudayam" are the work of Vagabhata 1 & vagabhata 2 respectively. 

Multiple Vagabhata

As it is already mentioned about the Vagabhata 1 and Vagabhata 2 along with that there are two more Vagabhata associated to Ayurveda viz Rasa Vagabhata and Madhya Vagabhata. 
'Rasa Vagabhata' (13th century) is concerned with science of Rasa shastra ( Ayurvedic science deals with processing of mineral medicaments) as he is the author of thr book 'Rasa Ratna Samuccaya'. Another one is the 'Madya Vagabhata' which is mentioned in the commentary of Ratnaprabha (commentary over the Brahma sutra i.e. written by Adi Sankracharya about the understanding of Upnishadas). 

Vagabhata 1

The 'Vruddha Vagabhata' is the author of Astanga Samgraha (the famous book in Ayurveda) also known as Vagabhata 1. He was born in Sindhu region (region near the bank of river Indus/ sindhu) and his father's name was 'Simhagupta' while his grandfather name was also Vagbhata (there is a tradition in India to keep the name of child same as that of his grand father). His mentor and guide is Avalokita. He attained the specific knowledge of Ayurveda from his father who was also a physician. Though, born in Brahamin family, he said to have accepted the 'Buddhism'.

His time period is somewhere near to the 550 AD beacuse of some of the references quoted by multiple scholar like;
The travelogue of Chinese traveler, It-Sing (7th century) mentiones a book in India containing the knowledge of all the eight branches of Ayurveda suggesting probably about it. Many numbers of words resembles the Gupta period viz the method of adoption was the prose and poetry both. which is symbolizes the effect of his contemporary like 'Kalidasa' (4-5th century). 

Vagabhta 2

The 'Laghu Vagabhta' is the author of 'Astanga Hrudyam', which is considered as the modified version of Astanga Samgraha. At one or two instances the author introduces himself as the son of 'Simhagupta'. It is possible that he belongs to the same clan of Vaghabta 1. 
The text Astanga Hrudyam is based on the Astanga Samgraha and is quoted in the Madhava nidana (700 AD, which is the book describing about th eaetiology of the diseases). So the period of Astanga Hrudyam is around end of the 6th century and the first part of 7th century. How it is said that both the Vagabhata are of different times? Because there is addition of some new drugs, plants, diseases and other physiological process etc; which were not mentioned in earlier book. 
Moreover here are many disimallrities between the two Vagabhta, but at the same time there are many simillarities, on behalf of that some people consider them as the same person like 'Vaidya Yadunandana Uppadhya' (he is the editor of Astanga Hrudyam's 'Vidyotini' commentary in Hindi). So there are so many different opinions regarding these both the books, but at the mean time it is not of much importance to conclude there time perod rather than to learn from there knowledge.

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