Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c5.s1.2

c5.s1.2

2. *Origin of Medicine.* According to the Indian medical tradition the knowledge of medicine had a twofold origin. On the one hand, it was delivered by the god Indra to the sage Bhāradvāja, and by him to Ātreya: on the other, it descended from Indra to Dhanvantari (also called Divodāsa, and Kāśīrāja), and from him to Suśruta. This tradition traces medicine from a mythical, through a semi-mythical, to an historical beginning. It may be taken to mean that Ātreya, the physician, and Suśruta, the surgeon, were understood to be the first founders, in their respective departments, of medicine as a science. Before them there existed only what may be called medicine men, who practised medicine as a witchcraft, and the source of whose knowledge was claimed to be supernatural.