Ancient Indian Medicine

In medieval China, massage or anmo (literally, " pressing and rubbing ") was catalogued among a kind of stretching exercise called daoyin (literally, " guiding and pulling "), which is sometimes referred to in modern times as Chinese yoga. Guiding and pulling was a broad term, referring to a host of stretching exercises, sometimes quite vigorous and dynamic in tempo, or sometimes simple meditative breathing practices to circulate the breath, or qi, around the body. Chinese sources from this period predominantly do not refer to massaging other people, but to self-massage and stretching exercises contiguous with breathing and visualization practices. A simple, practicable technique that was easy to perform, massage required no special training or technical materials. Massage practices were more accessible to the wider public than theory-bound medical arts, and circulated among a broad repertoire of methods for nourishing vitality that enabled simple self-treatment. Massage treatments for specific ailments appear as early as the second century BCE, in the Writings on Pulling. This text was excavated from a tomb in Mawangdui (in modern-day Hunan Province) which also contained the Guiding and Pulling Chart, a color chart portraying 44 different exercises. Daoyin exercises later appear in Chinese medical literature, in biographies of transcendents, Buddhist texts, and in nourishing vitality texts favoured by the elite as well as by debaters and intellectuals of the early medieval " Mystery School " philosophical movement. The eighteen exercises translated here are given the titles " Massage techniques from India " and " Brahmanic techniques " when they first appear, in the medical encyclopedia, Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold. Widely recognized as one of the major medical works of the Tang dynasty, by the fifteenth century it also came to be included in the Daoist Canon among other major medical works. Compiled by the polymath Sun Simiao (541/581-682), and submitted to the Tang court in 652, this work displays the great influence of Indian medical ideas, from Four Element theory, to a compassion-based medical ethics, to numerous foreign drugs and treatment methods. Sun's wide-ranging repertoire further includes local Chinese drug recipes, acupuncture and moxibustion formulas, meditation and incantations, and stretching and breathing exercises, as well as sexual cultivation. All eighteen passages from Sun's text are quoted in Tanba no Yasunori's Recipes at the Heart of Medicine, completed in 984. My endnotes below reflect variances between this version and Sun's original. Twelve of these exercises also appear elsewhere under another title, " Brahmanic Guiding and Pulling " in a text which records various other nourishing vitality methods, including guiding and pulling, breathing techniques, geomancy, and lucky days. These twelve exercises are quoted yet again in a text attributed to the name Daolin. It is unclear whether this refers to the stylename of the historical Buddhist monk Zhi Dun (314–366 CE), as has been suggested, given that this text is primarily a sex manual and Buddhist monks in China were usually supposed to be celibate.

Body and Cosmos is a collection of articles published on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Professor Emeritus Kenneth G. Zysk. The articles revolve thematically around the early Indian medical and astral sciences, which have been at the center of Professor Zysk’s long and esteemed career within the discipline of Indology.

The volume is divided into three parts. The first part is devoted to the medical sciences, the second part to the astral sciences, and the third part to cross-cultural interactions between India and the West, which runs like an undercurrent throughout the work of Professor Zysk.

The articles are written by internationally renowned Indological scholars and will be of value to students and researchers alike.

The volume is edited by Toke Lindegaard Knudsen, Jacob Schmidt-Madsen, and Sara Speyer.

The importance of Logic and its mathematical formulation can hardly be overstated in the modern age of Information Technology. Design, implementation and innovations of both computer hardware and software systems are dependent on Logic in different forms and formats. Digital logic is mainly used for hardware design. Symbolic logic and Propositional Calculus are essentially required for the design of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. Given the current level of understanding there is a need to review Logic from the perspective ancient wisdom. Can Indian Logic, both old and new systems, known as Puratana Nyaya (PN) and Nabya Nyaya (NN), help more efficient AI design process? This paper is an attempt in that direction. It will first review the origin of the concept of logic and thereafter it will propose the possible areas of application in modern context.

This paper was written to study the order of medical advances throughout history. It investigates changing human beliefs concerning the causes of diseases, how modern surgery developed and improved methods of diagnosis and the use of medical statistics. Human beliefs about the causes of disease followed a logical progression from supernatural causes, such as the wrath of the Gods, to natural causes, involving imbalances within the human body. The invention of the microscope led to the discovery of microorganisms which were eventually identified as the cause of infectious diseases. Identification of the particular microorganism causing a disease led to immunization against the disease. Modern surgery only developed after the ending of the taboo against human dissection and the discovery of modern anaesthesia and the discovery of the need for anti-septic practices. Modern diagnostic practices began with the discovery of x-rays and the invention of medical scanners. Improved mathematics, especially in probability theory, led to statistical studies which led to a much greater ability, to identify the causes of disease, and to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments. These discoveries all occurred in a necessary and inevitable order with the easiest discoveries being made first and the harder discoveries being made later. The order of discovery determined the course of the history of medicine and is an example of how social and cultural history has to follow a particular course determined by the structure of the world around us.

History has several examples of epidemics resulting from the spread of infectious or communicable diseases. Ancient Indian literary sources have documented how the epidemics resulting from infectious diseases were diagnosed, treated and managed in earlier times. One such
ancient Sanskrit work is the 12th century AD encyclopedic treatise called “Manasollasa”.

Manasollasa details several types of communicable diseases. However, the focus of this study is on the three types of prolonged fevers and associated respiratory disorders (cold and cough) detailed in Manasollasa. A summary of the symptoms, treatment and containment of the communicable disease is provided. This article is not a medical study of the actual disease or a
statistical data involved, but rather a literary summary of the information of the 12th century Indian text.

My aim here is to shed light on the origins of magic squares in the Islamic world. This question has often been tentatively addressed, but previous studies considered only part of the evidence. The earliest Arabic texts discussing squares (al-Ṭabarī, Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, Brethren of Purity) are examined here together for the first time, as well as the Indian medical sources.

Julia Shaw (2016) Religion, ‘nature’ and environmental ethics in ancient India: archaeologies of human:non-human suffering and well-being in early Buddhist and Hindu contexts, World Archaeology, 48:4, 517-543

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2016.1250671

Keywords: Archaeology as Environmental Humanities; Indian religion and ‘nature’; Agriculture, food change and environmental control; Violence and non-violence; Purity and Pollution; Monasteries as gardens

This paper assesses archaeology’s contribution to debates regarding the ecological focus of early Buddhism and Hinduism and its relevance to global environmentalism. Evidence for long-term human:non-human entanglement, and the socio-economically constructed element of  ‘nature’ on which Indic culture supposedly rests, challenges post-colonial tropes of India's utopian, 'eco-friendly' past, whilst also highlighting the potency of individual human:non-human epistemologies for building historically grounded models of Indian environmentalism. For early Buddhism,I mediate between two polarized views: one promoting the idea of ‘eco-dharma’, as a reflection of Buddhism’s alignment with non-violence (ahiṃsā), and the alleviation of suffering (dukkha); a second arguing that early Buddhist  traditions have been misappropriated by western environmentalism. I argue that the latter view subscribes to canonical models of passive monks removed from worldly concerns, despite archaeological evidence for socially-engaged monastic landlordism from the late centuries BC. Others cite this evidence only to negate Buddhism’s eco- credentials, thereby overlooking the human:non-human entanglement theme within modern environmental discourse, while the predominant focus on non-human suffering overlooks convergences between modern and ancient ecological ethics and environmental health. Case studies include examples of Buddhist land and water management in central India, set within discussions of human v. non-human-centric frameworks of well-being and suffering, purity and pollution, and broader Indic medico-ecological epistemologies, as possible models for collective responses to environmental stress.

Original publication is here: https://indianmedicine.nl/article/view/37385

This article presents a detailed introduction to the study of three Nepalese manuscripts of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, one of which happens to be the oldest verifiably dated Sanskrit manuscript preserved in the region. The article consists of three larger sections. The first part provides a thorough critical survey of research that has been done on this material to date. The second section provides a detailed description of the manuscripts, translates and discusses their colophons and deals extensively with various problems involved in their dating. The final section of the article looks at characteristic features of the Nepalese version of the Suśrutasaṃhitā by focusing on its structure, selected structural elements and selected elements of content.

The age-old traditional health care practices are still relevant and are followed by communities across the countries. India's contribution remains exemplary in the growth of traditional health care systems. The present study reviews the strength of traditional health care systems and medicinal plants of India that has been contributing in health care not only from time immemorial but also makes it numero uno choice of community for curing many chronic diseases. An extensive literature survey was undertaken for compilation of information on the traditional systems of medicine in India, which include Ayurveda, Unani, homeopathy and Siddha. The careful investigation of information reveals that Ayurveda is one of the oldest systems of medicine evolved in India. It is a holistic system of treatment, which is an amalgamation of regular diet, use of medicine and following practices like exercise and behavior. The contribution of plants, as raw material for making medical formulations, is significant in the Indian systems of medicine, and over 6,500 species of plants are known to occur in India those are used by various streams of traditional health care practitioners. Attempts made by the Government of India in enriching and managing these age-old health care systems are also discussed.

The ways in which geographically separate communities use crops reflect the agricultural and cultural influences on each community. The eggplant (Solanum melongena L.; Solanaceae), which was domesticated in South and Southeast Asia, has long been used in a variety of medicinal and culinary preparations across many different Asian ethnolinguistic groups. Here, we report the total uses for eggplant and sixteen related species in three regions, India, southern China, and Malesia, and conduct a comparative analysis in order to form hypotheses about how influences on plant use in one region could have affected use and evolutionary trajectories in other regions. Results from literature review and 101 interviews show a total of 77 medicinal attributes for eggplant, with few similar attributes mentioned in different regions, leading us to hypothesize that largely pristine (i.e., without influence from other regions) development of uses, which could serve as selection pressures, occurred for eggplant in India, southern China, and Malesia. Results also show that many Solanum species have been fluidly adopted into uses developed for other species in a single region.

Draft version.  Published version here: https://doi.org/10.18732/hssa89

Most notions of the seasons in works of ancient Indian medicine list frost, spring, summer, rainy season, autumn and winter as the particular times of the year. However , in some contexts, the hibernal season frost (śiśira) is left out and replaced by a second rainy season, called beginning of the rain (prāvṛṣ) and placed between summer and the actual rainy season. In this paper, I firstly introduce the concept of the seasons and the division of the year into two halves. Secondly, I examine the di-chotomy of two seasonal schemes inside one scientific corpus, which varies regarding the included seasons. Concerning this matter, I follow the investigations of Francis Zimmermann 1 in order to prove that the two schemes are utilized both intentionally and systematically in specific contexts. The two seasonal schemes serve diverse cases, being of use for the physician in different aspects of his work.

No knowledge comes from the outside world or an imaginary supernatural paradise. No knowledge comes from some sort of divine entity, regardless of how effective they are. All knowledge, scientific or philosophical, ancient or modern, rises from the human mind. These minds are by all means just as human any other person on earth.

(Presentation of a paper at IIGRS 8, Munich, October 2016)

Abstract: As the alteration of water shortage and overflowing rains plays an eminent role in South Asian life, the seasons are a topic of high interest for the ancient ayurvedic physician. The constitution of men changes according to the year and so gives rise to different ailments according to time. Thus in each season distinct medicines, therapies, eating customs and conducts of life are advisable. The substances used therefore undergo changes according to time as well, gain or lose potency or they are not available at all.
In all the classical medical Saṃhitās one can find a chapter devoted to the seasons. They explain the structure of the year and prescribed diets and modes of conduct according to the seasons. Besides these chapters we find references to the seasons and their implications on medicine all over the works.
As a matter of fact, we can identify two different seasonal segmentations of the year, which somehow occur side by side in these Saṃhitās. Both feature six seasons, but one of them has literally two winters while the second inserts a special period at the beginning of the rains.

In this paper I want to go into the ways of structuring the year proposed in the medical Saṃhitās – the two halves of the year, the seasons and months. I shall discuss the interrelation of natural phenomena, the concept of humors (doṣa-s), ways of life, seasonal diseases and appropriate medication according to the respective periods of the year and try to shed a light on the functions of the two seasonal concepts.

Specific parts (leaves and fruits) of different medicinal plants often used in Indian ayurvedic system were analysed for 18 elements (K, Mn, Na, Fe, Zn, Cu, Co, Br, Sm, Cl, La, Al, Cr, Ca Cd, Ni, Pb and Hg) by employing instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) techniques. The samples were irradiated with thermal neutrons in a nuclear reactor and the induced activities were counted by γ-ray spectrometry using efficiency calibrated high resolution high purity germanium (HPGe) detector. Most of the medicinal plants were found to be rich in one or more of the elements under study. The elemental concentration in different part of medicinal plants and their biological effects on human beings are discussed.

Time is perceived through movements of objects in sky, seasonal cycles, and biological changes, which appear to be universal and every society makes their sense. Studying change in the temporal models therefore provides understanding about cultural change in a broader context (Geertz, 1966: 389-409). Temporal organization represents the relationship between culture and ecology through different informal and formal markers in the same way as space is linked with the environment (Engel-Frisch, 1943). Calendars are one of the temporal markers, which represent the people’s association with and understanding of their environment both in ecological and astronomical sense.

In this translated essay, originally published in French, Colette Caillat examines the teachings of anatomy in the Tandulaveyāliya, one of the Prakīrṇaka-sūtras in the Svetāmbara Jain canon. Caillat explores similarities and discrepancies between the accounts of physiology described in the Tandulaveyāliya and other classical medical treatises of the time, such as Caraka- and Suśruta-saṃhitās, as well as the Viṣṇu-smṛti, Yājñavalkya-smṛti, and Garbha-upaniṣad. Alongside these comparisons, Caillat also highlights singular contributions found in the Tandulaveyāliya, namely the unique anatomical accounts of women and "third-sex"/"neuter" individuals (paṇḍaga [Skt. paṇḍaka]).

Specific parts (fruits and leaves) of different medicinal plants often used in Indian Ayurvedic system were analysed for 18 elements (K, Mn, Na, Fe, Zn, Cu, Co, Br, Sm, Cl, La, Al, Cr, Ca Cd, Ni, Pb and Hg) by employing instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) techniques. The samples were irradiated with thermal neutrons in a nuclear reactor and the induced activities were counted by γ-ray spectrometry using efficiency calibrated high resolution high purity germanium (HPGe) detector. Most of the medicinal plants were found to be rich in one or more of the elements under study. The elemental concentration in different part of medicinal plants and their biological effects on human beings are discussed.

The author offers a commentary on the question, “Are there Hindu bioethics?” After deconstructing the term “Hindu,” the author shows that there are indeed no Hindu bioethics. He shows that from a classical and Brahminical perspective, medicine is an inappropriate and impure profession.

This article presents a detailed introduction to the study of three Nepalese manuscripts of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, one of which happens to be the oldest verifiably dated Sanskrit manuscript preserved in the region. The article consists of three larger sections. The first part provides a thorough critical survey of research that has been done on this material to date. The second section provides a detailed description of the manuscripts, translates and discusses their colophons and deals extensively with various problems involved in their dating. The final section of the article looks at characteristic features of the Nepalese version of the Suśrutasaṃhitā by focusing on its structure, selected structural elements and selected elements of content.

(Paper presented at the World Sanskrit Conference 2015 in Bangkok)

Water as one of the main sources of life plays an important role in Āyurveda, like it does in all sciences which are related to life.
In each of the classical Saṃhitās one can find categorizations of types and bodies of water which help the physician to decide if the specific water is safe to drink, healthy or even useful as a remedy against some specific ailment. Further more, the texts provide certain instructions for the examination of water, lists of indications for polluted water and advices about surrounding nature which should keep us from drinking the water nearby.
The Saṃhitās also describe various techniques to clean water or at least to make it smell and taste better.

In this presentation I shall concentrate on the account of this topic in the Carakasaṃhitā and compare the findings to the parallels in other works of classical Āyurveda. I will show how these categorizations of water work and on which background and principles they are developed. Upon that I want to discuss the difference between earlier works like Caraka- and Suśrutasaṃhitā and the later collections of Vāgbhaṭa (Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha and Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā), also considering the available commentaries.

The Suśrutasaṃhitā, an early first-millennium Ayurvedic treatise with an emphasis on surgery, recommends a procedure for examining a corpse after first submerging it in a river. Prompted by the sensory insights of a contemporary Ayurvedic physician who simulated “hydro-dissection” on a human hand, I offer a sensory reading of representations of surgeons and surgical tactility in early South Asia. This study demonstrates that surgeons are represented in early first-millennium treatises as possessing specialized medical knowledge, performing dangerous procedures, and having greater sensory and bodily intimacy in their engagement with patients than general physicians. First, I compare passages describing physicians’ sensory engagements in diagnostic examination in the Carakasaṃhitā and Suśrutasaṃhitā. Then I examine representations of surgeons and surgical practice in the Carakasaṃhitā, a general medical compendium. Finally, I demonstrate that surgical tactility is represented in the Suśrutasaṃhitā as an interplay of sensory knowledge, technical skill, experience, and judgment, constituting the surgeon’s hand.

(Identifies a hitherto obscure term in Vedic literature as referring to the portio vaginalis of the uterine cervix, linked in traditional Indian theory with orgasm and ejaculation.) In: Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 51 (1998): 303-307.

Time is perceived through movements of objects in sky, seasonal cycles, and biological changes, which appear to be universal and every society makes their sense. Studying change in the temporal models therefore provides understanding about cultural change in a broader context (Geertz, 1966: 389-409). Temporal organization represents the relationship between culture and ecology through different informal and formal markers in the same way as space is linked with the environment (Engel-Frisch, 1943). Calendars are one of the temporal markers, which represent the people’s association with and understanding of their environment both in ecological and astronomical sense.