Hindu Medicine c7.117

c7.117

The Buddha, in expounding his doctrine of salvation, modeled it after the attitude of the Hindu physician toward the task of healing. The Enlightened One, foremost among India’s heretics, the boldest genius among her thinkers, departed on many vital points from the hallowed authority of Brahmin tradition and practice, but was justified by the history of subsequent millenniums; his universal message was the only one to exert a fundamental influence on Far Eastern civilizations far beyond the borders of India and to effect so widespread and lasting an impact on human thought. Attaining to the height of a world-religion, Buddhism, in its elementary tenets, carried far and wide the fundamental concept of Hindu medicine with respect to the fourfold procedure of the physician confronted with a case.