The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s2.2

c9.s2.2

As specimens of Hindu energism in group-activity let us begin with organization in social service or welfare work. In Europe the hospital was unknown until Emperor Constantine (306—337) founded it for the first time in the fourth century A. C. But in India the first hospitals both for animals and human beings were founded at least as early as the third century B. C. by Asoka the Great.² And about 400 A. C. among the institutions that drew the notice of Fa Hien,³ the Chinese scholar-saint, at Pâtali-putra, the capital of the Gupta Empire, we are told of the free hospitals "founded by the respectable nobles and landowners of the country". These were resorted to by "the poor of all countries, the destitute, cripples and the diseased", and every kind of requisite help was offered gratuitously.