‘Charak’ was the famous court physician of
(A) Harsha
(B) Chandra Gupta Maurya
(C) Ashoka
(D) Kanishka
Answer: (D) Charaka was one of the principal contributors to the ancient art and science of Ayurveda, a system of medicine and lifestyle developed in Ancient India. He is referred to as the Father of Medicine. The life and times of Charaka are not known with certainty. Some Indian scholars have stated that Charaka of Charaka Samhita existed before Panini, the grammarian, who is said to have lived before the sixth century B. C. Another school argues that Patanjali wrote a commentary on the medical work of Charaka. They say that if Patanjali lived around 175 B.C., Charaka must have lived sometime before him. Another source about the identity of Charaka and his times are provided by the French orientalist Sylvan Levi. He discovered in the Chinese translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, a person named Charaka who was a court physician to the Indo-Scythian King Kanishka, who in all probability reigned in the second century A.D. From the above discussion, it would seem that Charaka may have lived between the second century B.C. to the second century A.D.
