Traditional System Of Indian Medicine Ayurveda The Background

Author(s): V V Gokhle
Publisher: V V Gokhle
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269248/1

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The Traditional System of Indian Medicine* (Āyurveda) —the Background
by
V. V. Gokhale**

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The Traditional System of Indian Medicine*
(Āyurveda) -the Background
by
V. V. Gokhale**
1. Introductory
To speak on Medicine one has to be a practising medical doctor, - a practitioner with as large an experience as possible; because Medicine is above all a practical science, we may say, almost as practical as life itself, which it professes to treat and keep healthy. Myself, professing only to be a Doctor of Philosophy' and not of Medicine, I would try to deal with this subject more in relation to its historical, philosophical and cultural, rather than technical side. As a layman, the traditional Indian medicine as well as the modern practice of Western medicine in India being more familiar to me than many other systems, I propose to speak also, in a general way, about the efforts which are being made there to preserve the methodology and principles of Ayurveda in face of the standardised medical science as practised today in the West as well as in India. 2. Scientific validity of Ayurveda-sästra
To question the scientific validity of the Indian Ăyurveda as is often done is to my mind either pointless or chauvinistic, because in doing so we may be applying the wrong criterions to judge the historical value of a system of knowledge, which has yet by no means
ed its utility to human life, nor ceased to be rational. There are several other areas of ancient Indian culture, which may appear to be outmoded from the point of view of modern thinking. There is, e. g., the Arthaśāstra of Cānakya, dealing with problems of politics
* Lecture delivered on Thursday 16 th Dec. 1971, at the Indian Embassy Hall,
Tokyo. Formerly Prof. and the Head of the Dpt. of Buddhist Studies, Univ. of Delhi. Permanent Address : 39/14–15, PRABHAT ROAD, POONA 4 (INDIA)
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economics; there is the Kāmaśāstra established by Vātsyāyana, dealing with sex-life in all its aspects; there are Dharmaśāstras, dealing with social ordar and social functions, and several other Šāstras like the Šilpaśāstra (Science of Architecture), Rasaśāstra (Chemistry) etc.and add to these the fields of knowledgs, dealing with fine arts, like dance, music, painting etc. systematised in the ancient Nātyaśāstra of Bharata— ; it is from these that we come to realize what the Indian conception of a Śästra or a scientific system in general signifies. All these systems of knowledge have served and maybe are still serving a historical purpose, viz., the purpose of building up rationally an ideal society of human beings, healthy in mind and body. They have been constantly trying to root out inconsistencies and vagaries of the human mind and establish a system of knowledge in various walks of life) with a well-ordered logical structure, based upon reliable facts of experience, with sound theories and hypothesis, in short, to be scientific in the proper sense of the term. The advance of all knowledge through the centuries has been fitful, unbalanced and with a variety of approaches. In very early stages, man was. prone to speculate and accept a priori considerations. But, when reasoning began to assert itself over stray human emotions and individual fancy, true sciense having a social validity began to come into its own; and then gradually a priori and idealistic considerations began to be replaced by realistic methods based upon direct perception and experimentation. It is well-known, that for all advance in human knowledge, both methods of approach the deductive as well as the inductive, and synthesis as well as analysis have proved themselves indispensable as forming a unitary logical process of the human mind, which leads to the establishment of a consistent group of facts, which we call Science. This is also what has happened in the case of Ayurveda as a science. However, before we take a look at the theoretical principles underlying this ancient system of medicine, we may rapidly pass under review its historical background and its relationship with a few other prevailing systems of ancient medicine in Asia. 3. Historical Background: (i) Ayurveda in Greece 361
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The Ayurveda is seen to have started its career quite early in Indian history. We know very little about the state of medical knowledge in the Indus Valley culture, reaching upto five thousand years ago, except perhaps the fact that these people with their bathing tanks and well built drainage systems, had a keen sense for public hygiene. But then coming to the Atharva-Veda, which is mixed up with superstitions and magic, we find, especially in the Kausika-sutra belonging to it, clear references to diseases and their cures, and also to the 'eight parts' (aştanga) of the Ayurveda, as recognized by the later tradition. At the time of the Buddha (i. e, in the 6th century B. C.) we are left in no doubt that a well-recognized system of medical knowledge had come into existence. The halflegendary figure of Jivaka, the great medical genius of Taxila, who is glorified in the Śibi-Jātaka, emerges as the first surgeon-physician of India, to whom not only marvellous surgical operations, but also some medicinal formulae have been attributed. The Mahāvagga of the Pali-Vinaya mentions purgatives and medicines for fever, constipation etc. as household remedies. The oldest complete medical works on Ayurveda, however, are known to be those of Suśruta and Caraka (of the early Christian era), who produce different geneaologies. of their predecessors starting right from the God Brahmā, and they have come down to us more as textbooks for students rather than as independent original treatises, so that one can surmise that actual theories were first mooted at a much earlier date.
Prof. J. Filliozat in his "Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine" has discussed extensively and penetratingly the relationship between the Vedas and the Ayurveda as well as the one between the Greek medicine and the Ayurveda, and has arrived at important conclusions regarding their comparative chronology. With special reliance upon the evidence of Megasthenes, who had lived for a long time as ambassador at the court of Candragupta Maurya in India, he proceeds to observe that "Indian mediçine during the seven or eight centuries preceding the Christian era had nevar ceased to be actively cultivated and directed towards the definitive constitution of its doctrines." He then concludes that "classical Indian medicine, which is found in a fully (3)
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constituted form in the didactive manuals (i. e, of Caraka and Suśruta)> belonging to the environs of the Christian era, has its essential bases (viz. the doctrines of wind and of the breaths, of the fiery nature of the bile etc.) in the ancient Vedic texts, anterior to the formation of the Greek science, but that it has been elaborated and constituted as. a system during the period of the efflorescence of Greek science and parallel to it." Hippocrates was a near contemporary of the 'Buddha and his doctrines as expressed in his manuals "On Breaths" and on various subjects, have been on the whole found to be closer to the Indian theories on wind (vāta) etc. than to those of the contemporary Greek school of Empedocles and Diogenes of Appolonia (who died in 428 B. C.). The same kind of evidence is found in Plato's Timaeus which classifies diseases into three groups, the last of which is caused by pneuma (vāta), phlegm (kapha) and bile (pitta), the three humours. of classical Indian medicine. The next Greek physician, who had settled down in Rome: Galen of Pergamon (131-201 A. D.) set the pace for a more systematic approach to medical science and had no hesitation in giving recognition to Indian eye-ointments, plaster, herbals etc. But. then after him, Europe seems to have fallen into a lethargy for over a thousand years, i. e, until we meet with Paracalsus (1493-1541 A. D.). the founder of modern Chemistry, who developed realistic methods of medical analysis, that have come down to us in modern Western. medicine.
3. (ii) Ayurveda in Persia and Arabia
In the meanwhile, however, the Nestorians of the Greek Church, who were exiled in the 5 th century A. D. from the Byzantine empire by the Orthodox Church, carried medical literature to Asia Minor and then to Persia, where the Greek writings came to be translated into Syriac, and where Indian sientific contribution continued to come in. even after the invasions of India by Islam. In the 8th century Ommayid Caliph's empire extended from Spain to Samarkand and Greek medical works were translated also into Arabic, Thus in Baghdad, where physicians from India, Egypt and China flourished, a new concept of Materia Medica came into vogue. This was called Greco-Arab medicine or Unani-Tibbi, as developed by the Arabs, who
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being eminent transmitters of learning in various branches of knowledge from one country to another, brought about the enrichment and amalgamation of Indian, Persian and Chinese systems of medical treatment. 3. (iii) Unani (=Ionian) system
After this Unani-Tibbi system had come to India with the Muslims, it came into closer contact with the Ayurvedic system and more Indian herbs and drugs were introduced into its Materia Medica. In later history, in South India, where the Arabs had trading relations, some of the rulers like Hyder Ali, Tippu and the Peshwas of Poona are known to have employed Arab physicians, and more recently the Unani-Tibbi system was raised to the status of State
nedicine by the Nizam of Hyderabad. At the time of Hakim Ajmal Khan, the well-known national leader of the Independence movement in India, Delhi had become a renowned centre of this medicine along with other centres at Lucknow, Patna and Allahabad. Of late, there has been a movement in favour of an Indianized Greek-Arab medicine, which seeks to evolve a new system by combining the Unani and the Ayurvedic systems which had an ancient and basic relationship with
other. With this purpose in view, an Institute for the history and research in indigenous medicine has already been opened at New Delhi under the auspices of the present Prime Minister of India. Thus the ancient Indian medicine, after having established contacts with the ancient Western world and while gathering new experiences undergone many modifications, may be said new to have come home to roost. 3. (iv) Ayurveda in Ceylon and Burma
For medicine in Ceylon where Ayurveda probably reached in the 3rd century B.C. through the Buddhist emissaries sent there by Emperor Asoka, and in Burma, where the fame of Suśruta is known to have spread a thousand years later, Sanskrit models and technical terms are still being followed by the medical text books in these countries. 3. (v) Ayurveda in Tibet and Mongolia
In the northern countries of Tibet and Mongolia they still follow the ancient Ayurvedic texts, like the “Four Tantras” (Catus-tantra), ( 5 )
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the Sanskrit original of which seems to have been lost after it was translated into Tibetan in the 8th century A.D. There is, however, a Tibetan translation of the famous Aştāngahrdaya of Vāgbhata with an unknown commentary; and recently a new medical text incorporated in the well known canonical Buddhist work, called Suvarnaprabhāsasūtia, has been brought to light by J. Nobel, which is translated both in Tibetan and Chinese and acknowledged as belonging to the 3rd century A. D. The medical texts found in the Mss. remains discovered in Eastern and Southern Turkestan by Hoernle go back still further to the 2nd century A. D. and deal with a still older tradition, differing from that of Caraka. These and other facts leave no doubt about the acceptance of the Ayurvedic theories not only by the Tibetans but almost all inhabitants of Central Asia and were certainly known to the Chinese. Like the Arabs of the Middle East, the Tibetans have been good transmitters of knowledge between India and the Northern, Central and Estern parts of Asia including China. Descriptions and pictures of Indian medicinal herbs were made known in China through Buddhist works and there is a fair presumption that Indian theories regarding nerve-centres and breathing techniques as they were developed in the Indian Yoga and methods of pulse-diagnosis and of massaging for curing certain diseases had become the common property of what Prof. Hajime Nakamura has aptly called the “Indian Asia.” 3. (vi) Ayurveda and Chinese medicine.
Although no conclusive evidence of mutual borrowings between India and China is available, and although the double principle of Yin-Yang rules the Chinese medicine instead of the triple principle : wind-bile-phlegm (vāta-pitta-kapha) of the Ayurevda, it is worth nothing that it is the harmony of the basic principles which is to be restored by the physician to cure diseases and keep the body healthy. The sensitive hand of the Chinese physician, which can feel the 14 pulses on the surface of the body, 800 and more points on the skin which are related with the internal organs and the Chinese treatment of diseases by acupuncture and massage seem to have certain parallels in the Nādi-parikṣā (pulse examination) technique, the recognition
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of 900 sinews and 107 marman (dangerous spots) on the body as well as in the wide variety of massaging obtained in India today. As regards the Chinese approach in the treatment of human diseases, Dr. Stiefvater's observation is worth quoting. He says, “that this treatment presupposes a certain calmness and poise. It distinguishes itself by an intensive search into the whole nature of the patient....... Modern science prefers chemico-physical methods of examination and is able to analyse, but never to synthesize them.” This, indeed, is also the spirit in which the traditional Indian medicine approaches its problems. 4. Principles of Ayurveda
We shall now take a very brief survey of the principles on which the Ayurvedic system is founded. Like many other medical systems, the Ayurveda presupposes that all disease arises from a disturbance of the balance between the fundamental elements, which make up a living being, human or otherwise. It does not profess to go into how or why such a derangement was at all created for the first time in the primordial framework of a healthy and perfectly balanced living being ; no philosophy has yet been able to answer this perennial question, not even the Sāmkhya philosophy, which the Ayurveda accepted as the basis of its systematization. 4. (i) The Samkhya Philosophy of cosmic evolution
But it accepted the fact, that human life, as conceived by the Sāmkhya, has evolved itself out of a union of the five elements of matter, viz., Earth (prthivi), Water (ap), Fire (tejas), Wind (vā yu) and Space(ākāśa) with that inscrutable sentient principle of life, representing the soul or the spirit (atman or caitan ya). These material elements are, of course, not the same as the 92 and odd natural elements constituting the material world of modern science; because these five elements are such as are closely related with the corresponding five senses of perception in the human body, viz., the senses of smell (gandha), of tastę (rasa), of sight (rūpa), of feeling (sparśa) and of hearing (śubda) respectively. It is these five senses alone, which being the gates of knowledge can comprehend the inherent qualities (gnna) and functions (karma) etc. of all material substances. (7)
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4. (ii) Functional aspect of substances (dravya)
It is important to note, that it is the functions and the inherent qualities of a substance, which the Ayurveda holds to be the most essential factors, which any medical system must be aware of in treating diseases. It recognizes, of course, the other aspects of a substance, like the atomic contents, or the structure or the analysis of it, in which the ancient Vaiśeşika system or the modern Western science specializes. The knowledge of these other aspects has its use, no doubt; but the Ayurveda is seen to emphasize the fact, that for its pharmacology the important thing is a knowledge of the specific quality (and not mere quantity) of a substance, its effectiveness (and not merely its structure), its synthetic value (and not merely its analytic content). While the qualities and functions of a substance have to be studied in relation to their effect on the internal organs of the body, a clinical system is absolutely essential in the Ayurvedic medicine. The living and active human body on the one hand, and the innumerable natural substances found in its environment, of which it is itself an individual product on the other, and the mutual reactions of their forces and qualities upon each other becomes thus the central field of study with which Ayurveda is primarily concerned. To elucidate this further, I may quote an interesting and critical observation made by a leading Indian physician in this connection.. He asks: "If only the apparent similarity between the digestive processes in the body and the chemical processes in a laboratory were taken to be the only criterion in deciding questions of comparative biological nutrition and treatment, how shall we explain the striking disparity between the natural foods adoped by the same species of animals, like; a buffalo, an elephant, a tiger, a lion or a pig? The elephant with his huge body lives only on grass and herbs, i.e., is completely vegetarian, and yet it has great strength and intelligence, for which he does not need any meat-eating! If we see, that frogs are relished by serpents and mice by cats and decaying flesh by vultures, we have to conclude, that behind these instinctive nutritional predilections there must be existing some bio-chemical functional differences, which the Ayurveda recognizes as the special biological aptitudes of those ( 8 )
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particular animals." 4. (iii) Qualitative change in substances
Another point regarding the relationship of the living body with its environment is that the material stuff available to the body could either serve as its nutrition (poşaņa) or as a curative drug (aușadhi) or as a poison (visa). The Ayurveda is seen to have studied all these three aspects very minutely on the basis of observation and experiment and have described in detail how, in many cases, a particular capacity (e.g. that of acting as poison) could be converted into a different capacity (e. g. that of acting as a drug) when the stuff is suitably combined with certain dietetic conditions or subjected to certain pharmacological treatment. 4. (iv) The theory of Three Humours (Tri-dosa)
For appreciating this, we have to take a look at the most fundamental theory, developed and applied by Ayurveda in its medical practice. This theory concerns the origin of all diseases and it lays down three humours (or vitiating agencies) known as Tridoşa, viz., Wind (vāta), Bile (pitta) and Phlegm (kapha) which, if they keep in harmony. (sāmya) keep the body healthy, but fallen into disharmony (vaişamya) produce disease. This theory again rests on the neatly presentedevolutionary philosophy of the Sāmkhya. We have seen above, that the five material elements (viz., Earth, Water etc.) together with their corresponding sense-organs evolve themselves into what is called a living being, whose well-being and longevity is the subjectmatter of the Ayurveda. But the Sāmkhya goes back still further to find that in their turn all those elements, including the physical as well as the mental, owe their existence to three creative factors (called “guņa"), viz. (1) the Sattva (Intrinsic Purity), (2) the Rajas (Activity), and (3) the Tamas (Inertia), and it is these three which are represented in the human body as (1) Pitta (Bile), (2) Vāta (Wind) and (3) Kapha (Phlegm) respectively. Thus, we have here a picture of that cosmic unity of which life is a product. And in this product, the five material elements : Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Space, which build up the natural world, have their due share. This could be shown in a sort of a geneaological table, in which the cosmic factors : (1) Sattva, (9)
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(2) Rajas and (3) Tamas in the first column correspond to (1) Pitta, (2) Vāta and (3) Kapha in the second column. In the third column the corresponding gross material elements can be shown as : (1) Fire (agni), (2) Wind and Space (Vāyu and ākāśa), and (3) Earth and Water (prthivi and ap) respectively.
Cosmic Guņas Physiological humours
----Tri-dosa Sattva
Pitta (Bile) Rajas
Vāta (Wind) Tamas Kapha (Phlegm)
Represented in five material elements byFire (agni) Wind (vāyu) & Space(ākāśa) Earth(Pịthivi) & Water(ap)
We need not go deeper into the well-coordinated conception of a cosmic structure visualized by the Sāmkhya Philosophers and utilized for building up a consistent system of Indian medicine by the founders of Ayurveda. But we may bear in mind, that there is a classification of the elements in the physical body (dhātu) like flesh, blood, bones etc. corresponding with the material elements in the external world and further classifications of their physical, chemical, pharmacological and physiological properties, described in detail, so that we have a complete system of internal and external elements in the universe as a basis for studying mutual actions and reactions with the ultimate purpose of saving and prolonging the life of beings on earth. While discussing the Tridosa (Three humours), the Ayurveda deals systematically with their causes (hetu), their symptoms (linga) and their antidotes or drugs (aușudha)and in determining the potency of the medicine all possible factors inside the body and in the environment are minutely considered : e. g. age, strength, constitution, season, regional peculiarities, adaptability etc., according to which the response to the medicine may differ. Similarly, we find special attention paid to the juices (rasa=chyle) like sweet, sour etc., to the potency (virya) indicated by heat, cold and dryness, to the bio-chemical action as food (vipāka) and also to the overall effect (prabhāva) of material substances used either as food or drugs. 5. The present state of Ayurveda
Let us now turn to the situation in which the traditional medicine 353
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finds itself today in India. It will be readily granted, that for the progress and utility of a scientific system a properly organized education and well-equipped research in that system is the first requisite. However, since the modern Western medicine had been recognized for over a hundred years by the British rulers as the only standard system of medicine in India, it was natural that that Allopathy, which represents the progressive medical science today, was being given all the support, encouragement and recognition by the Government of India, to the detriment of the traditional Indian and other systems. It is only since the Indian Independence that the Ayurveda is receiving specical attention and support from the State. Whether the theoretical Indian approach to medicine is appreciated or not, the practical value and utility of the Ayurvedic system could hardly be underestimated, because it has actually been serving the medical needs of nearly 80% of the population, particulary in the thousands of villages and small towns, where the easily accessible and cheap remedies in the form of herbs and indigenous chemicals have been all along successful in preserving the health of the Indian masses. But to keep pace with the modern scientific advances, it was found necessary, that the traditional Ayurvedic doctor (called Vaidya), trained privately in 'Sanskrit medical theory and indigenous pharmacopoeia, was also taught the use of thermometers, stethoscopes, microscopes, X'rays and advanced methods in surgery etc. 5. (i) Ayurvedic Training
-old and new
With this purpose in view, Ayurvedic Colleges were opened with the necessary adjuncts of large hospitals, where dissections and surgery could be taught to the students and indigenous medicines used and tested. The Ayurvedic Vaidyas were also duly registered as qualified doctors. The State of Maharashtra has taken considerable initiative in recognising and supporting the traditional medicine along with the modern Western medicine, and the other States in India, like Gujerat, Rajasthan, the Panjab and Madhya Pradesh have followed suit by establishing independent Faculties of Ayurvedic Medicine in their respective Universities. In the Uttar Pradesh, which had taken an early lead in this matter, the Lucknow University is going ahead with its ( 11 )
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advanced and integrated courses in the Āyurveda. No decisive action seems to have been taken, however, in the Eastern States of Bihar, Orissa, Assam and Bengal. In the South Indian States, although no organized effort seems to have been made to set the Ayurvedic medicine on a firm footing, separate well-managed Institutes in Kerala, the Andhra Pradesh, Tamil-Nadu and Mysore are helping in raising the status and standard of the traditional Indian medicine. A Post-graduate Āyurvedic Research Institute equipped with a hospital and other facilities is doing pioneering work at Jamnagar (in Saurashtra) and a scheme for establishing a herbarium of Indian medicinal plants on a large scals is being implemented by the Central Government of India. 5. (ii) Effective use of Ayurvedic medicine
After all, the main objective of any medical system in the world could only be to preserve the health and prolong the life of a people. As noted above, the traditional system of medicine in India has been fulfilling this function successfully in the case of over half a million Indian villages by providing the people with sound ways and means.
keeping healthy and preventing and curing diseases by means of mild but effective drugs which are easily and cheaply available, and are suited to the life, climate, culture and environments in India. The aim of the Ayurvedic medicine has always been to increase the power of resistence to a disease, to treat the disease in its total relationship with the mind and body, and it has looked down upon lop-sided or partial methods of investigation and treatment. It is difficult to deny the richness, variety and efficacy of the Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia. A well' known Indian traditionalist has suggested that in the mondern Western medicine there being hardly any reliable drugs for diseases like: chronie diarrhoea (samgrahaņi), dysentery (pravāhikā), dyspepsia (agnimānd ya), oedema (sotha), asthma (śvāsa), obesity (medoroga), diseases of the nervous system (vātavyādhi), heart disease (hydroga), skin diseases (kșudrakuştha), ascites (udara), polyurea including diabetes (prameha), rheumatic troubles (āmavāta), psycho-neurosis. (mānasa-vyādhi), urinary troubles (mūtrakịcchra) etc., it should be possible to reserve some beds in each Allopathic hospital for treatment of these diseases by Ayurvedic methods. 351
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5. (iii) Knowledge of modern science essential for Ayurveda
On the other hand, there can be no doubt, that Ayurveda has to keep itself abreast of modern medical research, new scientific advance, as e. g. in bacteriology, biology etc., new surgical practices and new remedies in order to test and verify the truth of its own principles. and accept new knowledge. The direction in which this ancient system is to be revived and made to serve the people with greater efficiency and benefit will depend obviously upon its adaptability to modern scientific practices. The efforts which are being made in India today to give it facilities, status and recognition must at the same time seek to give its practitioners the knowledge of all modern theories and scientific appliances so that comparative research and progress in Ayurveda becomes possible. 5. (iv) Medical syllabi in Ayurvedic Colleges
Most of those doctors in modern India who were reputed as the most successful medical practitioners in Ayurveda (like the late Maharși Annasaheb Patwardhan (Poona) or the late Dr. Bhadkamkar (Bombay) were well versed in modern Western medicine and had also fully recognized the value of an integrated system of Indian medicine, Such an integrated Ayurvedic system has been sought to be prescribed in the syllabi of the newly opened Ayurvedic Colleges at various University Centres in India. In these syllabi a training in modern medical science (including subjects like Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Pathology & Bacteriology, Surgery (including ENT & Opthalmology), Midwifery & Gynaecology) is imparted along with all the parallel Ayurvedic subjects (including : Doşadhātumalavijñāna, Dravyagunavijñāna, Rasaśāstra & Auşadhinirmāņa, Svasthavytta, Nidānapañcaka, Vișa-tantra, Rogavijñāna, Kāyacikitsā, Salyaśālākya, Kaumārabhrtya and all their subdivisions, along with Sanskrit studies in the Sāmkhya & Vaiseșika philosophies as well as critical studies: in the basic works of Caraka, Suśruta etc). I am mentioning here the syllabi in Ayurvedic Colleges in some detail, because they show how necessary it is to study the Ayurvedic system in the light of modern Western medicine, if its principles and practice are to prove universally beneficial. These studies naturally put a very heavy
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burden on the students of Ayurveda (who see no comparable prospects for them in their professional career). Recently there was a movement among these students to suspend their studies in the Ayurvedic Colleges. This phenomenon of economic considerations playing an obstructive roll in the academic field, is not new to Japan and many other countries of the world. So, there is a proposal to reduce the burden on the students by converting the above-mentioned integrated courses into courses in Pure Ayurveda (śuddha-Ayurveda), i.e. by removing from them all the subjects in modern medical science. This will obviously be a retrograde step, and it is hoped, that the Purists will realise, that knowledge as applicable to human life, whichever may be its form of approach, cannot isolate itself behind the walls of partisanship. Unless all doctors are prepared to understand without prejudice all systems of medicine, that have proved effective and are open to study, there is no chance of the medical profession finding the right way of relieving human suffering. Above all, the best medical talents are faced today with the challenge to acknowledge the merits and demerits of the various medical systems and integrate the good points in each, so as to build up an ideal way of practising, medicine.
It will not be out of place to make a special reference on this occasion to the keen sense of awareness, which is being shown by the medical profession in Japan, both with respect to the shortcomings of modern Western medicine and the necessity of exploring new approaches to their science, that might eliminate some of the hidden dangers to human life on earth. Already one of the fundamental works of the Ancient Indian Medicine, viz., the Suśruta-samhitā has come out in two Japanese translations and it is hoped, that more basic works of this system will be similarly made available to medical scientists of Japan. Only a true and intimate understanding of this and other systems of medicine could lead to a new, comprehensive and progressive outlook.
Finally, I have to thank all those, and more particularly: 1) The Japanese Association for the Study of the History of Medicine 2) The Japanese Association for the Study of Oriental Medicine
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3) The Committee for the Publication of the Suśruta-samhitā in
Japanese 4) Eastern Institute 5) Indo-Japanese Cultural Association, for giving me this opportunity to put before them my views on this somewhat difficut but interesting subject of the Traditional Medicine in India, called the Ayurveda. I am also thankful to the audience for giving me a patient hearing.
V. V. Gokhale
Dr.V.V.Gokhale
by Hajime Nakamura (Univ. of Tokyo) Dr. V. V. Gokhale was born at Kolhapur (India) on March 20, 1901. His father was a judge. He learned Chinese and Tibetan and studied Mahāyāna Buddhism at Visva-Bharati Univ. (Santiniketan), where the founder of the Univ., Rabindranāth Tagore had a great influence on him. He got B. A. (Hons) of Bombay Univ., and then continued his Asian Studies at Heidelberg and Bonn securing Alexander von Humboldt Scholarship (1926-'30). He received the degree of Dr. Phil. (sehr gut) of Bonn Univ. in 1930 and was appointed Professor of Pāli and German at Fergusson College, Poona in 1932. In 1959, he was offered the chair of Buddhist Studies at Delhi Univ. and then he became the Head of the Dept. of Buddhist Studies. After his retirement from Delhi Univ. in 1966, he had been Professor at Poona Univ. Meanwhile, he was a Visiting Professor at Cheena Bhavan, Visva-Bharati Univ. (1937–38) and an Officer on Special Duty at Lhasa, Tibet (1948-'50). He has engaged in laborious study of Sanskrit Mss. discovered in Tibet and published some important texts of Buddhism and Skt. literature. He is a leading scholar of Buddhist studies not only in India but also in the world; one of his works has been published in U.S. A. and appreciated internationally. He has several old friends among learned circles here and some young Japanese scholars have been in India to study under his guidance. At the invitation of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science which is a governmental organization, he stayed in Japan for three months since Oct., 1971 to deliver the lectures at Tokyo Univ. and so on.
(本稿の邦文抄訳は「大法輪」昭和47年5月号に掲載。全訳は追って東方研究会の機関 紙に掲載する) ( 15 )
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Uber den Vornamen de GRAAFs von H. SAKAI* Es gibt keinen Mediziner, wer den Namen de GRAAFs nicht weiss. Da de GRAAF der Entdecker des Follikels im Eierstock ist, ist de GRAAF einer der beruhmten niederlandischen Wissenschaftler im Bereich der Medizin und da sein Name in der Beschreibung der Anatomie der Geschlechtsorgane des Menschen als die sogenannten "Folliculi Graafiani ovarii" noch stets fortlebt, wissen alle Studenten der Medizin seinen Namen schon beim Kursus der Histologie in der fruheren Stufe der medizinischen Bildung. Wahrend des Aufsuchens der Beschreibungen uber die Geschichte der Gefassinjektionsmethoden hatte der Verfasser eine Beschreibung uber de GRAAF in dem "Biographischen Lexikon")" gefunden: "...Bekannt ist sein Streit mit JAN SWAMMERDAM uber die Prioritat der durch ihn veroffentlichten anatomischen Entdeckungen und Gefassinjectionsmethoden, welcher die Ausgabe seiner "Defensio partium genitalium adversus Swammerdammum" (L. B. 1673) zur Folge hatte....". Deswegen hat der Verfasser seine Gefassinjektionsmethoden noch eingehender wissen wollen. Indessen ist es an den Tag gekommen, dass der Vorname de GRAAFs anders in den "Ontleedkundigen Tafelen?)" geschrieben wurde; d. h. Reinier de GRAAF in dem "Biographischen Lexikon)" und Regnerus de GRAAF in den "Ontleedkundigen Tafelen?)". Wegen dieses Unterschieds zwischen den beiden Beschreibungen hat der Verfasser die genaue Buchstabierung des Vornamens de GRAAFs in den Literaturen gesucht. Der Vorname und der Beruf von de GRAAF konnen folgendermassen tabellarisch dargestellt werden. * a. o. Professor, Anatomisches Institiut, Medizinische Fakultat, Universitat KANAZAWA 347 ( 16 )