Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c26.2.1

c26.2.1

**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".