50
Ayurveda
: Ancient Heritage in the Age of Globalisation
discussing the contents of different ancient Ayurveda
texts, they, notably Weber (1878), Macdonell (1899) and
Keith (1920) also debated and fixed the dates of these
compilations. Early scholarship of Ayurveda or ancient
Indian medicine was greatly stimulated by the discovery
of certain 51 burch leaves
(Bhoj Patra)
by Lt. H. Bower
near Kashagar in Central Asia. Named
Navanitakam
but
famous as Bower Manuscript (presently lodged in
Bodleian Library, Oxford), it was edited by Hoernle (1893
and 1990). Such introductory works on Ayurveda or ancient
Indian medicine hinted at the apparent resemblance
between ancient Greek and Indian medicines. Partly due
to this and partly because of general trends of Indian
historiography, the later works on Ayurveda were
coloured in two different taints. One group of scholars
demonstrated European bias while the other was strongly
nationalistic. The European prejudice is betrayed in such
points as unwarranted stress on the role of ancient Greece
in the introduction of the science in medicine. An example
of this is the apocryphal opinion of Johann Hermann Bass
that the name of Sushruta was in reality a transmutation
of Socrates and that his birth place of Kasi was a mutation
of Kos (ref, to
JHM and AS
. Oct. 1970:492). The Greek
origin of Ayurvedic science was a favourite subject of such
deliberations. Scholars like Albutt (1909: 1) were also
