| caraka चरक Definition: m. Name of a muni- and physician (the Serpent-king śeṣa-, who was the recipient of the āyur-veda-;once on visiting the earth and finding it full of sickness he became moved with pity and determined to become incarnate as the son of a muni- for alleviating disease;he was called caraka- because he had visited the earth as a kind of spy or cara-;he then composed a new book on medicine, based on older works of agni-veśa- and other pupils of ātreya-  ) |