The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c11.31

c11.31

It is true that their opinions are divided. Nearchos says that medicine has very little use in India, except against snake-bites, the sobriety of the inhabitants ensuring them freedom from disease and that the Sophists cure the diseases that are eventually caused by some divine help (Nearchos in Strabo, XV, 1, 45; Arrian, Ind., XV, 12). Others say that the Śramaṇas call themselves doctors but are only magicians (Strabo, XV, 1, 70, where the Śramaṇas are ‘Pramnai’). On the other hand Megasthenes talking of these very Śramaṇas indicates that the second rung in esteem after that of the ascetics who have retired to the forest is given to doctors by the population. Of these doctors he says that they make use more of diet-control than of medicines and that among the latter liniments and cataplasms are made use of more often; the rest appears to them to be more or less suspect of bad effects (Strabo, XV, 1, 60, where they are called ‘Garmanes’). The same Megasthenes also talks in the same passage of the existence of the speculations on man and elsewhere of the existence of ideas analogous to those of Greeks relating to cosmology, to elements and attenuates the reproach made of Indians, of mixing too much of fiction with philosophy, by saying that Plato had done the same thing. On his side Onesicritos says that the Gymnosophists undertake much research concerning natural phenomena, the presages, the diseases (Strabo, XV, I, 65) and among the Musicanos, where he observes that the sciences are not cultivated, he notes that in this respect medicine is an exception.