The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.2

c8.2

The Vedic literature contains, in all its parts, numerous references to the various parts of the body, to diseases and even to the functioning of the organism. In its oldest stratum, in the Saṃhitās, these references are fortuitous and they do not furnish us with enough data on the knowledge of the period. The Saṃhitās, being only the collections of hymns, of liturgical songs and of magical and ritual pieces, were in no way suited for descriptive accounts of the rudiments, which one could have acquired at that time, of anatomy, physiology and medicine. The references found in the most recent data of the Vedic literature in the essentially “brahmanic” stratum, that is in the Brāhmaṇas and in the Upaniṣads are more important for the contemporary state of science. There, often, the cosmo-physiological speculations are discussed in a way, which though not at all systematic, allows us at least to have an idea of the same. But the indications of the Saṃhitās, thanks to their antiquity, are also quite precious. Moreover, their comparison with more recent data allows us to observe either their agreement or their disagreement with the latter ones. It is, therefore, possible to distinguish between the notions which go back to the oldest texts and those which appear at a later date and to fix certain points of relative chronology in the formation of the medical science of India.