The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.16
The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.16
- Language
- English
c7.s2.16
The medical data of the Avesta,¹ as it has reached us, are mostly contained in the *Videvdāt* (*Vendīdād*) which appears to belong, in its totality, to the beginning of the Arsacidian period² (250 B.C.—A.D. 224), although the materials are older. This work gives us information concerning doctors and fixes their fees (VIII. 36) but, of course, it does not contain any account which could be really called medical. It distinguishes three types of doctors practising with the aid of knife, of plants or of the holy word (*manthra spenta*) the last being the most esteemed (VII. 44, cf., also *Yast*, III, 6).