Charaka (Sanskrit, M., Caraka, []) was an Indian physician. It is to have been the author of the Charaka Samhita.

The life data Charakas cannot be specified with certainty. As is to be taken from the year 427 from a Chinese translation of the Tripitaka n.Ch, a physician was named Charaka a body physician of the king Kanishka, in the 1. to 2. Jh. n. Chr. lived. Since however Charaka could have been at certain times a frequent name for the medical profession, it is not clarified whether this Charaka was also an author of the Charaka Samhita. The Charaka Samhita is together with the Sushruta Samhita the oldest still received medical work of India.

After the Charaka tradition it is to have given six schools of the medicine, which are to have been created by pupils of the physician Punarvasu Atreya. Everyone this pupil (Agnivesha, Bhela, Jatukarna, Parashara, Harita, and Ksharapani) is to have written a Samhita (text), about which the Agnivesha Samhita with 46.000 verses, which does not exist however any longer, which are to have been best. The Charaka Samhita is to be based on the Agnivesha Samhita. Dridhabala, around 400 the n. Chr. lived, is some verses of the text (up to a fifth in the Chikitsasthana), which with the time were lost, to have again-written.

The works Charakas became still before that 8. Jh. in the Arab translates. The name Charakas arises also in many to latin translations of Arab medicine books.

Ayurveda is divided in Charakas system into eight parts:

1. Sutra sthana, general one principles
2. Nidana sthana, pathology
3. Vimana sthana, diagnostics
4. Sarira sthana, physiology and anatomy
5. Indriya sthana, prognosis
6. Cikitsa sthana, therapy
7. Kalpa sthana, pharmacy
8. Siddhi sthana, treatment

Related links

• Read sample from a manual of the Charaka Samhita into German
• Ayurveda Scholars
• Ayurvedic Literature

Articles in category "Charaka"

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