[Buddha-l] The state of buddha-l: a brief report

[jkirk]

-----Original Message-----
From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com
[mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Richard
Hayes
Sent: Sunday, August 16, 2009 9:34 AM
To: Buddhist discussion forum
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] The state of buddha-l: a brief report

On Aug 15, 2009, at 8:21 PM, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> BTW, how esoteric to be concerned about some obscure plant
named 
> Papaver somniferum L., right? Anyone know what it is

Yes. Sorry I didn't mention what its English name is, because I
thought it would be obvious from its Latin name. The genus name
Papaver is, I think, the basis of the English word "poppy," and
the species name "somniferum" means sleep-inducing, which is a
characteristic of the narcotics derived from opium, such as
morphine and diacetylmorphine (popularly know by the brand-name
Heroin). People such as Dominik Wujastyk and Ken Zysk have
devoted a great deal of time to studying pharmacology in India,
which is extremely tricky because of the difficulty of attaining
certainty (niścaya) about the current names for plants mentioned
in early Indian medical literature.  
(Just look at the history of the debate over what on earth soma
was.)

Zysk, who was my colleague for several years at University of
Toronto and is now in the Institute for Cross-Cultural and
Regional Studies at Københavns universitet, was trained in Indian
history by A.L.Basham of the Wonder That Was India fame. Basham
encouraged Zysk to study the history of Indian medicine. Zysk can
talk about Indian medicine and pharmacology for hours. If you
ever meet him, prepare to be fascinated. People interested in
Buddhism may be interested in his thesis that monastic Buddhism
played a significant role in the spread of medical knowledge in
India. One of his observations is that Buddhists, who meditated
on decomposing corpses, inadvertently learned a lot about human
anatomy, which knowledge played an important role in the
development of various surgical interventions. If you ever grow
tired of the discussions about health-care in modern America,
take a look at Zysk's book <title>Asceticism And Healing In
Ancient India:  
medicine In The Buddhist Monastery.</title>

A pleasant memory I have of Zysk was when we were having a long
conversation about ancient India, he suddenly stopped at said
"Damn it, Richard, do you realize how lucky we are to be able to
spend our lives learning what we love to learn about and to get
paid for it?"  
Yes, I did realize it, and yet I still catch myself at least once
a day marveling at this particular piece of good fortune. (Some
might call it karma, I suppose.)

Richard
_______________________________________________
buddha-l mailing list
buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l