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Despite All That We Have Said And Hoped For The Purposes Of Chronology, We Have No Landmarks To Guide Us In Our Sallies Into Ancient History Of Medicine In India, Beyond The Invasion Of Alexander And The Time Of The Buddha Calculated From The Former Date. As Well Shall See Later In The Course Of These Pages, The Great Medical Teachers Bhardawaja, Atreya, Divodasa And Susruta Are Anterior To The Buddha And Even The Time Of The Mahabharata. Though We May Not Assign Exact Dates To These Teachers And Their Times, We Shall Yet Indicate The Successive Order Of The Periods They Occupied, In The Light Of The Racial And Traditional History Of The Indian People…

The Excavations Of The Indus Valley Reveal The Possibility Of A Long And Rich Period Of Civilization Before The Entry Of The Vedic Aryans Into India. Thus There Is A Pre-Vedic Period Of Indian Civilization And Consequently Of Indian Medicine Which Must Have Inevitably Resulted From And Enriched That Civilization. From The Actual Record Of Medical Wisdom In The Vedas, Though In Its Most Rudimentary Forms, We Have A Vedic Period Of Medicine.

Next As The Consequence Of The Elaborate Ritual Of The Sacrifice And The Discussion, Assemblies And Discourses Associated With It During Its Long Performance, There Emerged A Systematic And Rational Method Of Exposition Of Philosophy And Of Medicine. This Is The Great Brahman Period Philosophy And The Samhita Period And Of The Period Of The Systematic Codifications Of Medicine. This May Justly Be Called The Scientific Era Of Medicine In India. Ayurveda Then Attained Its Age Of Maturity Emerging Of Its Nonage Of Vedic Medley Of Charms And Simple Drugs, Of Incantation And Magical Ritual, Into The Maturity Of A Rationally Expounded Science Of Health And Disease And A Systematic Practice Of Remedies, Related To Dose, Time And Constitution. This Lasted From The Time Of Atreya Up To The End Of The Seventh Century After Christ I.E. Almost Till The Beginning Of The Mohammedan Invasion Of India. This Millennium Was The Heyday Of Ayurveda, The Golden Era In The Medical History Of India, Comparable To That Of Hippocrates And Galen In The West. This Was Followed Suddenly By Dark Centuries Of Stagnation, Neglect And Decay, When The Original Texts Fell Into Disuse And The Noble Professions Of The Surgeon And The Physician Fell Into Even Disrepute. It Was A Mode Of Seeking A Mean Livelihood And The Practices Of It Degenerated Into Pretentious Charlatans, Ignorant And Wily, Avaricious And Mean. The Smrtis And The Codes Of Social Observance Stigmatized These Professions By Making Their Members Unworthy Of Attendance At Ceremonial Dinners. They Were Panktidushan To Be Unworthy Of Stilling In Line With One At Meals. The Later Editors And Commentators Like Madhava, Cakrapani, Sarngadhara, Bhavamisra And Other Helped Merely To Keepalive Tha Ancient Works And Their Lore From Being Totally Lost. They Were Evidently Aware Of The Decadent Condition Of The Science And Under The Circumstances Of Social Life And Political Upheavals In Their Days, They Could Not Have Done Better.

It Is Necessary To Remember At That Time Of Madhva, The Great Vijayanagar Empire Of The South Was The Bulwark Of Sanskrit Culture And Sciences. The Great Vedic Commentary Of Sayana And The Nidana Or Madhava Point To A Revival Of Vedic Traditions In Philosophy, Science And Art. The Siddha And The Other Traditions Of The South Received A Fillip From The Rules Of Empire And The Remnants Of Ancient Medical Practices And Methods Alongside The Local Traditions Of Agastya, Siddha And Other Systems That Subsists Even Today In The South Owe Their Survival Not A Little To The Spirit Or Renaissance Born And Maintained In The Days Of The Vijayanagar Empire. But That Renaissance Was Short Lived And Was Enveloped By The Spreading Darkness Of Political Instability In India During The Mohammedan Period And Later Vicissitudes Of Moghul, Maratha And East India Company’s Fortunes. With The Establishment Of The British Rule, The Flood Of The Western Culture, Science And Medicine, Upheld And Patronized By The State, Put Of All Chances Of Recovery For The Indian System Of Medicine. It Is Only In The Later Days Of British Rule, That Ayurveda Attracted The Notice Of The Enlightened Among The Rulers As Well As The Ruled, Partly As A Result Of The Scholarly Interest Of Orient Lists Of The West And Partly Of The Growing Claims Of The Nationalists Spirit Of Cultural Renaissance In India.

With The Attainment Of Full Independence, India Find Herself At The Cross Roads And Has To Make Her Choice Now. There Is The Imperious Call Of The Spirit Of Science In Every Heart Desiring Advancement And Equality With Other Nations Of The World And There Is Also The Fond Attachment To A Honey Past, Glorious But Apparently Not In Accordance With What Is Now Regarded As Valid And Reasonable. Not That It Is Irrational, But It Derives Its Strength And Support From Intuition Elaborated By A System Of Speculative And Highly Imaginative Reason. We Are Totally Facing A World Steeped In The Spirit Of Experimental Science, Analytical In Method And Verifiable By A Laboratory Methods Alone And Which Can Not Brook Abstractions That Cannot Be Put Into Test Tube And Shaken, However Valid They May Sound In Themselves. But The Difficulty Of The Task Is Minimized When We Remember That Between Now And The Vedic Age, There Was A Period Of Experimentation And Research In The Realm Of Medicine Second To None In The History Of World Medicine. This Was The Scientific Period Of Medicine In India.

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