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

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joy,

> I still can't wrap my mind around the model of a physician, with a pramana
approach [...] working in the same court for the same people as the Shaivite
priest

Interesting image. I suppose if the physician makes generous donations to
the Shaivite priest's favorite charity, everything would be alright -- and
if he is a good physician who has effected some dramatic cures for members
of the royal family, the priest will tread lightly.

We tend to portray and envision Indian (and other) culture(s) in very
monochromatic images, as if the same types of situations and dynamics
functioned with minimal variation over countless centuries, and in multiple
places. One can imagine many different sociological scenarios, affected by a
multitude of factors, such as predilections of the king, reputation of the
physician, etc. A court physician might enjoy his position because while he
is only called upon when someone is ill, he would at other times have the
financial support and leisure to pursue other studies and research. In other
cultures, e.g., we might remind ourselves that Ibn Sina [Avicenna], Ibn
Rushd [Averroes] and Rambam [Maimonides] were physicians -- Maimonides to
the Egyptian sultan -- and they were also three of the best medieval
philosophers who also pursued interests in various other sciences
(astronomy, jurisprudence, mathematics, etc.). Ibn Rushd did have his
problems with the authorities (not a Saivite among them), but not over
medical issues.

In a more general sense, however, as the Daoists and dialecticians like to
point out, pretty much everything that happens also engenders and enters a
relation with its opposite. The tendency to embrace the rational and reject
the "superstitious" was not an invention or triumph of the Enlightenment,
but a constant struggle in human history. Confucians were rejecting
superstition back in the Han (ca. 2000 years ago); Buddha in his day tried
to replace magical thinking with causal analysis and causal etiology (the
four noble truths are a medical model, still taught in medical schools today
under the label "Pathological Model of Disease:" 1. Symptom, 2. Diagnosis,
3. Prognosis, 4. Treatment Plan). This, on the one hand, suggests that there
was a great deal of "superstition" at that time against which one had to
mount an organized critique; on the other hand, as we know, in Buddhism (and
China) superstitious thinking always returns with a vengeance, and magical
thinking has become integral to many forms of Buddhist thinking. So the more
"magical" and fascistic the Shaivite priest might get (and it would be silly
to think they were all trident wielding Mussolinis), the more the
counter-response would be to pursue a more rational, liberal approach.
History is that sort of dialectical dance. The more Richard thinks like
Richard, the more Bushes arise seeking office and power. The more Bushes who
get into power, the more Richards who vent their spleens on email lists. So
in any given Indian court, how the dance progresses would depend on how well
the dancers play their part, etc.

> I understand you want to focus on the methodological pramana approach of
the CS and its influence on e.g. Buddhism, which I find interesting,
because, without going into specifics, many references about the Buddha
being a physician and other images from the medical world can be found in
Buddhism.

In addition, I am intrigued by the role medicine -- in the form of medical
causal thinking -- has played in the history of philosophy. That
pramana-theory was invented by physicians and only afterward appropriated by
"philosophers" makes perfect sense. Aristotle was primarily a botanist, and
secondarily a biologist... philosophy was the byproduct, and his writings
(e.g., on melancholia -- what today we tend to include under the label of
depression) were influential in the Western medical traditions. His
botanical classifications led to his ontological classifications (the Great
Chain of Being that the medievals derived from the Organon) -- "family
trees" -- better known to philosophers these days as classes, sets, etc. Had
he been a practicing physician rather than a classifier of family chains of
distinctions, western metaphysics might have taken a very different shape,
more focused on efficient causes than on formal classifications.

> Yes, I also see some parallels to the in my eyes artifical
"differentiation" between a religion and a sect. [...]
> There is much more freedom in that regard (sects) in Great-Britain and the
States.

Perhaps. But we don't have clear criteria here either. Here we tend to
tolerate "harmless" sects, as long as they don't endanger others or their
own members. Christian Science and other "religions" that reject certain
medical treatments, such as blood transfusions, even for their children,
have stirred up legal controversies from time to time, and the "law" in such
cases still remains murky. As long as sects stay off the mainstream radar
screen, they can operate pretty much as they wish. I live only an hour or so
from Salem, Massachusetts, where a bunch of innocent women were executed for
being witches. Something of that legacy -- witchhunts for Communists,
pedophiles, liberals, etc. -- still lingers in the air.

Dan Lusthaus