The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c11.28

c11.28

A detailed study of the later Upaniṣads and the Vedic Sūtras will yield still more indirect proofs of the existence of great activity in the field of physiological speculations anterior to these great manuals and on which they have clearly drawn. We have, already, had the occasion to show elsewhere as to how the theories of Suśruta and Caraka on sleep and dreams and on the relation of the spirit with the heart could be related in part to concepts taught in this respect by older Upaniṣads like the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and comparable for most of the time to those of the Greeks.¹