ayurveda in Europe?

[Bo Klintberg]

Dear Dominik,

I just want to thank you <so> much for this comprehensive and
useful information. It's exactly what I was looking for!

I hope that your health is OK and that you have all success in
your carreer as well as in your private life.

Best wishes from Toronto,

Bo Klintberg.
--------------------------------------------------------------


On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, Dominik Wujastyk wrote:

> On Mon, 8 Feb 1999, Bo Klintberg wrote:
>
> > 1) When was ayurvedic knowledge introduced in Europe?
>
> See Zysk, Medicine in the Veda (Delhi, 1996), pp.261-276, "Bibliographical
> Essay", which is a good historiography of European ayurveda studies.
>
> See also Arion Rosu, Un demi-siecle de recherches ayurvediques: Gustave
> Lietard et Palmyr Cordier, travaux sur l'histoire de la medicine indienne.
> Documents reunis e presentes (Paris, 1989), which has a long and important
> historiographical introduction.  There is a brief but useful summary in
> English.
>
> > 2) Was the knowledge transferred by Arabian scholas (al-Biruni, et al)?
>
> Yes, there were Arabic translations of several major ayurvedic texts.
> These were not very influential, however, with the exception of
> at-Tabari's Firdaws al-Hikma, which was a popular Arabic work written in
> c.850 and gave a longish summary of ayurvedic ideas.  See Manfred Ullmann,
> Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh, 1978), p.20 et passim.
>
> > 3) Does the knowledge in the Ayur-vedic scriptures talk about the
> > circulation of the blood? (i.e. is it possible that Harvey could have
> > gotten the idea from ayurveda?)
>
> No, this is completely impossible.  There is no concept of blood
> circulation in pre-modern Sanskrit texts, ayurvedic or otherwise. The
> metaphors tend to be agricultural: irrigation, ebb and flow, flowing
> through, but not round.  The heart is most commonly described in ayurvedic
> literature as a downward facing lotus.  I am not aware of more detailed
> descriptions, for example of the ventricles.  Nor is there any awareness
> shown of the crucial question of how the blood gets to the left ventricle
> and into the arterial system (which is also not distinguished in ayurveda
> from the venous system).
>
> These issues were taken up by Islamic scholars in the thirteenth century.
> Ibn-an-Nafis of Damascus, in particular, wrote a commentary on Ibn-Sina's
> al-Qanun in which he made a number of penetrating remarks about the exact
> functioning of the heart, lungs, and blood.  He clearly understands that
> the blood cannot pass through the heart's septum (i.e., between the
> ventricles). He dismisses Galen's theory of an invisible passage which
> would carry the blood through the septum.  Ibn-an-Nafis effectively
> describes the circulation between the heart and the lungs, moving in and
> out of the ventricles separately without crossing through the heart. See
> Ullmann, pp.68f.  In this he was correct, and appears to be the very first
> physician to understand this issue.  His description stops short, however,
> of a full description of blood circulation a la Harvey.
>
> There no evidence that Harvey knew anything whatsoever about ayurveda,
> although it is not impossible that he may have been acquainted with some
> Arabic medical works.  I'm afraid I simply don't know.  It seems very
> unlikely.  Further, the descriptions by Harvey of his own experimental
> work establish beyond reasonable doubt that he developed his ideas
> independently.
>
> > 4) What are the best, from an academic, scholarly, standpoint, books on
> > ayurveda? And where do I find references about transmission issues?
>
> Modesty forbids, of course.
>
> The classic work Indian Medicine by Julius Jolly (1901, Eng. tr. repr.
> Delhi 1977) is still very useful, since it functions as an index to the
> original texts on a wide range of important and well-organized topics.
>
> See also the recently announced History of Indian Medical Literature by G.
> Jan Meulenbeld (Groningen 1999, ISBN 90 6980 124 8) which is extremely
> important, and will revolutionize the field with a mass of new information
> on all aspects of the history of ayurveda.  Five volumes, fl. 1100!  Has
> many passages on transmission issues.
>
> There are many other books that could be mentioned.  See the
> bibliographies to Zysk's Medicine in the Veda, and my Roots.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> --
> Dominik Wujastyk
> Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
> 183 Euston Road
> London NW1 2BE, UK
> FAX: +44 171 611 8545
> http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/wujastyk.html
>