Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c26.4

c26.4

**Evidence of Milinda-Pañha.** The progress of Medical Science is further testified to by the *Milinda Pañha*. The old teachers of medical science are named, viz. Nărada, Dhammantarī, Aṅgirasa, Kapila, Kaṇḍaraggisāma, Atula, and Pubba Kachchāyana. Each of these is known for a treatise of his own. The divisions of the subject are given, viz. the rise of disease; its cause, nature, and progress; its cure, treatment, and management [iv, 7, 20]. The course of medical training is described: a medical student must first apprentice himself to a teacher whom he has to procure by the payment of a fee or by the performance of service. Then he is given a training "in holding the lancet, in cutting, marking, or piercing with it, in extracting darts, in cleansing wounds, in causing them to dry up, in the application of ointments" as subjects under surgery, and "in the administration of emetics, purges, and oily enemas" as subjects under Medicine [vi, 11]. The successful surgeon is defined as one who is able the most quickly to perform his operation [iv, 8, 28]. The successful physician is defined as one who is "a true follower of the sages of old, one who carries in his memory the ancient traditions and verses, a practical man [*atakkiko*, 'without the theories (*vitarka*) resorted to by those ignorant of the practice of medicine'], skilled in diagnosis and master of an efficacious and lasting system of treatment, who had collected (from medicinal herbs) a medicine able to cure every disease" [iv, 6, 28]. A treatment is described of "a wound full of matter and blood, stinking of putrid flesh, in whose grievous hollow the weapon which caused it remains"