DOMINIK WUJASTYK The Buddha showed an awareness of the qualities of good and bad patients, a feature typical of medical discourse in general: There are five qualities, O Bhikkhus, which, when a sick man has, he is difficult to wait upon–when he does not what is good for him; when he does not know the limit (of the quantity of food) that is good for him; when he does not take his medicine; when he does not let a nurse who desires his good know what manner of disease he has, or when it is getting worse that that is so, or when it is getting better that that is so, or when it is stationary that that is so; and when he has become unable to bear bodily pains that are severe, sharp, grievous, disagreeable, unpleasant, and destructive to life These are the five qualities, O Bhikkhus, which, when a sick man has, he is difficult to wait upon.26 Likewise, the Buddha had the measure of the bad doctor, again a theme that resurfaced in later Sanskrit medical treatises: There are five qualities, O Bhikkhus, which, when one who waits upon the sick has, he is incompetent to the task–when he is not capable of prescribing medicines; when he does not know what (diet) is good and what is not good for the patient, serving what is not good, and not serving what is good for him; when he waits upon the sick out of greed, and not out of love; when he revolts from removing evacuations, saliva or vomit; when he is not capable from time to time of teaching, inciting, arousing, and gladdening the patient with religious discourse These are the five qualities, O Bhikkhus, which, when one who waits upon the sick has, he is incompetent to the task.27 I cite these passages – and there are many others like them28 – to illustrate the point that the early Buddhist milieu, including the dialogues ascribed to the Buddha himself, was redolent with medical references, medical metaphors, and implicit and explicit medical theory In such an environment, it is not unreasonable to take seriously a reference to a sick room It may not have been a hospital in a narrow definition, but there is every reason to believe that it was a place where a patient received formal medical care 26 ibid., 8.26.5, tr p 242 27 ibid., 8.26.7, tr pp 242 f 28 Several more are described by Zysk (1998: ch 3) HISTORY OF SCIENCE IN SOUTH ASIA 10 (2022) 1–43