DOMINIK WUJASTYK 17 into Persian by an Indian physician who is usually referred to as Manka,62 but is more properly called Maṅkha or Māṇikya according to various sources Our knowledge of Maṅkha’s activities are due mainly to the accounts of Ibn ‘Alī Uṣaybi‘a in his ‘Uyūn al-anbā’ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā and of al-Ṭabarī in his Tarīkh,63 A Müller (1880: 496–7) discussed the trustworthiness of the stories about Maṅkha and noted that Uṣaybi‘a borrowed them from a book called Kitāb Akhbār al-khulafā’ wa’l-barāmika or ‘Book of the history of the caliphs and Barmakids.’ Maṅkha, in these sources, is said to have come from India to the ‘Abbāsid court at Baghdād at the request of the Caliph Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd (fl 763 or 766–809) In the standard physician’s success story, the Caliph was suffering from a disease which his own physicians were unable to cure, but Maṅkha was summoned and was successful in healing the Caliph Maṅkha seems to have remained in Persia and may have embraced Islam He was appointed chief physician at the royal hospital in Baghdād During his time in Persia, he translated a number of Indian scientific treatises into Persian, including the Compendium of Caraka This work was translated again, from Persian to Arabic, by ‘Abdullāh ibn ‘Alī.64 Meulenbeld (HIML) listed no fewer than ten Arabic authors from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries who show a knowledge of Caraka’s work Transmission to the Islamic World Whatever the complexities of historical narrative and translation history, there are no compelling grounds for doubting that the Compendium of Caraka was known to physicians in Baghdād from the late eighth century onwards Building on the seminal research of van Bladel (2011), Shefer-Mossensohn and Hershkovitz (2013) have presented important evidence showing that the first bīmāristān or “place for the sick” of Baghdād was established under the direct influence of the Pramukhas (Barmakids), viziers to the Baghdād Khalifs and a family whose ancestors were Buddhists from Balkh, educated in medicine in Kashmir during the late seventh or early eighth century.65 I have proposed elsewhere that the Baghdād bīmāristān was likely to have been directly inspired by the hospital description provided in the Compendium of Caraka.66 62 Or ‘Mankbah’ in al-Ṭabarī’s Ta’rīkh according to Reinaud (1849: 315–6) 63 According to Siddiqi (1959: 36) 64 Siddiqi 1959: 61 The eleventh-century scholar Al Biruni says that he has his own defective translation of Caraka (Sachau 1910: 1.162) 65 This narrative moves the discussion for- ward decisively from earlier discussions such as those criticized by Dols, and picks up a point actually made by Dols (1987: 382383) that the establishment of the first Baghdād hospital was the work of Yaḥyā ibn Khālid ibn Barmak 66 Wujastyk 2016: 686 ff HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN SOUTH ASIA 10 (2022) 1–43