The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c10.18

c10.18

The majority of these conclusions are not at all valid as they are implicitly based on the double postulation that the Indians, speculating on breath in the organism, could only have originally, in view the respiratory breath and that they had, later on, given it no thought except those relative to ritual symbolism. The idea that for the mere requirements of this symbolism and because of the mechanical play of the grammatical rules of the formation of nouns, the Indians found themselves in possession of a nomenclature of breaths and that they have been obliged to invent physiological reasons for justifying this nomenclature, is presented as a result. This, however, is only a strange hypothesis.