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Medical Sciences in Jaina Canons : 531
about four basic units of ancient medical system. They are (i) the physician, (ii) patients, (iii) nurses and the (iv) medicines (the term used for this is Auṣadha which previously meant herbal and plant-based medicines. Later, minerals and prepared medicines have also been included in this term ). Besides preparations, administration of medicines to patients is also included here. A fifth unit of community and preventive medicine was added to these four suggesting public health consciousness of Jaina scholars more than two thousand years ago21. Ugraditya also confirms these basic units and defines them. They are also the basic units of medical establishment today. This suggests the continuity of structural and external similarity of medical learning during the past and present.
(i) Physician: The word should be taken as to mean the indigenous medical specialist and practitioner of ancient times. There is a large amount of ignorance about the quality and quantity of physicians of that period. This does not seem justified. They became masters of their trade by learning under suitable monks in seminaries and monasteries associated with the Jainas besides their hereditary education. The teachermonks were called Kalacāryas or skill-preceptors. The medical scientists of that time were practically creative and theoretically intelligent. They cultivated these qualities as there were no detractions during their learnings in their places like today. The most recent trend in education is also moving in the so-called backward direction in this regard. The physicians of those days worked privately and as civil servants also. They treated the public, individual and even none or both. They were highly proficient in the eight-fold system of medicine current those days22,
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(ii) Patients: Though the canons do not contain description about the patients in general; however, Ugraditya tells us that the patients should have confidence and faith in the physician approved by the state. The physicians, on the other hand, should first examine the patient by methods of (i) seeing
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