What is it about?
Some Ayurvedic medical therapies appear to contradict the norms taught in the Indian literature on Dharma, law or righteousness. An example is meat-eating. Some ancient Ayurveda authors recommend the consumption of meat in some circumstances. But most of the literature on Dharma, righteousness, rejects meat-eating and promotes vegetarianism. How did medieval scholars discuss such conflicts? Was the purpose of Ayurvedic medicine health or righteousness?
Featured Image
Why is it important?
It is often assumed that the goals and methods of Ayurvedic medicine are identical with the teachings of the Sanskrit Dharma literature. But there are some cases of contradiction, and pre-modern authors were aware of this and discussed the problems in interesting and illuminating ways.
Perspectives
I like this paper because it brings to notice some little-translated Sanskrit texts from unusual quarters and shows how ancient and medieval authors argued with sophistication and insight.
Dominik Wujastyk
University of Alberta
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Medicine And Dharma, Journal of Indian Philosophy, December 2004, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s10781-004-8652-3.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
