Buddhism in India

Buddhist Civilisation 141

forces which fostered a scientific spirit. These all involved the

notion of a ‘first principle’ which may well have been materialistic.

But science is not the assertion of a first principle, even a material-

istic one; rather it is the search for regularities that tell us how

(under specific conditions) one thing is related to another.

Buddhism, which encouraged thinking in this way, was conducive

to scientific development.

There is clear evidence of this association in regard to medicine.

A recent study by Kenneth G. Zysk (1991) has argued that in

between the earlier, magical phase of Vedic medicine which was

marked by magic rituals and exorcism (1700–800 BCE) and the

empiricist and rational medicine of the Ayurveda expressed is seen

in the classical scientific manuals of Charaka, Bhela and Sushruta

(200 BCE–400 CE) Buddhism played a crucial role in establishing

a scientific medicine. Wandering physicians in the period 800–100

BCE made common cause with the intellectuals and institutions of

the samana traditions, giving rise to a vast repository of medical

knowledge that was empirical and rational in its orientation. This was

later appropriated and fitted into an orthodox Brahmanic frame-

work, but the origin was non-Brahmanic.

Vinaya texts show an elaborate concern for the health of the

bhikkus and which provide for various medical remedies. Among

the lengthy stories told in the text is that of India’s most famous

early physician, Jivaka. Medicine, taught rationally, thus remained

a part of Buddhist education and was one of the ‘secular’ subjects

taught in the great universities such as Nalanda—in contrast to

Brahmanic ashrams, which continued for a long time to teach the

ritualistic magic of Vedic medicine. Orthodox Brahmanic texts,

such as Manu’s, treated medicine as a ‘low’ occupation since it

dealt with bodies and with the physical aspects of life; thus the

‘Ambasthas’ or medical healers, born of a Brahman father and a

Vaishya mother were classified as impure Shudras.

Buddhism also provided a much more open and less ritualised

education than the Brahmanic teachings. The Chinese traveler

Hsuan Tsang has described the prevailing education of what would

presumably be urban, middle class Buddhist youth as consisting

of the ‘five vidyas’ or five branches of knowledge. These included

sabdavidya(grammar), silpasthanavidaya(arts, mechanics, know-

ledge of the calender), cikitsavidya(medicine), hetuvidya(ethics

and philosophy) and adhyatmavidya(religion). The second of these

By oneself, indeed, is evil done;

by oneself does injury come.

By oneself is evil left undone;

by oneself does purity come.

Purity and impurity belong to oneself.

No one purifies another (#165).

While this referred to the sphere of spiritual attainment, the attitude
encouraged by it carried over into all spheres of life. At the same
time, the disdain for metaphysical speculation and exchange of
‘views’ may have discouraged philosophising—though later Buddhism
had it in sufficient amounts—but it also can be seen as a protest
against the too-evident tendencies in India to engage in metaphysical
abstractions and grandiose cosmologies.
A second major fact promoting scientific thinking was the
emphasis on causality in Buddhism. This is suggested in a formula
found engraved on stupas and clay tablets all over India (Dutt
1988: 224–25n): Of all phenomena that proceed from a cause, the
Tathagata has told the cause; he has also told about their ending.
Thus has spoken the Maha-samana.
This was a reference to the paticca-samuppada, best translated to
translated as ‘dependent arising’ which usually involved statements
of simple causality, of a regularity of relationship. The form is as
quoted in Chapter Three:

‘I have said that grasping is the cause of becoming. Now in what way

that is so, Ananda, is to be understood after this manner. Were there

no grasping of any sort or kind, whatever of anyone at anything...

then, there being no grasping whatever, would there, owing to this

cessation of grasping, be any appearance of becoming?’ ‘There would

not, lord.’ ‘Wherefore, Ananda, just that is the ground, the basis, the

genesis, the cause of becoming, to wit, grasping.’

Though this statement of simple causality referred to the ‘spiritual’
or psychological realm, people used to thinking in this fashion
would seek out regularities in natural phenomenon. The whole
approach of self-reliance, a spirit of scepticism and orientation to
notions of regular relationships encouraged development in all
fields of science. Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya is wrong in seeing
the ‘materialism’ of the tantric tradition and its offshoots (the
Sankhya and Lokayata philosophies) as being the primary intellectual

140 Buddhism in India