By Kurtis Schaeffer (University of Virginia, 2009)
The Medical Arts (གསོ་རིག་, gso rig) section contains seven works. It begins with three minor works attributed to Nāgārjuna (D.4334-D.4336), followed by a short commentarial work (D.4337) on the next work (D.4338), Vāghaṭa’s Condensed Essence of the Eight Branches [of Medicine] (ཡན་ལག་བརྒྱད་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་བསྡུས་པ་, yan lag brgyad pa'i snying po bsdus pa, aṣṭāṅga-hṛdaya-saṃhitā). This lengthy verse-work is the classic Indian source for medical scholarship in Tibet. Translated by the prolific west-Tibetan scholar Rinchen Zangpo (རིན་ཆེན་བཟང་པོ་, rin chen bzang po) in the late tenth or early-mid eleventh century, it served as a source for the major indigenous Tibetan medical treatise, the Four Tantras (རྒྱུད་བཞི་, rgyud bzhi). Major commentaries follow the Eight Branches. Two major prose commentaries follow the verse-work, the first by Vāghaṭa himself (D.4339); the second a massive three-volume encyclopedia of medical scholarship by Candranandana (D.4340). Candranandana’s commentary was also translated by Rinchen Zangpo, and was frequently cited in Tibetan commentaries on the Four Tantras.