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Manuscript · Oldest dated copy 878 CE

Manuscripts of the Sushruta Samhita

Found
Palm-leaf copy KL 699 in the Kaiser Library, Kathmandu, identified by the Nepal-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project and announced in 2007
Kept at
Kaiser Library, Kathmandu; other old copies in the National Archives of Nepal

A palm-leaf copy of the Sushruta Samhita made in Nepal in 878 CE, older than any other dated copy and older than the commentary of Dalhana that shaped the printed text.

What it says

Its colophon gives a date that converts to 13 April 878 CE. It covers about two-thirds of the Samhita, and its readings differ in many places from the printed text. The Samhita itself describes more than a hundred surgical instruments and, in the Sutrasthana, rebuilding a cut nose with a flap of skin taken from the cheek.

What it proves

It gives scholars the Samhita as it was read in the 9th century, and keeps the line of Ayurvedic surgery traced to Maharshi Sushruta.

Evidence for