English
, enlarged and broadened, the stream of- know¬ ledge they themselves received from others, and passed on to successive generations till it permeated and fertil¬ ised almost every nation far and wide. [ 30 ] HINDU MEDICINE Buddhist Period—600 B.C. to A.D. 600. During the time of Buddha and the advent of Alexander, there were a number of republics and monarchies in India and strong and brave soldiers, though they lacked unity and combina¬ tion. Towns grew round kings’ palaces; attached to each of them there was a public gambling-place and hot-air baths. The people of India lived mainly in the villages, and constructed and maintained public halls (mote halls), rest houses, reservoirs, village roads, and parks. Women also took part in such public work, and, as Rhys Davids says, there were no landlords and no paupers. Every town had its mote hall covered with roof but no walls, where business, administrative and judicial functions were carried out. The birth of Buddha marked not the beginning but the decline of the glory of Hindu civilisation. While anatomy formed a part of the pre¬ liminary course of study in medicine [3i] THE ANTIQUITY OF and surgery in ancient India, and dissection was enthusiastically re¬ commended by Susruta, and at least down to the time of Vagbhata, the influence of Buddhism tended to dis¬ courage the study of anatomy, dissec¬ tion, and surgery. For ethical reasons Buddha (and his followers) put a stop to animal sacrifices, and would not permit the dissection of animals, while he gave support and stimulus to medicine, and established hospitals for man. and beast all over the country. The university of Taxilla was specially famous for its medical school, where arts and sciences were taught by distin¬ guished teachers. The university at Nalanda had ioo lecture rooms, where 10,000 students received instruction; it had six immense blocks of residential buildings, each being four stories high {Modem Review, March, 1915, p. 334 )- Science and medicine continued to flourish during the advent of the Greeks in India. Jivaka, the personal physician of Buddha, practised cranial surgery with [ 32 ] HINDU MEDICINE success. A class of physicians special- „ ised in toxicology. Arrian, 31 the Greek historian, tells us that while Greek physicians were unable to deal with cases of snake-bite among the Greek soldiers, Alexander was obliged to consult the Indian physicians, who successfully treated these cases. Near- chus says that the King was so struck with their skill that he employed them in his camp, ordered the Greek soldiers to consult them, and took back some of the professors on Hindu medicine on his homeward march. Medicine in the Reign of Chandragupta, Fourth Century B.C. In the reign of Chandragupta, 32 who was called the first Emperor of India, there was constitutional government with the Icing at the head, and ministers who had charge of separate depart¬ ments. The people were free, and not one of them was a slave. The chief city, like Patna, was managed by a [ 33 ] THE ANTIQUITY OF municipal board, and tlie army was organised by the commander-in-chief. Every stranger in the city had to be notified. Trade was carried on both by land and sea, and harbours and shipyards for river and ocean-going vessels were provided. There were hospitals and store-rooms containing medicines in large quantities. The care and treatment of the sick and foreigners formed one of the duties of the government, and physicians with medicines and appliances had to be kept in readiness to meet emer¬ gencies. The army surgeons, with surgical instruments and appliances, oils, bandages, and nurses, accom¬ panied the army, and their presence encouraged the 'soldiers. Also veter¬ inary surgeons were employed for the treatment of horses and elephants. Medicinal plants and herbs were culti¬ vated both on the land and in pots. The state controlled and regulated the medical practice. A register of births and-deaths was kept. Every case of [ 34 ] HINDU MEDICINE i dangerous disease had to be reported by the physician, failing which he was fined. Penalty was also imposed if a death was caused by carelessness on the part of the physician. Measures were taken to ward off pestilence, when physicians had to distribute medicines and priests carry out purificatory cere¬ monials. Extermination of pests like rats, locusts, insects, and tigers was put into force. All cases of violent death caused by suffocation, hanging, drowning, or poisoning had to undergo post-mortem examination, and medical officers had to find out the cause of death and report the matter to the law court. Medicine from the Time of Asoka till Sixteenth Century A.D. Asoka (third century b.c.), Chan- dragupta’s grandson, was a benevolent monarch, became a Buddhist, and gave up war and hunting—the two pastimes of kings. He put an end to the [ 35 ] THE ANTIQUITY OF ** slaughter of animals. In his reign the poor, the sick, and the aged received help. Charitable hospitals were estab¬ lished for men and animals all over his extensive kingdom; medicinal herbs and roots and fruit - trees planted throughout the country; and hospices were erected stored with food and drink, where physicians were stationed with medicines to attend to travellers and poor persons. The arts and sciences attained a high - degree of excellence. Buddhist monks studied philosophy and medicine and chemis¬ try in different monasteries, and in the famous universities at Benares, Taxilla (Rawalpindi), Vidarbha (Berar), and Nalanda (Bihar) became skilled physicians and travelled as mission- aries to such, distant lands as Greece, t China, Tibet, etc., carrying with them both the knowledge of Buddhism and Hindu medicine, together with medical , books and manuscripts, medicinal herbs and plants. While from the time of Buddha surgery, anatomy, and dis- [ 36 ] HINDU MEDICINE section steadily declined, the study of medicine and chemistry attained great importance from the humanitarian and philanthropic activity of Buddhism; and when it declined the vigorous im¬ pulse it gave to the revival of science and literature - continued, producing great men like Kalidasa and Bhava- bhuti (poets and dramatists), Brah¬ magupta and Aryabhata (mathema¬ ticians and astronomers), Samkhara and Ramanuja (philosophers and re¬ ligious leaders), Patanjali, Nagarjuna, and Vagbhata (chemists and phy¬ sicians). From this time onward chemistry, which gradually evolved from Rasayana in Ayur Veda, from Tantric cult inAtharva Veda, and from Susruta, showed great activity. Patan¬ jali (300 to 150 b.c.) was the redactor of Charaka and the founder of Yoga, philosophy, which paved the way for Tantric mysticism and alchemy. He was an expert in making iron prepara¬ tions, and discovered the use of mix¬ tures called vidas which contained [ 37 ] THE ANTIQUITY OF aqua regia in potentia . Nagarjuna (first century a.d.) studied at the uni¬ versity of Vidarbha, and became a celebrated physician and alchemist. He was the redactor of Susruta, and was the first to introduce black sulphide of mercury, which does not cause salivation. Nandi was the inventor of the process of sublimation and of the kosthi apparatus for extracting the essence of metals. And so Hindu chemistry, which developed along in¬ dependent fines, made great strides in metallurgic processes such as calcina¬ tion, distillation, sublimation, extrac¬ tion, killing, etc., and in the manufac¬ ture of chemical industries. Varamahira (a.d. 587) alludes to the preparations of " cements strong as thunderbolt,” to experts in the composition of dyes, cosmetics^ and perfumery; Vasava- datta to the preparation of coagulated mercury, of a chemical powder the inhalation of which would bring on sleep or deep stupor, to a powder which, like anaesthetic drugs or curare, para- [ 38 ] HINDU MEDICINE lyses motor and sensory organs. To these classes of professional experts in chemical arts were due three of the great Indian discoveries which enabled India to command the markets of the East and the West for more than a thousand years; the preparation of fast dyes for textilejiabrics; extraction of indigo tin from indigo plant; and the tempering of steel, a process to which the medieval world owed its Damascus swords. 33 Almost the last of the great men that shed lustre on Hindu medicine was Bhava Misra, who lived at Benares in a.d. 1550, where he is said to have taught no less than four hundred pupils. He compiled a voluminous work on anatomy, physiology, medicine, sur¬ gery, materia medica, and therapeutics. He also mentions the circulation of blood (a century older than Harvey), and the prescription of mercur}' in syphilis (Phiranga Roga). Syphilis made its appearance in the sixteenth century when the Portuguese settled [ 39 ] THE ANTIQUITY OF in India. The Hindu physicians could not account for this disease, as all their medical writings from the time of Charaka and Susruta were silent on the subject, while they gave accurate descriptions of all other diseases of genital organs, and so they called it Phiranga Roga (Portuguese disease), and administered mercury in the form of calomel and inhalation. Hindu Medicine in the Arabian Period— A.D. 600 to 1600. This period witnesses the slowing down of the fires of Hindu medicine. From its glowing embers it has lighted the torch of Arabian medicine, and through it the medicine of Europe. In the seventh century .the great works of Charaka and Susruta were translated into Arabic under the patronage of Caliph Almansur. In the reign of Harun-al-Rasid (a.d.