The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c14.42

c14.42

¹ Strabo, XV, 1, 64. Onesikritos has nevertheless drawn from this conversation certain data which are interesting even for us today. This is how he has understood a legend according to which the earth was at first covered with food but this food disappeared as a punishment for the insolence of human beings. A similar legend is found much later in texts like the *Mahavastu*, ed. Senart, I, pp. 338 ff. The report of Onesikritos teaches us usefully that this legend existed in the IVth century B.C.