The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c5.5

c5.5

This problem has been very early resolved by the authors who had taken it up. In India, because of National pride, certain persons make it a principle to claim that in early antiquity the science of their country had gone much farther than that of the present occident. On the other hand, in the occident many claim that the spirit of scientific research could not arise but among them and that India could have had only that much in science, which she could have borrowed. In both cases, only certain examples, thought to be the characteristics, are offered as proofs; these examples are immediately generalised, with hypotheses supplementing the missing data, without making any effort for acquiring the latter. In truth, judgement is given on the basis of racial or rational prejudice rather than on that of a profound comparative study of the two great scientific traditions, on whose respective values pronouncements are made. It can be easily observed that those who settle this question with greater certainty are familiar only with the tradition in whose favour they give the decision and know the other only by means of fragmentary data or through studies they cannot appreciate. This is the least to be said in the most favourable case, because, clearly, we do not have to consider those who know neither of the two sciences, with which they deal.