Vanaspati: Plants and Plant-Life as in Indian Treatises and Traditions c6.t3.39

c6.t3.39

The further story of the science of Medicine in India can be very briefly told. It is the story of monotony and stagnation—no development, no progress, no practical addition; rather, the spirit of enquiry, the desire of explanation, a hankering after the solution of each problem, the motive of searching analysis and scrutiny are all gone. In the Hindu Science of Medicine, Mythology with its vast array of gods and goddesses intrudes; and although the Science has been practised, and it is being practised still with wonderful efficacy, the progress has been arrested for good and all. The wonder of wonders is that the Indian Science of Medicine which was developed centuries before the modern Science of Medicine came into being, has stood so long the wear and tear of time, of revolutions and conquests and in all essentials is still as perfect as ‘the most developed European system to-day’ and, considered from the point of utility, it is peculiarly useful and efficacious to the people of the land of its origin. The glory of it is that it can still cope with any other system of medicine and the misfortune and shame of it is that it has not received adequate attention and has not consequently undergone any improvement.