The evidence for hospitals in early indi 21

DOMINIK WUJASTYK 19 Figure 1: Sealing found at Kumrahār showing probably the tree of enlightenment (bodhivṛkṣa) flanked by conch shells (Altekar and Mishra 1959: frontispiece, 103) of the monastic community” (Skt śrī ārogyavihāre bhikṣusaṅghasya) Other potsherds from the same debris also bear similar inscriptions: “in the health house” (Skt [ā]rogyavihāre), and “of Dhanvantari” (Skt [dha]nvantareḥ) The latter is the name of the god of medicine and promulgator of the medical Compendium of Suśruta, (whose textual history is somewhat parallel to that of Caraka), and is a name associated with an ancient school of surgeons.70 The name Dhanvantari is also mentioned in the Milindapañha (approximately second century BCE) as a medical authority, and in many later sources.71 It is beyond reasonable doubt that the Kumrahār site included a medical building It was possibly part of a Buddhist monastery, perhaps offering treatment for the monks similar to that described by Faxian in about CE 410 X XUANZANG UANZANG was born in China in CE 602 and became famous for his seventeenyear Buddhist pilgrimage through India, during which he studied with 70 See HIML: IA, 358–61 Note, however, that recent research on the ninthcentury Nepalese version of the Suśrutasaṃhitā shows that the figure of Dhanvantari was not at that time strongly associated with the text (Birch et al 2021) and may have been a person associated more with teachings on food and drink than on surgery 71 HIML: IA, 358–361 HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN SOUTH ASIA 10 (2022) 1–43