Hindu Medicine c7.211

c7.211

In its use of this method, Hindu medicine shows its kinship to all other crafts. All varieties of accomplishment in India conform to the inspiring model set up by Brahmin priestcraft in antiquity, which has as its aim the transformation of an ordinary boy of the privileged priest-caste into an accomplished magician. In attaining any sort of skill, whether that of the silversmith, carpenter, or doctor, there is left some secret of real mastership and success which is not to be attained through textbooks or class-training, but must be taken in through a kind of magical union through which master and pupil become one. This pattern, according to which the mature wizard or medicine-man must train his successor in such an intimate fashion, is fundamental to every phase of spiritual and technical guidance in the Hindu educational system.