Patliputra or Patna-Then And Now
Posted : August 30, 2005 at 10:37 pm [IST]
Amartya Sen in his new book-’The Argumentative Indian’ has mentioned some interesting information about health care and medicine in ancient India. It generally relates to Bihar.
Faxian, who arrived in India in 401CE took considerable interest in contemporary health arrangements in India. He was particularly impressed by the civic facilities for medical care in fifth century Patliputra:
All the poor and destitute in the country…..and all who are deceased, go to these houses, and are provided with every kind of help, and doctors examine their decease. They get the food and medicine, which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves.
And surprisingly, Dr. Sen adds his own remarks:
Whether or not this description was over-flattering to early fifth-century Patna (which seems very likely), what is important is the involvement with which Faxian wanted to observe and learn from the arrangements for medical care in the country he visited for a decade.
Why has Dr. Sen that doubt? Is it because at the back of his mind, the present condition of Patna was troubling him? Why would Faxian make over-flattering observations? He was not writing about his king or someone from whom he had to extract certain benefits. Faxian was a visitor and learned one. He wanted to put his observations mostly for his countrymen so that they can emulate some.
Bihar with Patna as the capital, both political and of all scientific and religious knowledge played a big role and represented India for historians for many centuries. Why should it not get the credit of it?
Dr.Sen moves further on the same topic with another Chinese visitor scholar who had learnt Sanskrit en route to India in srivijaya, a flourishing coastal city in the seventh century, Sumatra (part of present Indonesia)
Yi Jing came to India in 675. He studied at the institute of higher learning, at Nalanda, located close to Patliputra, the ancient capital of Maurya India (the first all-India state, established in the fourth century BCE). Yi Jing wrote a detailed account on what he saw and assimilated in his decade in India. His fields of study also included procedure of health care and medicine- a subject of special interest to him, to which Yi Jing devoted three chapters of his book. He gave India credit for some medical treatments, mainly aimed at palliation. He concluded, there were things to learn from India on health behaviour, such as ‘the Indians use fine white cloth for straining water and in China fine silk should be used’, and: ‘in China, people of the present time eat fish and vegetables mostly uncooked; no Indians do this.’
- Indra
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