The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c14.14

c14.14

This fact is pregnant with consequences. In 525, a few years before the conquest of Sindh by Darius, Cambyses had conquered Egypt and there also had been installed the same administration of the Aramaic language as had been the case in India. By means of this step, the Achaemenians had thrown a bridge of Mesopotamian culture between Egypt and India. The big unit formed by the Persian empire had been sufficiently coherent to enable numerous exchanges between its farthest parts. Historians have not always justly appreciated the organisation of this empire. As has been very well pointed out by Sylvain Lévi, "We have taken up the cause of Greece, espoused, exaggerated its just grudges; the Persians are the vanquished and the Barbarians".¹ It is true that they have not imposed, not even powerfully spread in their territories a civilisation which was specifically and exclusively Iranian. But they have created political unity transcending races and religions. It is to the glory of Cyrus and Darius that they tolerated the beliefs of their subjects and this toleration has favoured the flowering and the exchange of thought. On the side of syncretisms (all of them have not been happy though) this has given rise to a large interchange of ideas where all the tributary people could bring in theirs and obtain those of others.