This is neither here nor there, but Kṣemendra makes a playful pun on this in his Deśopadeśa, which maybe can be translated like this:

A fraudulent physician is a swindler without a heart (hṛdaya), that is, he doesn’t possess

knowledge of Vāgbhaṭa’s Heart of Medicine. He is not collected (saṃgraha), that is, he

doesn’t possess knowledge of Vāgbhaṭa’s Medical Collection (saṃgraha). Being full of

faults (doṣin), he doesn’t diagnose the humors (doṣa). He is a vagrant (caraka), but he

doesn’t understand the Compendium of Caraka.

hṛdayavīno dhūrtaḥ saṃgraharahitaḥ sa vaṃcako vaidyaḥ |

vakti na doṣān doṣī carakaś carakaṃ na jānāti || 8.34

Take care,

Eric

On Fri, Jul 22, 2022 at 9:28 AM Dominik Wujastyk via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

There's a comprehensive discussion of uses of the word "caraka" in Meulenbeld's HIML, IA, 105 ff.  I have nothing new to add to that. GJM said, "The references to Caraka and Carakas discussed so far show that these names are very old and go back to Vedic times." (109).

Best,

Dominik

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Eric Gurevitch

South Asian Languages and Civilizations and

Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science

University of Chicago

gurevitch@uchicago.edu