Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.27

v1.c6.27

In ancient Eastern medical systems, China’s traditional medicine and India’s Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Islamic medicines had a long and rich history of progress and enormous contributions to protect and preserve human health. These classical medical systems mutually transmitted and shared knowledge. This was most apparent in the extensive penetration and diffusion of medical knowledge and skills between China and India, primarily through Buddhism in the medieval period. Indian Āyurveda had three representative books (*Mahā-triya*) ie *Caraka-samhitā* of Caraka, which mainly discussed internal medicine; *Śuśruta-samhitā* of Śuśruta, which was related to surgery; *Aśtāngahrdayasamhitā* of Vāgbhatta which paid attention to both internal medicine and surgery. The pathogenesis in Āyurveda is directly based on the “theory of harmony and balance of three humours/ essences.” The human body is made up of three essences, ie *vāta’/*vāyu (wind), *pitta* (bile) and *kapha* (phlegm) and any imbalance among the three leads to *tridośa*, “three causes” or “three disease elements”. A disease caused by the disturbance in three humors is referred to as “three-in-one disease” or “three-for-one disease” etc. If the three humors are balanced, the human body will be healthy; if the three humours are imbalanced, a human being will suffer from illness. Besides having the Āyurvedic theory of three humours/essences for pathogenesis, the Buddhist medical system primarily applies the concept of four elements forming the body. The abnormality of one leads to 101 diseases and of more than one similarly to 404 diseases and so on. The earliest scripture *Ren shen si bai si bing jing* (*Classic on Four Hundred and Four Diseases of Human Body*) and the *Ren bing yi bu neng zhijing* (*Classic on Incurable Human Diseases*) are taken from Volume I in *Xiu xing di dao jing* (*Classic on Path to Cultivation*) which was edited and translated by the Indian monk, Dharmaraksa, during the Western