Hindu Medicine c5.s3.59

c5.s3.59

Hindu materia medica holds a much sounder position. From early times, even before the relatively late invasion of the Aryan tribes in the second millennium B. C., it has grown and matured in the soil of India. It has profited by an uninterrupted contact with the men for whom it was meant, and the products offered by India's soil. During its long development it has accumulated the ever renewed experiences of India's inhabitants, using the resources of their environment for the purpose of healing. With its remarkable insight into the influences of regions and seasons, diet and climate, it records the instinctive and subtle adjustment of the people of India to the peculiarities of her trying climate. Traditional as it is, and overlaid with speculative and systematizing superstructures, it contains the treasure of the " old woman's " experience. " Cowherds and hermits," Suśruta says, " hunters and other people living in the wild forest, those who live on roots, give evidence of the healthy effect of herbs." They supply the medical man with the raw material of materia medica and with the knowledge of the time-tested ways of using it. " Goatherds, shepherds and cowherds," says Caraka (I, 1), " who frequent the woods, and those who live in the woods, know plants by name and sight; but besides knowing the name and appearance of these plants, one should know how to apply them (prāpti). He who knows how to use and combine them (yoga), possesses the knowledge of their essence (tattva-vid). That knowledge charac-