Carakasaṁhitā is the compendium compiled by the Sage Agnivēśa by the preaching of expounder Punarvasu Ātrēya. It is redacted by Maharṣi Caraka, and thus it becomes popular by the name of Carakasaṁhitā in Ayurvedic fraternity. Ācārya Dr̥ḍhabala, re-redacted the Carakasaṁhitā and added 41 chapters including kalpasthāna, siddhisthāna and 17 chapters of cikitsāsthāna, which were lost in the due course of time in original manuscript. This compendium is considered as the authoritative text on kāyacikitsā and praised as "....śrēṣṭhaḥ....carakastu cikitsitē". Though the details of all aṣṭāṅga (Eight specializations) are given, elaborated description about the kāyacikitsā is available in this scripture and hence it is considered as the authoritative text on kāyacikitsā.

This compendium is divided into 8 sections and 120 chapters (sūtrasthāna-30, nidānasthāna-8, vimānasthāna-8, śārīrasthāna-8, indriyasthāna-12, cikitsāsthāna-30, kalpasthāna -12 and siddhisthāna -12 chapters). Sūtrasthāna describes about the fundamental principles of Ayurveda to maintain the health of a healthy person and to cure the diseases of diseased person in the form of sūtra. In nidānasthāna, 06 Somatic and 02 Psychosomatic diseases description is available according to nidānapañcaka.

In the guidelines of treating any disease, it is said that; if treatment is done based on the different stages of dōṣa-bhēṣaja-kāla-bala-śarīra-sāra-āhāra-sātmya-satva-prakr̥ti-vaya-agni concepts, then only it will become successful. Method of aṁśāṁśavikalpanā of these concepts is described in planned manner in the vimānasthāna. By understanding these concepts, physician can do the successful treatment to any disease.

Caraka has added śārīrasthāna to this compendium, to attain a comprehensive knowledge about the satva, ātmā, śarīra. Somatic disease causes psychiatric disease and vice versa. The same is explained in the following verse as -- śarīraṁ hi sattvamanuvidhīyatē sattvaṁ ca śarīram|| (Ca. śā. 4 / 36).

In the process of treating complicated diseases, often mortality is high. In such conditions to avoid unpopularity of vaidya, a unique section, called indriyasthāna is given in this compendium featuring with symptoms/signs impending death of human beings and the same is explained in the following verse as

arthavidyāyaśōhānimupakrōśamasaṅgraham|
prāpnuyāt niyataṁ vaidyō yōasādhyaṁ samupācarēt || (Ca. sū. 10 / 8)

As per Carakasaṁhitā, the first and foremost aim of Ayurveda is maintaining the health of a healthy individual. Towards achieving this goal, śarīra and manō bala are important to prevent the diseases. So, first two chapters of cikitsāsthāna are dedicated to rasāyana and vājīkaraṇa concepts. In latter chapters management of diseases of Jvara etc. are described, in the way of achieving the second goal of the Ayurveda, i.e. curing the disease - prayōjanaṁ cāsya svasthasya svāsthyarakṣaṇamāturasya vikārapraśamanaṁ ca|| (Ca. sū. 30 / 26).

Since saṁśōdhana is the part of treatment of all the diseases and pañcakarma therapy is the śōdhana therapy, to give complete details of pañcakarma medicaments and procedures, kalpa and siddhisthāna are added after the cikitsāsthāna. The concept behind this is universally accepted i.e. the diseases which are treated with saṁśamana therapy can reoccur, but the with saṁśōdhana therapy, there is no such possibility. This is explained in the following verse

dōṣāḥ kadācitkupyanti jitā laṅghanapācanaiḥ|
jitā saṁśōdhanairyē tu na tēṣāṁ punarudbhavaḥ|| (Ca. sū. 16 / 20-21)

This compendium became popular and attained greatest importance in Ayurvedic medical world due to description of all the concepts at the appropriate places. It is authorative text on kāyacikitsā for the reason that it is explained that all the diseases which were happening in the past, manifesting in the present and going to come in the future are explained. It is the need of the hour that, to understand these concepts in their original meaning and implement in the daily practice as said by Caraka in the following verse

The Ayurvedic physician, who does not read Carakasaṁhitā meticulously, can not attain complete knowledge of kāyacikitsā. Hence it is necessary to read Carakasaṁhitā with the vākyaśaḥ, vākyārthaśaḥ and arthāvayavaśaḥ in their root meaning. The doctrines and practical concepts of health maintenance and disease cure are available Carakasaṁhitā are exceptionally broad and no where else available.

In ancient times, study of saṁhitā was done in guruśiṣya paramparā and students use to read in the presence of Guru. So thus they use to understand the saṁhitā vākya along with their root meaning. But in later times due to change in the study patterns, elaborate commentary on mūlasūtra became necessary to understand the true meanings of original sutras. To fulfill these needs many commentators written commentaries on Carakasaṁhitā. First among them is Scholar Bhaṭṭāra hariścandra and the commentary written is ‘Carakanyāsa’. In due course of time, many of the commentaries are extinct. Only Cakrapāṇidatta’s Āyurvēdadīpikā and Jalpakalpataru commentary of Gangadhar Roy are available in complete form. Out of these two, Āyurvēdadīpikā commentary is the most popular and complete guide to understand the Carakasaṁhitā in Ayurvedic world. Experts of Ayurveda considers that, with out reading the Āyurvēdadīpikā commentary along with the original compendium it is difficult to understand the deep rooted Ayurvedic concepts of Carakasaṁhitā.

An e-book is defined as ‘an electronic version of a book which can be read on a personal computer or hand-held device designed specifically for this purpose’. In general a book from the printed version is analyzed for its generic and specific format and rearranged methodically in the digitized electronic format, which enables it to be retrieved in various forms. Today e-books not only enable reading of the text, but also help perform complete search of the text. Searching of the specific text element i.e Key Word in the Context (KWIC), and citation of a particular verse in the concordance form are very specific requirements for an oriental science like Ayurveda, which has a vast repository of literature in the Sanskrit verse form. A good number of printed books have been published, but availability in electronic texts is still not very common for this section of books.

This particular Carakasamhita e-Book, the first of its kind developed for an Ayurvedic text is a powerful combination of Electronic Book, Full Text Search enabled, KWIC module, which also supports the features of Concordance.

1. Selection of Standard text as base: Standard books which are widely in use are consulted for making necessary correction or modifications as and when required
2. Keying of the text: complete keying of the text is made in phonetic English and certain changes are incorporated to harmonize it with standard ITRANS version of phonetic English for Devanagari script for wider acceptance. Trained Full time Data entry operators who have good acquaintance with Sanskrit alphabet and phonetic sensibilities, under the supervision of experts are employed for this purpose. It took 12 months of time to completely key in the text and proof read it.
3. Multi level collaborative editing model is adopted for completing thorough proof reading of the text and as far as possible spelling mistakes have been rectified.
4. A Special software is designed, developed and deployed for this purpose. This software served the purpose of data entry in a stipulated schema (viz., sthāna>adhyāya>sūtra>ṭīkā>foot notes etc.) in a multi-user environment. Later on additional modules, user friendly options have been added to make it ready to use by a person having minimum computer knowledge. The platform chosen to develop this software is time tested, and built on with a lot of community support. Some the software used are php, Server2go, Firefox browser etc., and an extension in the form of PADMA- specifically configured for e-Book purpose has provided this software with multilingual reading capability. The use of such free distribution software has reduced the production cost to bare minimum, which is an ideal condition to minimize the cost and propagate Ayurvedic e- literature for wider audience.

Carakasaṁhitā e-Book has the following special features which are provided to facilitate multilingual reading option along with regular e-book features. The options as follows:

1. Available in different scripts: This e-book is also equipped with Dēvanāgarī as well as Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Bengali, Gurmukhī, Diacritical (ISO 15919) script and Phonetic English. Hence, the reader who is not familiar with Dēvanāgarī, can utilize this book in their traditional scripts.
2. Saving of time: Due to the presence of search tool option it is easy to go to the reference directly, in a short time.
3. Cost effective and expedient: Since it is available in the CD form, it is cost effective and easy to carry (portable).
4. Do not consume extra resources from the system in which it is installed, and does not interfere with the programmes already installed.

This is the Version 1.0 of the e-book of Carakasaṁhitā, which is completed with in a short period and limited resources. Hence, some mistakes may be possible in this edition. So it is our humble request to all the readers to bring into our notice about the mistakes. We also welcome you to your precious suggestion to edit further this E-book and make it reader friendly.