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Rh topics which legitimately belong to, or are but incidentally mentioned in those subdivisions. Hence it is more of the nature of an appendix or supplement, arising out of the exigencies of the original subdivisions. It is probable that Nagarjuna might have redacted this part of the Samhita in common with its other portions. (1}

Western opipions on the subject:—The consensus of western opinions is to place Nagarjuna in the first quarter of the third Century B. C. (2), and for fixing Sushruta as a contemporary of Sakya Sinha Buddha. It is contended that the age immediately preceding Sakya Muni was a period of decadence in Hindu thought; and the Sushruta Samhita must have been the fruit of a revived intellectual activity which usually follows the advent of a new creed^an assumption which is in favour of the hypothesis of Greek influence on the Hindu system of medicine. But great men there had been in India before Buddha. The age which immediately preceded the age of Buddha was by no means an age of decadence properly speaking, the age which followed the downfall of Buddhism shows, on the contrary, signs of true decadence. India had had eminent philosophers and scientists almost contemporaneously with the great Buddha. The chronological facts collected above from the Mahabharatam, and the Garuda Puranam could have been construed to prove that the age of Sushruta was prior to that of the Mahabharatam but for the internal evidence furnished by the Samhita itself as to the probable date of its composition which we shall have occasion to deal with later on.

Extraneous Evidence:—Sushruta is mentioned in the

(3) Lalita-Vistaram — Raja R. L. Mitter's Edition, Chaptet I.