Thread by @BhandarkarI

From Ancient Greece to China and Japan, from Cambodia to Mongolia and Russia

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The Amazing Story of Indian Medicine's Spread across the World from the 5th Century BCE to the 12th Century C.E.

(A Long thread)

As we saw in previous threads, Indian civilization had developed interactions with other ancient societies already a few thousand years ago.

And as the societies evolved, these interactions expanded to include exchanges of ideas on science, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine.

Most of these civilizations had their approach to and methods of medicine.

Even then. Indian medicine proved to be a significant export of ancient India.

In this thread, we will trace some examples of this.

This thread is based on excerpts from the article "The Expansion of Indian Medicine Abroad" by Jean Filliozat (College De France, Paris).

It was published in "India's Contribution to World Thought and Culture" in 1964

We see several parallels between the medicinal practices of ancient Greeks and ancient Indians. - "For example, we find both in the Hippocratic Collection and in the Ayurvedic treatises the idea of breath (pneuma in Greek and prana in Sanskrit) ...

... pervading throughout the body in order to produce all movements and changes and also being a form of the wind in nature."

However, it is impossible to conclude if it was entirely borrowed by one from the other.

Filliozat gives us two examples of Indian influence.

"An example of this is the similarity of a general theory explained in Plato's Timaeus with the famous tridosha theory of classical Ayurveda.

Conceptions referred to by Plato, without any indication of origin, are isolated in the Greek tradition.

"(In Plato's thinking) Health rests upon the correct association between three elements: pneuma, which represents the wind, chole, the gall, which represents the fire, and phlegma, which is a form of water. ...

"These respectively correspond to prana, pitta and Kapha - the tridosha of the Sanskrit tradition. As these doshas, especially the association between the gall and the fire, are already known in Vedic literature, the tridosha theory cannot have been borrowed in India from Plato."

"On the contrary, as during the Persian domination on Greek, Asian Countries and on a part of India, scientific intercourses have been easy, an influence of the Ayurvedic theories on those described by Plato is quite probable."

"In any way, we have several direct references in the Hippocratic Collection to the borrowing of some Indian drugs and Indian medical formulas in Greece."

In the coming centuries. We also find the eastward journey of Indian medicine in Central Asia, China, and other parts of Asia.

This epoch coincides with the rise of Buddhism as well.

Filliozat further writes, "We have recovered from the sands of Central Asia not only Buddhist texts and documents of archives in Sanskrit, or Prakrit, but also medical manuscripts in Sanskrit, or translated from Sanskrit into regional languages, like Kuchean or Khotanese."

"The Bower Manuscript is a collection of several Sanskrit therapeutical texts. There also is a part of a bilingual manuscript of the Yogasataka, ascribed in India either to Nagarjuna or Vararuci."

"The Sanskrit text in the manuscript is intermixed with its literal translation into Kuchean language. The text is a summary of the Ashtanga of Ayurveda and thus exactly corresponds to a text described as famous in the 7th Century by the Chinese pilgrim Yi-tsing."

This text was also translated into the Tibetan language. And more impressively, it was in use in Sri Lanka till the 19th Century.

In the case of countries like China, Japan, and Korea, which have their medical traditions, they accepted Indian drugs rather than the Indian philosophy of medicine.

A number of drugs, together with their Indian names, have been preserved in the famous Japanese Imperial Treasury, the Shôsô-In, since the 8th Century.

In Cambodia, where the name of Sustuta (Susruta) occurs in the Sanskrit epigraphy, several inscriptions give Sanskrit lists of drugs presented to temples under the king Jayavarman VII around 1200 C.E.

"In Tibet, Indian medicine got its greatest popularity. It has been fully adopted in this country. In the 8th Century, a big work in four parts (catustantra, in Tibetan: Rgyud bzhi) entitled "Amritahridaya" is said to have been translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan.

"The teaching embodied in this text is ascribed to Buddha Bhaisajyaguru. The original Sanskrit is unknown, and some scholars have supposed it never existed. But a number of passages are clearly literal translations of quotations from Caraka or Susruta"

"This work was commented upon in Tibet, translated from Tibetan into Mongolian. From Mongolia, it was brought to Russia at the end of the last Century, and there too gained great popularity. Mongolian version together with a Russian translation was partly published by Pozdnevev."

On the other side, Indian medicine has been known in Persia and Arabic countries through Arabic versions or reports from Äyurvedic texts, chiefly in the initial period of the development of sciences in Islam.

"In 850 C.E., the Persian physician Ali ibn Rabbun at Tabari has written a treatise, the "Firdaus ul Hikmat," in which is included detailed information about Indian medicine."

This is a brief but broad overview given by Jean Filliozat. It is an awe-inspiring journey, to say the least.

The article also includes an image from one of the oldest medical manuscripts from the 6th-7th Century.

This thread is a part of our series that celebrates the 75th Independence day of India when we all will be celebrating #AzadiKaAmritMahotsav.

The earlier threads are embedded below

https://twitter.com/BhandarkarI/status/1551620726184382474?s=20&t=FZHlzbhtITSfY8o-2c8VCg

https://twitter.com/BhandarkarI/status/1552138971681292288?s=20&t=FZHlzbhtITSfY8o-2c8VCg