Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery

The rich Indian medical tradition is usually traced back to Sanskrit sources, the earliest of which cannot much antedate the common era. In this book Kenneth Zysk shows that Buddhist scriptures some centuries older than this contain abundant information about medical practice, and are our earliest evidence for a rational approach to medicine in India. He argues that Buddhism and the medical tradition were mutually supportive: that Buddhist monks and people associated with them contributed to the development of medicine, while their skills as physical as well as spiritual healers enhanced their reputation and popular support. Drawing on a wide range of textual, archaeological, and secondary sources, Zysk first presents an overview of the history of Indian Medicine in its religious context. He then examines primary literature from the Pali Buddhist Canon and from the Sanskrit treatises of Bhela, Caraka, and susruta. By close comparison of these two bodies of literature Zysk convincingly shows how the theories delineated in the medical classics actually became practice.

Review(s)

Zysk has given us an accurate and lively picture of medicine in ancient India, for which we have to be most grateful to him. - EC Polome,, The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol.26, No.1,2, Spring/ Summer, 1998

Zysk really has unearthed a missing link between the hymns and charms of the Vedic period and the treatises and handbooks of classical Ayurveda. - Francis Zimmerman, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.113,No.2

"... a laudable effort on the part of the author." --Indian Journal of History of Science