Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.s2.t4.32

v1.c6.s2.t4.32

wrote in the poem *Eye Disease* that “*Nagarjuna’s Treatise* is spread on desk and semen cassiae torae is stored in a box. No prescriptions are helpful in the world, and gold needle operation will be a try.” This is an example of “gold needle operation” (couching) in *Nagarjuna’s Treatise on Ophthalmology* which was popular in the society. There were Indian monks who were good at curing eye diseases with gold needle in the Tang Dynasty, for example, Liu Yuxi’s *For Oculist Brahman Monk* described that “the master is good at gold needle operation, why does he think about ways of enlightenment.” In 2012, Indian scholar Vijaya Jayant Deshpande published *Restoring the Dragon's Vision – Nagarjuna and Medieval Chinese Ophthalmology* with the Chinese scholar Doctor Fan Jiawei from Hong Kong in Chinese Culture Center of City University of Hong Kong, and translated Nagarjuna’s expositions on ophthalmology in ancient Chinese literature into English which is another good example of modern India-China medical exchange.