Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.s2.t2.8

v1.c6.s2.t2.8

By the time Buddhism established itself in India and began its outward transmission to Central and East Asia particularly to China, Korea and Japan, the Indian medical system, its prominent theories and disciplines were already defined. It has remained a controversial point whether the Buddhists borrowed medical concepts from Indian medicine and gave them the philosophical overtures or vice versa. Some scholars are of the opinion that significant growth of Indian medicine took place in early Buddhist monastic establishments followed by its later Hinduisation.³ Buddhist canonical literature is full of cursory references to medicine and surgery, but they do not reflect deeper medical insights. It ought to have been the case if the Buddhists were to be credited with significant development in medicine. Therefore, for all we know, it was the Buddhists who borrowed the concepts of Ayurveda that reached China with Buddhism in the 2nd/ 3rd centuries CE.