Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c26.2

Language: English

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**Education in Medicine and Surgery: Career of Jīvaka.** Buddhist literature from the Vinaya texts downwards conveys a continuous volume of striking evidence regarding the progress achieved in ancient India in medicine and surgery. We have already cited the interesting evidence of the Vinaya on the subject of the medicines, drugs, and the surgical operations and treatment then in vogue. The most distinguished medical expert of the age was Jīvaka Komārabhachcha, of whose life and career the Vinaya gives several concrete and interesting details [*Mahāv.*, viii, 1]. He was the son of the courtesan, Sālavatī of Rājagṛiha, who was thrown away on a dust heap from which Prince Abhaya rescued him alive. He also brought him up till Jīvaka thought: "In these royal families it is not easy to find one's livelihood without knowing an art. What if I were to learn an art!" Thus thinking he went to Takkasilā to study medicine under a "world-renowned physician" who lived there. He "learnt much and learnt easily, understood well, and did not forget what he had learnt".

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After studying thus for seven years, he asked his teacher when his studies might be regarded as completed, whereupon his teacher prescribed to him the following test: "Take this spade and seek round about Takkasilā a yojana on every side, and whatever plant you see which is not medicinal, bring it to me." Jīvaka examined all the plants of the area specified and reported that he had not come across any plant that had no medicinal properties. The teacher, satisfied with his answer, said: "You have done your learning, my good Jīvaka," and gave him a little money for his passage home. The money was sufficient for his journey only up to Sāketa where he was therefore forced to earn by his art. At that time fortunately a Seṭṭhi's wife had been suffering for seven years from a disease in the head whom many great and world-renowned physicians had failed to cure, though much gold was spent on them as their fees. But young Jīvaka would not either be given a call until he proposed that his fees might be paid only if the patient were cured. Jīvaka had one *pasata* (handful) of ghee boiled up with various drugs and administered the medicine to the patient through her nose. By one dose she was cured and gave the doctor in all 16,000 *Kāhāpaṇas* together with a coach, horses, and two servants. These fees and presents Jīvaka tendered on his return to Rājagaha to the prince who brought him up for the expenses incurred for it.

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Next, Jīvaka cured the Emperor Bimbisāra of his fistula by one anointing and was then appointed as the royal physician and the physician of the Buddha and his Saṁgha. The next important case he treated was that of a Seṭṭhi at Rājagaha who had been suffering for seven years from a head disease. Jīvaka performed a surgical operation to cure him: he "tied him fast to his bed, cut through the skin of the head, drew apart the flesh on each side of the incision, pulled two worms out of the wound, then closed up the sides of the wound, stitched up the skin on the head, and anointed it with salve". The next important call came from Benares to cure a Seṭṭhi's son who, by a gymnastic feat, got an entanglement of his intestines, for which "he could not digest anything, nor could he ease himself in the regular way, and looked discoloured with the veins standing out upon his skin". Jīvaka performed another of his successful and difficult surgical operations. He "cut through the skin of the belly, drew the twisted intestines out, and showed them to his wife". He then "disentangled the twisted intestines, put them back into their right position, stitched the skin together, and anointed it with salve". Before long the patient was cured and his father gave the surgeon 16,000 *Kāhāpaṇas*. The next call came from distant Ujjenī whose King Pajjota, suffering from jaundice, asked the Emperor Bimbisāra for the services of his physician.

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Jīvaka wanted to boil up ghee for his medicine, but as he understood that the patient had a great aversion to ghee, he resorted to an artifice of "so boiling up the ghee with various other drugs that it take the colour, smell, and taste of an astringent decoction". Then anticipating that the king would vomit the medicine and detect it to be ghee, he craftily arranged for his escape by getting from the king his orders that he should be free to move about and ride on any animal he chose "on the pretext of drawing out roots and gathering medical drugs". He thus effected his escape on the fastest she-elephant. Eventually the King of Ujjenī recovered from his illness and sent on to Jīvaka a present of a suit of Siveyyaka cloth [explained by Buddhaghosha to be (1) cloth used in the Uttarakuru country for veiling dead bodies when they are brought to the burying ground (*sīvathikā*), or (2) cloth woven from yarn which skilful women in the Śivi country spin]. Lastly, there are several instances recorded of Jīvaka's treatment of the Buddha and his brethren. Once, when the humours of the Buddha's body were disturbed, Jīvaka asked Ānanda to rub his body with fat for a few days but found that a purgative was necessary for him. Not considering it becoming to give him a strong purgative, he had three handfuls of three lotuses imbued with various drugs to be smelt by the patient. Each handful then produced ten motions.

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After that, the Buddha bathed in warm water and was asked to abstain from liquid food for some time till he was completely restored to health. Once the Bhikkhus, at Vesālī, eating sweet food, of which a regular service was established by the laity co-operating among themselves, became very sick with superfluity of humours in their body when fortunately Jīvaka went to that city on some business or other and attended on them [*Chullav*., v, 14, 1].