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Ayurveda
: Ancient Heritage in the Age of Globalisation
other works on world history of medicine also deal with
Indian situations. These works include both old and new
studies like those of Baas (1889); Garrison (1929) and
Major (1954).
For the orientalists medicine in ancient India
apparently offered a strong point to magnify the ancient
glory of India. Mr. Colebrooke declared that in the field of
medicine, the Hindus were teachers and not learners.
Similarly, Mr. Pocock was of the opinion that Pythagoras -
‘father of healing art’ in Greece - was originally an Indian
called
Buddhaguru
. Prof. Diaz opined that Egyptian
medicine was of Hindu origin. Prof Filliozat (1949) tried
to prove that Ayurveda was of Vedic origin. Besides, his
work also involved narrative of the fundamentals of
Ayurveda as well as its Greek parallels.
Apart from the foreign orientalists there were the
nationalist scholars. They were concerned not only with
countering the theory of Greek origin of the Ayurveda but
also to maintain that its decline in the country was the
consequence of discouragement by the colonial rulers
who supported only the allopathic system of medicine.
Sinha Jee argues for the Aryan origin of Greek medicine
and opined that Hypocrites, the ancient Greek medical
theorist himself had to come India to learn the craft
(1895:199). He suggested that if the medical sciences of
India in its palmy days had directly or indirectly assisted
