The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.19

c7.s2.19

This classification has been commented upon several times. Christensen³ has made a *rapprochement* between this passage and another which is given in the *Aphorisms* of Hippocrates (VII. 87) and according to which, all that can not be cured by medicines, is cured by fire and that which cannot be cured by fire is incurable. He thinks that this Greek classification has been able to exert some influence on the Iranian one and observes that the latter is completed in the *Denkart* by the mention of fire (and also of the "burning" which he interprets as denoting the fumigation by means of aromatic herbs and which most probably is cauterisation by means of caustics). But the Greek classification and that of the *Videvdāt* agree only in the total number of their elements because the holy word is not mentioned in the *Aphorisms* and the fire is missing in the *Videvdāt*. Hence there is no significant trace of influence. Much more important, however, is a remark of Darmesteter, taken up and emphasised recently by Mr. Benveniste. According to this remark the Avestan classification of doctors corresponds to that of Pindarus regarding curative processes (*Pyth.*, III. 91).⁴ The concordance being, in this case, complete, it follows that, in all probability, the tradition of a deliberate division of medicines in three classes, drugs, surgical means and charms, is Indo-European. But this does not reveal anything concerning the eventual existence of the already determined processes and of already established doctrinal concepts, dating from the Indo-Iranian period and which could have been in vigour in the period of the *Videvdāt*.