Chapter 26 Section 4 India

In ancient India, it was called "Shendu" or "Tianzhu".Its medical skills are mainly mastered by monks and shamans, so the medical exchanges between China and India began when Buddhism was introduced into my country.Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty once sent envoys to Tianzhu, and returned with Buddhist scriptures and statues of Sakyamuni. Since then, Buddhism began to exist in China.During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Fa Xian, an eminent Chinese monk, went to Tianzhu and brought back many Buddhist books, so Indian medicine was mixed in Buddhist books and introduced to my country.

Ancient India had the "Four Great" theory, which believed that the universe was composed of four elements: earth, water, wind, and fire.This philosophical concept explains the human body, and believes that the human body is composed of air, mucus, bile, and blood, and these four substances are called the "four major elements" of the human body.It is believed that the occurrence of diseases is mainly due to the imbalance of these four elements, each "big" has 101 kinds of diseases, and the "four big" has a total of 404 kinds of diseases.When Indian medicine was introduced to my country, Chinese medicine had been guided by the Five Elements Theory and had a complete medical theory system. Some scholars also believed that "Chinese medicine and diagnosis methods are far superior to Tianzhu", so the influence on Chinese medicine in terms of theory is limited.For example, the original 86 poems of Ge Hong's "Rescuing the Soldiers after the Elbow" were merged and supplemented by Tao Hongjing and compiled into "Hundred Ones after the Elbow". One Hundred and One Diseases". "Thousands of Golden Prescriptions" also has a similar formulation.But in the process of discussing diseases, they have nothing to do with the "four major" theories, such as Tao Hongjing's addition, which is just to make up the number of 101.

The penetration of Indian medicine into Chinese medicine is mainly due to its expertise in clinical treatment, so Chinese medicine is very interested in their medicines and prescriptions.Medicines such as Ferulicum, Helile, tulip, cardamom, and borneol were introduced into my country and have been used to this day.In history, there are also many prescription books on Indian medical prescriptions circulated in our country, such as "Nagarjuna Bodhisattva Prescription", "Western Brahman Immortal Prescription", etc. Most of them have been lost, but fortunately there are a few prescriptions preserved in ancient compilations Fang Shu.It is worth mentioning that India's ophthalmology is very good. In the "Waitai Secret Yao" written by Wang Tao of the Tang Dynasty in my country, it is recorded that "brain flow and blindness", "It is suitable for a golden grate [bi] to be used. Open the clouds and see the day."This is an ophthalmic surgery that came from India. It has been continuously improved by successive generations of ophthalmologists in our country, and it has become the "golden needle surgery" that is still used today, that is, the surgical treatment of cataracts.The emperors of the Song Dynasty respected Taoism and suppressed Buddhism, and the decline of Buddhism in China also made Indian medicine gradually neglected.Due to geographical location, Buddhism and Indian medicine were introduced into Tibet earlier, so they had a greater impact on Tibetan medicine in my country.