Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India : Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery/Kenneth G. Zysk. Corrected edition. 1998, 200 p., $15.
Contents: Introduction. I. The Evolution of Classical Indian Medicine: 1. The beginnings of Indian medicine: magico-religious healing. 2. Heterodox asceticism and the rise of empirico-rational medicine. 3. Medicine and Buddhist monasticism. 4. Indian medicine in Buddhism beyond India. II. The Content of Early Buddhist Monastic Medicine: 5. Materia medica. 6. Stories of treatments based on cases of diseases. Conclusion. Appendices: 1. Jivaka's cures. 2. Glossary of Pali and Sanskrit plant names. Notes. Bibliogrphy. Index.
"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." (jacket)
[Kenneth G. Zysk is Associate Professor of Indian Studies at the University of Copenhagen.]