The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c10.45

c10.45

¹ It may be objected that if the assertion is absurd, it can in any case be thought to have been made by the author of the hymn. An example may be found in the Chinese Taoist, Ko-hung (Pao-pou-tseu), referring precisely to an intra-uterine respiration (*t'ai-si*). This is pointed out by P. Wieger and he expresses his surprise about it in European medicine (*Histoire des croyances . . .*, 3rd ed., Hien-Hien, 1927, p. 391). But with Ko-hong it does definitely refer to ideas borrowed from India, as underlined by Wieger himself and the respiration in question is, in reality, a *garbha-prāṇa*, a play of animal spirits in the matrix and in the foetus.