The evidence for hospitals in early indi 16

14 THE EVIDENCE FOR HOSPITALS IN EARLY INDIA twelve consecutive meals (v.16) It is only after seven more nights that the patient may once again meet his friends and family and be permitted to resume his normal duties (v.17) Note that these treatments are intended for, “the king, royal personages, and those having great wealth” (v.18) The poor are advised to follow the same evacuation treatment but with simpler equipment Elsewhere in Caraka’s Compendium there are also instructions for the construction and equipping of a delivery room Discussion Here we have a comprehensive and detailed description of a hospital building together with its staff, furniture and equipment that bears favourable comparison with many modern clinics and hospitals in the newly developed and developing worlds The hospital building is carefully sited, and has hygienic toilet facilities The staff are chosen with attention to their practical but also their human and empathetic skills There is a farm attached to the hospital with a good and varied stock of animals It may be noted here that the earliest medical literature of India shows no sign of vegetarianism The meat and blood of animals is regularly prescribed as a strengthening regime for patients.46 The kitchen is richly stocked with fine victuals and medicaments The overall rationale is the cultivation of medical preparedness This description is part of a discourse between professionals: it is one doctor’s instruction to another.47 It is not the description of a patient, or of a patron It is not science fiction, a genre that does exist in early Indian literature.48 It must stand as valid and impressively detailed evidence for the idea of the hospital in early India.49 What, then, is our evidence for the date of this description? THE DATE OF CARAKA’S COMPENDIUM The Bower Manuscript, a group of Central Asian fragments including Sanskrit medical works, today housed in the Bodleian Library, gives us physical evidence for the name Caraka as a medical authority by the beginning of the sixth century 46 For a discussion of later commentators’ wrestling with this feature of the tradition in later times when the virtue of ahiṃsā “harmlessness” (to all creatures) had become widespread, see Wujastyk (2004b) 47 This is in spite of some standardized rhetorical features of early Sanskrit literary style, such as teacher-student setting 48 For example, Naravāhanadatta’s adventures in Hemapura, the city of robots, etc Raghavan 1956: 18 ff 49 I use the word “idea” advisedly, to avoid the criticisms that were levelled at the use of the Pantokrator Typicon as evidence for early Byzantine hospitals (Dols (1987: 370– 371) and others) HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN SOUTH ASIA 10 (2022) 1–43