In the history of medicine in India, Vāgbhaṭa is the most celebrated author after Caraka and Suśruta. It is not known at what period Vāgbhaṭa lived. We usually place him in the sixth century; he is in any case earlier than the tenth century. His identity has been the subject of unending discussion, and Indian critics hold that there was an “elder Vāgbhaṭa” in addition to “Vāgbhaṭa”, grandson of the former and son of Siṃhagupta.
Several treatises of Āyurveda (Indian medicine; see article in the encyclopaedia) are ascribed to him. The most interesting are the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha and the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā which are probably two different versions of the same medical text whose teachings agree generally with those of Caraka and Suśruta. However the more commonly used text of Vāgbhaṭa is the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitāor “Compendium on the Heart of Medicine” which is considered the greatest synthesis on Āyurveda ever produced. The Chinese pilgrim Yi Jing, who stayed in India from AD 673 to 688,...
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Mazars, G. (2008). Vāgbhaṭa. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9446
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