[Buddha-l] Re: Aama do.sa I

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joanna,

> Brilliant. You beat me to it. I'd only add that, as we know from the
history
> of Indic cultural expansions into southeast asia (such as parts of today's
> Indonesia and also former Indo-China and Cambodia), traders over the seas
> were the medium of expansion while Hindu priests and/or Brahmins and
> Buddhist monks went along to proselytise.
> It must be the case that some medical practitioners of Ayurveda were also
> 'renouncers' and free to accompany traders on the silk routes as well.
> (Perhaps grhastya practitioners also went along for these trips, but I
doubt
> if very many did it, being hooked up with wives and progeny. Of course,
such
> details can only be speculated upon.) Buddhist monks often knew about
> various kinds of medical practice, as did cultivated Brahmins educated in
> various shastras of all kinds.

Indian expansion into Southeast Asia and the islands at that time involved
settlement of significant Indian communities. Doctors who might appear there
would largely have ministered to that community. But more importantly,
visiting a doctor only involves receiving treatment -- not imbibing massive
quantities of medical knowledge or systems. "Make a soup of these herbs
(nevermind what they are) and drink four times a day" is not the same as
conferring an MD on someone.

There are ways to check these sorts of speculations -- for instance, examine
Chinese medical lore of various periods and/or Indian medical lore, and look
for traces of the other's medical knowledge. Comparative pharmacopia is a
still developing field, but we discover many herbs, plants, etc., were
unknown in one or the other place. Because herbs are mentioned in numerous
sutras, some of the names of Indian medicinal plants were known in China,
but the medical lit. informs us that the plant itself was unknown there.
What we find is that there was interest (more on the Chinese side than the
Indian, undoubtedly introduced by Buddhist missionaries), but minimal
impact. That is why Yijing's chapter on medicine (which I mentioned
previously) in his travelog is illuminating. He tells us he had originallly
studied to be a doctor in China, but changed his career choice. So, while he
was not a full fledged Chinese doctor, he had at least the basic knowledge
that an educated layperson [sic] would have of its theories and practices.
He also tells us that he never lost his interest. Much of Indian medicine he
nonetheless found exotic and unfamiliar, though he draws some parallels or
mentions comparable things in Ch medicine that handle things similarly or
different. He is as amused at these new exotic finds as when he discovered
that no one in the "Western lands" used chopsticks.

Dan