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It can come as a surprise to discover that buried in one of the earliest medical treatises in Sanskrit is a short tract on the yogic path to liberation.This tract a mere thirty-nine verses-occurs in the Chapter on the Embodied Person (Stirirasthtina) in the Compendium of Caraka (Carakasaf!Zhitti).The Compen dium is a medical encyclopedia and perhaps the earliest surviving complete treatise on classical Indian medicine.It is even more surprising to find that this yogic tract contains several references to Buddhist meditation and a previously unknown eightfold path leading to the recollection or mindfulness that is the key to liberation.Finally, Caraka's yoga tract almost certainly predates the fa mous classical yoga system of Pataiijali.Let us explore these points in tum.Classical Indian medicine, ti y urveda {"the knowledge fo r long life"), is based on the body of medical theory and practice that was first collected and syn thesized in several great medical encyclopedias, including especially the The Compendium oJCaraka and The Compendium ofSuiruta (Sufrutasaf!Zhitti).How ever, there are traces of the fo rmation of this medical system to be fo und in earlier Sanskrit and Pall literature.The first occurrence of the Sanskrit word ti y urveda in Indian history is in the Mahtibhtirata epic.The epic also refers to medicine as having eight components, a term that is so standard in later lit erature that the science "with eight components" (tl.f(tiizga) becomes a syn onym fo r medicine.These components include topics such as therapeutics, pediatrics, possession, surgery, and toxicology.But the very earliest reference in Indian literature to a fo rm of medicine that is unmistakably a fo rerunner of ayurveda is fo und in the teachings of the Buddha {probably fl.ca.480-400 BCE, but these dates are still debated).As fa r as we know, it was not yet called ayurveda, but the basic concepts were the same as those that later fo rmed the fo undations of ayurveda.The Pall
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