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IS THERE AN INNER CONFLICT OF TRADITION?
JOHANNES BRONKHORST
framana-physicians described by Megasthenes. The healing of the Pramnai Strlamaņas is magico-religious, using sorcery (yonteia), spells (inai), and amulets (kepicortal), and reminiscent of the early Vedic medical tradition reflected in the Atharvaveda. This form of healing is, on the whole, contrary to the empirical and rational medicine of the early Buddhist and ayurvedic literature, in which references to magical techniques are rare." This goes, of course, against ZYSK's general thesis, according to which the Sramaņas are to be connected with a new kind of medicine, not with the old Vedic one.
The problem can however easily be solved. Nothing in the original Greck says that the Sramaņas practise medicine with sorcery, spells, and amulets. The agent of die last Sentence of this passage is not specified, and there is no compelling reason to think that it concerns Sramanas rather than philosophers in general, or even only Brahmins. Indeed, there are some rather clear indications to show that the Brahmins are decidedly not excluded in the latter half of this passage. The mountain-dwellers here discussed are said to wear hides of deer. Deer skins are exactly what, according to Megasthenes, Brahmins use. We may assume that our Greck authors here refer to the antelope-skin, which is a special feature of Vedic ascetics. 26
The immediately following sentences, not quoted by ZYSK, confirm that Brahmins are not excluded in this passage. Indeed, one gets the impression that specific features of certain groups are to some extent confused; some of these features, at any rate, are typically Brahmanical. We read, for example, in connection with the naked (philosophers):27 "Women live in their society without sexual commerce." This is typical for the Vedic vanaprastha, who withdraws with his wife into the forest. The Vedic vanaprastha needs a wife in order to fulfil his sacrificial obligations. About the so-called 'urban (philosophers) we read (15.1.71) that some live "out in the country, and go clad in the skins of fawns or antelopes". 21 Again the antelope skin, a Brahmanical feature which we discussed above. If, moreover, the statement to the effect that they all wear long hair and long beards, and that they braid their hair and surround it with a head-band"29 refers to the same 'urban philosophers, we have here another feature referring to Brahmins rather than to the Sramanas, who had a tendency to be bald.
The second passage from Strabo's Geography suggests, therefore, that also Brahmanical ascetics were known to offer their services as healers, but that they, contrary to the non-Vedic ascetics, practised a different kind of healing, the kind of healing namely, which we also find in Vedic texts.
We may, in view of the above, agree with ZYSK that some, perhaps many, ascetics in ancient India also worked as healers. But there is no reason to think that the association of healers with ascetics was responsible for the "paradigm shift" which supposedly took place at that time. The evidence we have is limited, but it suggests something quite different. It suggests that Vedic ascetics practised Vedic healing, and that non-Vedic ascetics practised non-Vedic healing. This, in its turn, only makes sense on the assumption that the social background of the healers concerned determined the type of healing they would practise. And this suggests that there were two traditions of healing which existed side by side, in different segments of society.
Let me not fail to point out here that ZYSK does not reject the possibility of different traditions existing side by side. He reminds us on p.24 that the frequent travels of Vedic healers beyond the frontiers of Aryan society in order to acquire the rich pharmacopoeia mentioned in the Atharvaveda brought them into frequent contact with non-Aryan peoples. They obtained from these outsiders, ZYSK continues, much new and valuable knowledge pertaining to their special craft. "Their contact with non-Aryans might well have given rise to an empirical orientation that became ... antagonistic to brāhmaṇic orthodoxy in the later Vedic period." (p.24). ZYSK does not how. ever elaborate this theme of the presence of an empirical orientation outside what he calls Aryan society.
How were these two traditions distinct from each other? ZYSK characterizes the Vedic tradition of healing as "magico-religious", the non-Vedic tradition as "empirico-rational", 31 "Vedic medicine," he points out on p. 15. "was fundamentally a system of healing based on magic. Disease was believed to be produced by demonic or malevolent forces when they attacked and entered the bodies of their victims, causing the manifestation of morbid bodily conditions. These assaults were occasioned by the breach of certain taboos, by imprecations against the gods, or by witchcraft and sorcery."
25. I thank my doctoral student Bogdan Diaconescu for helping me with the interpretation
of this passage 26. BRONKHORST 1993: 51 with n. 12. 27. Tr. MCCRINDLE 1901: 76. Cp. JONES 1930: 124: MEINEKE 1877: 1001: Yuvaikas
συνείναι μη μιγνυμένας αύτοίς. 28. JONES 1930: 124; MEINEKE 1877: 1001: tois De ROMTkos aivbovitas kard
κόλιν ζήν ή και κατ' αγρούς, καθημμένους νεβρίδας ή δορκάδων δοράς. 29. Geography 15.1.71: Koua & kul Karvot popciy kávta, dvarhekotvous &
wetpoboa s kó (JONES 1930: 124; MEINEKE 1877: 1002; tr. Jones.) MCCRINDLE (1901: 77) translates this passage in a manner which surgests that all Indians wear long hair and long beards.
30. WOLZ-GOTTWALD (1990) draws attention to features of classical Ayurveda that are
hard to reconcile with both a Brahmanical and an ascetic origin; the empirico-rational approach may therefore have originated in more world-oriented circles. This, of course,
supports our argument. 31. WEZLER (1995: 222) looks upon the stark contrast between the 'magico-religious
healing' of the Veda and the later empirico-rational medecine' as "acceptable as rhetorical exaggeration". After severe criticism of a number of passages in ZYSK's book, WOZLER comes none the less to the conclusion that "ironically Zysk may
nevertheless ultimately be right" (p. 228). 32. Cp. ZYSK 1985:8: "In this work ... the concept of magico-religious medicine is
understood to be as follows: Causes of diseases are not attributed to physiological functions, but rather to external beings or forces of a demonic nature who enter the body of their victim and produce sickness. The removal of such malevolent entities
