The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.197

c7.s2.197

We will, therefore, not examine here in detail the numerous *rapprochements* which can be made between the notions found only in the Middle-Iranian texts and in the Sanskrit works later than the Vedic epoch. We will limit ourselves to draw two conclusions from the comparison of the Vedic ideas relating to medicine with the corresponding ones in Iran. In the Indo-Iranian period, there does not seem to have existed any medical system which the Vedic Aryans could have brought with them into India. On the other hand, right from the Indo-Iranian period, several general notions concerning the cosmic rôle of the natural elements, such as the waters, the fire, the wind, had come into being. At the same time an idea of the correspondence between these elements and the constituent principles of the body had been developed and this must have prepared the latter-day development of the two parallel physiologies and cosmologies.