History of Indian medicine

The instinct of self-preservation is common to all societies. The art of medicine is born out of this. This art was developed due to the necessity of curing the injured alleviation their pain and healing the sick. Archaeology shows that almost all pre-historic societies had developed the art of medicine. From the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda, we have specific evidence of medicine. The Atharva Veda says that diseases and accidents were caused i) by the anger of gods for the sins committed by man or ii) by the possessions of demons. So, their cure consisted of i) rituals and sacrifices to propitiate gods or ii) exorcism, sorcery or charms. Thus healing art became part of the priestly duties as in all early societies. They thought that gods had given healing power to water and plants so they had many hymns in praise of these two as well as soma (moon god) who was believed to be the divine ruler of plants.

            Amidst these primitive superstitions, the Vedas also contain the beginning of rational ideas about diseases. They thought pitta(bile) and vata (wind) were the physical causes of disease. Some diseases may be congenital and others may be caused by insects. So a large number of plant remedies were recommended. So, despite its deceptive primitive garb, Vedic medicine merits the name of science because of its many rational observations. As many as fifty diseases are listed in the Vedas and their symptoms are described. The idea of rejuvenation is first found in the Rig Veda.

Later Vedic texts

Though the early texts have causal and fragmentary medical references, the later texts speculate about the physical origins and causes of diseases. Many theories were advanced. Some surprisingly advanced theories are found in a work called Garbha Upanishad.

            The medical information contained in the Vedic texts was collected together from the 6^th century B.C. onwards. These collections were made by the Buddhists and Jains also. The Buddhist tradition says that Prince Jivaka was the royal physician of King Bimbisara, a contemporary of Gautama Buddha. He is said to have affected some marvellous cures and difficult operations like kapala macana (brain surgery, by breaking open the skull and removing the brain tumour), eye surgery etc. These are exaggerations and could not have been done in those days. What can be accepted from the Buddhist accounts is the Jivaka studied medicine at Taxila with a spade in hand and brought a plant that had no medical value. Thus the teacher tested his pupil’s knowledge. After a good deal of search, Jivaka returned to say ‘Oh! master I could not find a plant devoid of medicinal properties. The master was satisfied and gave him the leave to practice as a physician.

 Ayurvedic texts

Ayurveda has its origin from the passages in the Vedas. Anyway, full texts on Ayurveda were written later. Three ancient texts are surviving: the Bhela Samhita, the Caroka Samhita and the Susruta Samhita. The first is the earliest and belongs to the 4^th century B.C. The other two belong to the first century A.D. and were revised and expanded in later centuries. While karaka is basically a medical work, that of susruta gives importance to surgery. The latter describes more than 300 different operations employing 121 different types of instruments. We cannot say whether they are records of achievements or aspirations.

Siddha School of Medicine

Besides Ayurveda, there was another school of medicine in India. It was called Rasachikitsa School or Siddha School. It used mercury, gold and other metals as medicine. The earliest work to use mercurial compounds in medicine is susruta Samhita. The tantric yogis, called the siddhas specialized in metallic remedies. The most important and earliest Siddha work is the rasa rathnakara in Sanskrit by Siddha Nagarjuna, a Buddhist, thereafter many important works were written.

There are several Siddha works in Tamil. The earliest, attributed to Agastya is not available now. We have hundreds of works fathered on Agastya, but none of them is earlier than the 15th century. So is the case with the works attributed to Tirumular and Bhogar.