Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.s2.t1.2

v1.c6.s2.t1.2

The monks used *cikitsāvidyā* in three ways. First, the scientific medical terminology for ridding the body of an illness was used as a metaphor to explain the doctrine of deliverance from worldly existence. Second, psychosomatic diseases were treated by magico-religious remedies like prayers or invocations to Buddha, Nagarjuna or Jivaka or charms to be carried to drive away evil spirits. Lastly, medicine and surgery were practiced to relieve the human body of physical suffering. Thus, medicine developed as an integral part of Buddhist culture in China.