Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c26.2.4

c26.2.4

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.