Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D.
Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed.
Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India
“When Indian and its arrows were admired in the battlefield my friends disliked it, but this was not proper;
By my life, it is a land where, when rain falls, it turns into pearls and ruby for those who have no ornaments;
From here come musk, camphor, amber and aloe-wood, and various kinds of perfumes for those who require them;
Here grow all kinds of sweet-smelling substances and nutmeg, and andropogonnadus;
Here are found ivory and jaiphal, and aloes-wood, and sandal and here is found in abundance the mineral Tutia;
Here are found the lions, the leopards, the elephants and the bears
And here are found the cranes, and the parrots and the peacocks and the pigeons;
And here grow the coconut tree and the ebony tree and the pepper plant;
And here are made the unparallel swords which need not be polished, and the lances which when wielded, large armies are routed;
Who can deny the excellence of such a land except a fool?”
Abu Dila’ Sindhi (c. 9th cent. AD).
All life forms are afflicted with disease. Disease is the basic problem faced by humans too since prehistoric times.The records of Hindu medicine begin with the Atharva-veda. The Atharva Veda , the fourth Vedic collection and the second oldest Indian text, is distinguished from the trayī vidyā (threefold wisdom) contained in the Rig Veda , Yajur Veda , and Sama Veda primarily in terms of content. The Atharvaveda lists eight divisions of Ayurveda: internal medicine, surgery of head and neck, ophthalmology, surgery, toxicology, psychiatry, paediatrics, gerontology or science of rejuvenation and the science of fertility. In Ayurvedic medicine, health is defined as soundness of sarira (body), manas (mind) and atman (self). Each of these must be nurtured if the individual is to have good health.
Ayurveda deals with the medical subjects like genetics, gynaecology, aetiology, surgery, physiology, biology, diet, ethics, personal hygiene, social medicine, allied subjects like animal biology, botany, cultivation, pharmacognosy, chemistry, cosmology, etc.
The Atharvaveda is by all accounts a curious compendium of medicine in its various stages of evolution and contains the most primitive as well as some of the most highly developed stages of therapy. In Atharvaveda the word Brahma was used in the sense of Physician. The name Atharvan is almost synonymous with Bhesaja or medicine. Here, embedded in a mass of magic and incantations, is a list of diseases with their symptoms. Medicine arose as an adjunct to magic: the healer studied and used earthly means of cure to help his spiritual formulas; later he relied more and more upon such secular methods, continuing the magic spell, like our bedside manner, as a psychological aid. The Atharva Veda contains spells for healing various illnesses, spells for removal of demons, love spells, and speculative hymns about particular forces of the cosmos, such as ucchiṣṭa (sacrificial remnant), odana (porridge),brahmacārin (the Vedic student), and the śataudana cow (the cow with one hundred odanas).
Appended to the Atharva-veda is the Ajur-veda .The term Ayus means duration or span of life, veda means unimpeachable knowledge. The common translation of the Ayurveda is ‘science of life’. In his book Kris Morgan says that literally Ayurveda means ‘science of longevity’, but because of its divine origin, it is also called the ‘medicine of the God’. Tradition says that Brahma (the creator) was the divine source of this science, which was brought into existence before the creation of mankind. The knowledge was passed from him to the god Daksapati, then to the two celestial physicians (the twin Asvina Kumaras), later to Indra the god king, and finally to Bharadvaja, the semi-divine sage. Such traditions need not be taken literally but they only indicate the great antiquity of Ayurveda.
Evidence for the existence of well-organised system of medicine in India can be traced back to the archaeological remains of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, from where even Silajit has been reported.
There is a remarkable theory in Ayurveda to the effect that man is a miniature form of the universe, a ‘microcosm’ of the macrocosm. The material contents of man and universe are constituted of the same five primal elements: prthvi (solid component ), apas (the liquid), tejas (the radient energy), vayu (air), and akasa (the empty spaces inside the body).
In this oldest system of Hindu medicine illness is attributed to disorder in one of the four humors (air, water, phlegm and blood), and treatment is recommended with herbs and charms. Many of its diagnoses and cures are still used in India, with a success that is sometimes the envy of Western physicians. The Rig-Veda names over a thousand such herbs, and advocates water as the best cure for most diseases. Even in Vedic times physicians and surgeons were being differentiated from magic doctors, and were living in houses surrounded by gardens in which they cultivated medicinal plants.”
Anatomy and physiology, like some aspects of chemistry, were by-products of Hindu medicine. As far back as the sixth century B.C. Hindu physicians described ligaments, sutures, lymphatics, nerve plexus, fascia, adipose and vascular tissues, mucous and synovial membranes, and many more muscles than any modern cadaver is able to show. The doctors of pre-Christian India shared Aristotle’s mistaken conception of the heart as the seat and organ of consciousness, and supposed that the nerves ascended to and descended from the heart. But they understood remarkably well the processes of digestion the different functions of the gastric juices, the conversion of chyme into chyle, and of this into blood. Anticipating Weismann by 2400 years,
Atreya (ca. 500 B.C.) held that the parental seed is independent of the parent’s body, and contains in itself, in miniature, the whole parental organism.” Examination for virility was recommended as a prerequisite for marriage in men; and the Code of Manu warned against marrying mates affected with tuberculosis, epilepsy, leprosy, chronic dyspepsia, piles, or loquacity. Birth control in the latest theological fashion was suggested by the Hindu medical schools of 500 B.C. in the theory that during twelve days of the menstrual cycle impregnation is impossible. Foetal development was described with considerable accuracy; it was noted that the sex of the foetus remains for a time undetermined, and it was claimed that in some cases the sex of the embryo could be influenced by food or drugs.
The great names in Hindu medicine are those of Sushruta in the fifth century before, and Charaka in the second century after Christ. Sushruta, professor of medicine in the University of Benares, wrote down in Sanskrit a system of diagnosis and therapy whose elements had descended to him from his teacher Dhanwantari. His book dealt at length with surgery, obstetrics, diet, bathing, drugs, infant feeding and hygiene, and medical education. 80 Charaka composed a Samhita (or encyclopedia) of medicine, which is still used in India, 81 and gave to his followers an almost
Hippocratic conception of their calling: “Not for self, not for the fulfilment of any earthly desire of gain, but solely for the good of suffering humanity should you treat your patients, and so cxcell all.” Caraka Samhita is an exhaustive work on medicine. It is said that Caraka’s original was the Samhita of Agnivesa, a disciple of the medical sage Atreya. Long passages in the Caraka Samhita are in the form of questions and answers between Atreya and Agnivesa. Caraka is a class title of a school of physicians, existing from Vedic times and also the personal title of a physician in the court of King Kaniska. The subject matter of the Caraka Samhita has been divided into 8 sections and 120 chapters. The total number of chapters (120) probably refers to the maximum life span (120 years) of man because the ultimate object of treatise is to promote longevity.
More than 600 drugs of animal, plant and mineral origins are used in the Caraka and about 650 in the Susruta Samhita. According to Susruta Samhita the purpose of Ayurveda is not only to cure illness and affliction but also to preserve health and ensure a long happy life. Susruta Samhita deals specially with the therapeutic branch of Ayurveda. It contains one hundred and twenty chapters, distributed in five divisions: Sutrasthana (fundamental postulates cover chapters), Nidanasthana (pathology, covers 16 chapters),Sarirasthana (embryology and anatomy cover 10 chapters), Cikitsasthana (medical treatment covers 40 chapters), Kalpasthana (toxicology covers 8 chapters) and Uttaratantra (specialized knowledge covers 66 chapters) respectively.
Susruta mentions more then 300 different operations employing 42 different surgical processes and 121 different types of instruments. The Samhitas divide Ayurveda into 8 different branches: Salyatantra (surgical knowledge), Salakyatantra (treatment of diseases of the ears, nose, eye, tongue, oral cavity and throat),Bhutavidya (knowledge of mental diseases,supernatural origins diseases), Kaumarabhrtya (care of children and infantile disorders), Agadatantra (toxicology), Rasayanatantra (syrup, tonic knowledge) andVajikaranatantra (knowledge of virility).
Comparativly less illustrious than these arc Vagbhata (625 A.D.), who prepared a medical compendium in prose and verse, and Bhava Misra (1550 A.D.), whose voluminous work on anatomy, physiology and medicine mentioned, a hundred years before Harvey, the circulation of the blood, and pre- scribed mercury for that novel disease, syphilis, which had recently been brought in by the Portuguese as part of Europe’s heritage to India.
Sushruta described many surgical operations cataract, hernia, lithotomy, Caesarian section, etc. and 121 surgical instruments, including lancets, sounds, forceps, catheters, and rectal and vaginal speculums. Despite Brahmanical prohibitions he advocated the dissection of dead bodies as indispensable in the training of surgeons. He was the first to graft upon a torn ear portions of skin taken from another part of the body; and from him and his Hindu successors rhinoplasty the surgical reconstruction of the nose descended into modern medicine. “The ancient Hindus,” says Garrison, “performed almost every major operation except ligation of the arteries.” Limbs were amputated, abdominal sections were performed, fractures were set, hemorrhoids and fistulas were removed. Sushruta laid down elaborate rules for preparing an operation, and his suggestion that the wound be sterilized by fumigation is one of the earliest known efforts at antiseptic surgery. Both Sushruta and Charaka mention the use of medicinal liquors to produce insensibility to pain. In 927 A.D. two surgeons trepanned the skull of a Hindu king, and made him insensitive to the operation by administering a drug called Samohini.
Hypnotism as therapy seems to have originated among the Hindus, who often took their sick to the temples to be cured by hypnotic suggestion or “temple-sleep,” as in Egypt and Greece. The Englishmen who intro- duced hypnotherapy into England Braid. Fsdaile and Elliotson “undoubtedly got their ideas, and some of their experience, from contact with India.”
Direct observation is the most remarkable feature of Ayurveda but some times it is correlated with metaphysics. Samhitas accept this view and write that of all types of evidence, the most dependable ones are those that are directly observed by the eyes. In the Ayurvedic viewpoint successful medical treatment depends on four factors: the physician, substances (drug or diets), nurse and patient. Samhitas described these four factors properly. These four factors are the main mechanisms of Ayurveda. It describes four essential qualities of medical factors:
Physician.( The qualifications of physician are: clear grasp of the theoretical content of the science, a wide range of experience, practical skill and cleanliness.),
Drugs Qualities of drugs or substances are: abundance, applicability, multiple use and richness in efficacy).
Nursing attendant and patient respectively (Qualifications of the nursing attendant are: knowledge of nursing techniques, practical skill, attachment to the patient and cleanliness).
The essential qualifications of patients are: good memory, obedience to the instructions of the doctors, courage and ability to describe the symptoms.
For the detection of the 1120 diseases that he enumerated, Sushruta recommended diagnosis by inspection, palpation, and auscultation. Taking of the pulse was described in a treatise dating 1300 A.D. Urinalysis was a favorite method of diagnosis; Tibetan physicians were reputed able to cure any patient without having seen anything more of him than his water. In the time of Yuan Chwang Hindu medical treatment began with a seven-day fast; in this interval the patient often recovered; if the illness continued, drugs were at last employed. Even then drugs were used very sparingly; reliance was placed largely upon diet, baths, enemas, inhalations, urethral and vaginal injections, and blood-lettings by leeches or cups. Hindu physicians were especially skilled in concocting anti- dotes for poisons; they still excel European physicians in curing snakebites. (Hospitals were erected in Ceylon as early as 427 B.C.. and in northern India as early as 226 B.C. )
Vaccination, unknown to Europe before the eighteenth century, was known in India as early as 550 A.D., if we may judge from a text attributed to Dhanwantari, one of the earliest Hindu physicians: “Take the fluid of the pock on the udder of the cow . . . upon the point of a lancet, and lance with it the arms between the shoulders and elbows until the blood appears; then, mixing the fluid with the blood, the fever of the small-pox will be produced.” Modern European physicians believe that caste separateness was prescribed because of the Brahman belief in invisible agents transmitting disease; many of the laws of sanitation enjoined by Sushruta and “Manu” seem to take for granted what we moderns, who love new words for old things, call the germ theory of –disease.
The general picture of Indian medicine is one of rapid development in the Vedic and Buddhist periods, followed by centuries of slow and cautious improvement. How much Atreya, Dhanwantari and Sushruta owed to Greece, and how much Greece owed to them, we do not know.
In the time of Alexander, says Garrison, “Hindu physicians and surgeons enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for superior knowledge and skill,” and even Aristotle is believed by some students to have been indebted to them”. So too with the Persians and the Arabs: it is difficult to say how much Indian medicine owed to the physicians of Baghdad, and through them to the heritage of Babylonian medicine in the Near East; on the one hand certain remedies, like opium and mercury, and some modes of diagnosis, like feeling the pulse, appear to have entered India from Persia; on the other we find Persians and Arabs translating into their languages, in the eighth century A.D., the thousand-year-old compendia of Sushruta and Charaka. The great Caliph ITaroun-al-Rashid accepted the pre-eminence of Indian medicine and scholarship, and imported Hindu physicians to organize hospitals and medical schools in Baghdad. Lord Ampthill concludes that medieval and modern Europe owes its system of medicine directly to the Arabs, and through them to India.