imperfect manner, you will see that there is good reason to believe that
in the study of science and philosophy the Indian races were much in
advance of the Western nations. The age of science amongst them is very
great; we fail utterly in trying to find its beginning, unless we accept
the tradition which ascribes to Menu, their great lawgiver (who is
supposed to have been Noah), the saving of three out of the four divine
books or Vedas from the deluge. This would carry us back to the
Antediluvian times for the beginning of our investigations; but without
taking any such extreme view of the subject we will find traces of
science clearly marked out for us in the history of the Indian races.
The picture of the Brahmins, drawn by Apuleius in the second century,
shows how little they have changed in historical times. He says:--
"The Indians are a populous nation of vast extent of territory, situated
far from us to the east, near the reflux of the ocean and the rising of
the sun, under the first beams of the stars, and at the extreme verge of
the earth, beyond the learned Egyptians and the superstitious Jews and
the mercantile Nabathaeans; and the flowing robed Aracidae, and the
Ityraeans, poor in crops, and the Arabians, rich in perfumes.
"Now, I do not so much admire the heaps of ivory of the Indians, their
harvests of pepper, their bales of cinnamon, their tempered steel, their
mines of silver, and their golden streams, nor that among them, the
Ganges, the greatest of all rivers,
'Rolls like a monarch on his course, and pours
His eastern waters through a hundred streams,
Mingling with ocean by a hundred mouths,'
"nor that these Indians, though situated at the dawn of day, are yet of
the colour of night, nor that among them, immense dragons fight with
enormous elephants, with parity of danger to their mutual destruction,
for they hold them enwrapped in their slippery folds, so that the
elephants cannot disengage their legs or in any way extricate themselves
from the scaly bonds of the tenacious dragons. They are forced to seek
revenge from the fall of their own bulk and to crush their captors by
the mass of their own bodies.
"There are amongst them various kinds of inhabitants. I will rather
speak of the marvellous things of men than of those of nature.
"There is among them a race who know nothing but to tend cattle, hence
they are called neatherds; there are races clever in trafficking with
merchandise, and others stout in fight, whether with arrows, or hand to
hand with swords.
"There is also among them a pre-eminent race called Gymnosophists.
"These I exceedingly admire, for they are men skilled not in propagating
the vine, nor in grafting trees, nor in tilling the ground. They know
not how to cultivate the fields, nor to wash gold, or to break horses,
or to shear or feed sheep or goats.
"What is it, then, they know? One thing instead of all these. They
_cultivate wisdom_, both the aged professors and the young students.
Nothing do I so much admire in them as that they hate torpor of mind and
sloth."
This does not look as if the Indians had been unknown or unappreciated
in the second century A.D.
Apuleius is not alone in his respect for the Brahmins. Many of the Greek
writers speak of them under the names of Brahmins or Gymnosophists, but
always with great respect.
Strabo states, on the authority of Megasthenes (who it will be
remembered was Ambassador from Persia, and lived for some years at
Palibothra, about 307 B.C.), that "there were two classes of
philosophers or priests, the Brachmanes and the Germanes, but the
Brachmanes are best esteemed." Towards the close of his account of the
"Brachmanes" he says:--
"In many things they agree with the Greeks, for they affirm that the
world was produced, and is perishable, and that it is spherical; that
God, governing it as well as framing it, pervades the whole; that the
principles of all things are various, but water is the principle of the
construction of the world; that besides the four elements there is a
fifth, nature--whence heaven and the stars; that the earth is placed in
the centre of all.
"Such, and many other things are affirmed of reproduction and of the
soul. Like Plato, they devise fables concerning the immortality of the
soul, and the judgment in the infernal regions, and other similar
notions. These things are said of the Brachmanes."
Clemens Alexandrinus, after saying that philosophy flourished in ancient
times amongst the barbarians, and afterwards was introduced amongst the
Greeks, instances the prophets of the Egyptians, the Chaldees of the
Assyrians, the Druids of the Gauls (Galatae), the Samauaeans of the
Bactrians, the philosophers of the Celts, the Magi of the Persians, and
the Gymnosophists of the Indians. The Greek authors distinctly speak of
the Brahmins as the chief of the castes or divisions of the Indian
people from the time of Megasthenes, who wrote of them in the fourth
century B.C.
Sir William Jones, in a paper on the philosophy of the Asiatics, pointed
out that "the old philosophers of Europe had some idea of centripetal
force, and a principle of universal gravitation," and affirms that "much
of the theology and philosophy of our immortal Newton may be found in
the Vedas."
"That _most subtle spirit_ which he suspected to pervade natural bodies,
and lying concealed in them, to cause attraction and repulsion, the
emission, reflection and refraction of light, electricity, calefaction,
sensation, and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as a _fifth
element_, endowed with these very powers; and the Vedas abound with
allusions to a force universally attractive, which they chiefly ascribe
to the sun, thence called 'Aditya, or the attractor,' a name designed by
the mythologists to mean the child of the goddess Aditi. But the most
wonderful passage on the theory of attractions occurs in the charming
allegorical poem of 'Shi'ri'n and Ferhai'd, or the Divine Spirit, and a
human soul disinterestedly pious,' a work which, from the first verse to
the last, is a blaze of religious and poetical fire.
"The whole passage appears to me so curious that I make no apology for
giving you a faithful translation of it:--
"_There is a strong propensity which dances through every atom, and
attracts the minutest particle to some peculiar object; search this
universe from its base to its summit, from fire to air, from water to
earth (the four elements!), from all below the moon to all above the
celestial spheres, and thou wilt not find a corpuscle destitute of that
natural attractability. The very point of the first thread in this
apparently tangled skein is no other than such a principle of
attraction, and all principles beside are void of a real basis: from
such a propensity arises every motion perceived in heavenly or in
terrestrial bodies; it is a disposition to be attracted which taught
hard steel to rush from its place and rivet itself on the magnet; it is
the same disposition which impels the light straw to attach itself
firmly on amber; it is this quality which gives every substance in
nature a tendency towards another, and an inclination forcibly directed
to a determinate point._"
In Sir W. Ainslie's Materia Medica of India the opinion of an old Hindoo
author is given as to the qualifications required in a physician.
"He must be a person of strict veracity, and of the greatest sobriety
and decorum: he ought to be skilled in all the commentaries on the
'Ayur-Veda,' and be otherwise a man of sense and benevolence: his heart
must be charitable, his temper calm, and his constant study how to do
good.
"Such a man is properly called a good physician, and such a physician
ought still daily to improve his mind by an attentive perusal of
scientific books.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Should death come upon us while under the care of a person of this
description, it can only be considered as inevitable fate, and not the
consequence of presumptuous ignorance."
The knowledge of the Hindoos may be all said to be contained in their
sacred books called the Vedas, which, although perfect as a whole, are
actually divided into four parts, each in itself constituting a separate
Veda under a special title. These are the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda
(white and black), the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda, or Ayur-Veda.
Although the last is admitted to be as a whole not so ancient as the
other three, still there are portions of it that are probably as old as
any of the others. Even in the oldest epic poems of the Hindoos mention
is made of four Vedas as already in existence and as of great antiquity.
Sir William Jones estimates the date of its compilation as certainly not
after B.C. 1580.
These Vedas are considered by the Hindoos to contain the groundwork of
all their philosophy, as well as of their arts and sciences, and they
contain treatises on music, medicine, the art of war, and architecture.
Sir William Jones, in referring to the Ayur-Veda, says that, to his
astonishment, he found in it an entire Upanishad on the internal parts
of the human body, enumerating the nerves, veins, and arteries.
The Ayur-Veda was considered by the Brahmins to be the work of
Brahma--by him it was communicated to Dacsha, the Prajapati, and by him,
the two Aswins, or sons of Surya--the sun--were instructed in it, and
thus became the medical attendants of the gods. A legend that cannot but
recall to our mind the Greek myth of the two sons of AEsculapius and
their descent from Apollo.
In the case of immortal gods the practice was confined to surgery, in
treating the wounds received in the conflicts which were constantly
described as occurring amongst the gods themselves, or between the gods
and the demons. Of course they performed many miraculous cures, as would
be expected from their superhuman character.
Professor Wilson published in the _Oriental Magazine_, in 1823, some
notices on early Hindoo Medicine, and he points out that the tradition
is, that the above "two Aswins instructed Indra in medical and surgical
art, that Indra instructed Dahnwantari; although others make Atreya,
Bharadwaja, and Charaka prior to the latter:--Charaka's work, which goes
by his name, is extant. Dahnwantari is also styled Kasi-rajah, or Prince
of Kasi, or Benares. His disciple was Susruta, his work also exists."
The Ayur-Veda, as the oldest medical writings of the Hindoos are
collectively called, was divided into eight divisions. These are
described by Professor Wilson as follows:--
"1st. _Salya._--The art of extracting extraneous substances, violently
or accidentally introduced into the body, with the treatment of the
inflammation and suppuration thereby induced.
"The word _Salya_ means a dart or arrow, and points clearly to the
origin of this branch of Hindoo science.
"2nd. _Salakya._--The treatment of external affections or diseases of
the eyes, nose, ears, &c.
"3rd, _Kayao Chikitsa._--The general application of medicine to the
body, or the science of medicine, as opposed to surgery under the two
first heads.
"4th. _Bhutavidya_, or demonology: the act of casting out demons, which
we may take to mean the treatment of insanity, such as it was.
"5th. _Kaumara bhritya_, or the treatment of the diseases of women and
children.
"6th. _Agada._--The administration of antidotes.
"We do not appreciate this as an eastern nation would when poison was
only too common an instrument of ambition or revenge.
"7th. _Rasayana._--Is chemistry, or perhaps it were better to say
alchemy, as its chief aim was the study of combinations of substances
mostly metallurgic, with a view of obtaining the universal medicine or
elixir which was to give immortal life.
"8th. _Bajikarana._--Was connected with the means of promoting the
increase of the human race."
One of the articles of Hindoo medicine was _Kshara_ or alkaline
salts,--these are directed to be obtained by burning different
substances of vegetable origin, boiling the ashes with five or six times
their measure of water and filtering the solution, which was used both
internally and externally. Care is enjoined in their use, and emollient
applications are to be used if the caustic should occasion great pain.
I have already spoken of the fact of Indian physicians having been at
the Court of Persia, and also at that of Haroun al Raschid, and also
that the ancient writers on medicine were known to the Arabs of the time
of the schools of Baghdad and Cordova. There is no manner of doubt
concerning this fact, as in Serapion's works we find Charak actually
mentioned by name; under the head _De Mirobalanis_ we find "_Et Xarch
indus dixit;_" and again, in another section "_Xarcha indus;_" there
being no corresponding sound to che in Arabic, there is a slight change
in the name, but it is quite clear what it is intended for. In Avicenna,
again, we find reference to "Scirak indum." Rhazes, again, who was
previous to Avicenna, has "_Inquit Scarac indianus_," and again "_Dixit
Sarac;_" in another place an Indian author is quoted, who has not as yet
been traced, "_Sindifar_," or, as it is in another place, "_Sindichar
indianus._"
Professor Wilson, in a notice on the medical science of the Hindoos,
published in the _Oriental Magazine_, examines into the distinctive
qualities of the various sorts of leeches, and shows that the
description given in Avicenna, in the section "De Sanguisugis," is
almost identical with the Hindoo author's description of the twelve
sorts of leeches, in distinguishing the appearance and properties of the
various sorts.
That this is more than a mere coincidence is clear from the fact that
Avicenna says "_Indi dixerunt_."
I do not think it will be seriously disputed that the Arabs had access
to the Hindoo works of and before their time, and we will find, if we
carefully examine the subject, that the science of medicine as
distinguished from surgery, and of chemistry as a part of that science
of medicine, was much more ancient than we have been prepared to admit.
It would be incredible to believe that amongst a people so observant and
highly cultured as the Brahmins must have been, that medicine and the
changes occurring in mixtures of various substances should have been
unstudied, and there is no doubt that this subject was far from being
neglected by them.
Many natural productions of the country, such as nitrate of potash,
borax, carbonate and sulphate of soda, sulphate of iron, alum, common
salt, and sulphur, could scarcely escape the notice of even ordinary
men; but Dr. Ainslie has shown, from the evidence of old Indian medical
works, that they were not only acquainted with ammonia (which they made
by distilling salammoniac one part, and chalk two parts), but that they
prepared sulphuric acid by burning sulphur and nitre together in earthen
pots, calling it _Gunduk Ka Attar_, or "attar of sulphur." Nitric acid,
which was prepared, not by the process described by Geber, but by mixing
saltpetre, alum, and a portion of a liquor obtained by spreading cloths
over the common gram plant, and leaving them exposed to the dew, when
they were found to absorb the acid salt so abundantly secreted by the
plant on the surface of its leaves, and which, when examined by
Vauquelin, was found to contain both oxalic and acetic acids.
Muriatic acid was also made by distilling alum and common salt, dried
and pounded with the above acid liquor.
Arsenic was used by them for the cure of palsy, and also for venereal
diseases, and is still used by them for this purpose, and in
intermittent fevers.
It would occupy too much time to go further into this subject at the
present time, but there are many chemical compounds which are still made
and sold in the Indian bazaars which have been used from time
immemorial, and which require a knowledge of chemical manipulation in
the arts of subliming, distilling, &c.
Mr. Rodwell says, "that the distillation of cinnabar with iron,
described by Dioscorides, is the first crude example of distillation,
which afterwards became a principal operation among the alchemists and
chemists for separating the volatile from the fixed."
That this is an assumption which has no foundation in fact is evident,
when we find in the Institutes of Menu many enactments against the
drinking of distilled spirits, and these made of various kinds and
distilled from molasses (or sugar-cane juice), rice, and the madhuca
flowers.
"A soldier or merchant drinking arak, mead, or rum are to be considered
offenders in the highest degree," and "for drinking spirits are to be
branded on the forehead with a vintner's flag," rather a summary way of
treating a drunkard, and one which would indicate that the ill effects
of over-indulgence in spirituous liquors had been long known, when such
severe enactments were made against it.
The method of distilling described by Mr. Kerr in the Asiatic
Researches, vol. 1, is so simple that it is almost certain that it was
employed in very ancient times for the purpose of distilling spirits,
and also attars of various sorts, which, from time immemorial, would
seem to have been a special production of India.
"The body of the still is a common large unglazed earthen water jar,
nearly globular, of about 25 inches diameter at the widest part of it,
and 22 inches deep to the neck, which neck rises 2 inches more, and is
11 inches wide in the opening; this was filled about a half with
fermented mahwah flowers, which swam about in the liquor to be
distilled.
"This jar they placed in a furnace, not the most artificial, though not
seemingly ill adapted to give a great heat with but very little fuel.
This they made by digging a round hole in the ground, about 20 inches
wide and full 3 feet deep, cutting an opening in the front sloping down
to the bottom, perpendicular at the sides, about 9 inches wide and about
15 inches long, reckoning from the edge of the circle: this is to serve
to throw in the wood and to allow a passage for the air; at the other
side a small opening about 4 inches by 3 inches is made to serve as an
outlet for the smoke, the bottom of the hole thus made was rounded like
a cup.
"The jar was placed in this as far as it would go, and banked up with
clay all round to about a fifth of its height, except at the two
openings, when all was completed so far as the furnace was concerned.
"Fully one third of the still or jar was exposed to the heat when
the fire was lighted; the fuel was at least 2 feet from the bottom
of the jar.
"On to this jar there was now fitted what is called an adkur, this being
made of two earthen pans with their bottoms turned towards each other,
and a hole of about 4 inches diameter in the middle of each of them, the
lower of these pans fitted the hole in the jar, and was luted with clay,
the upper was luted to the lower one, and had a diameter of about 14
inches, the juncture formed a neck of about 3 inches, the upper pan was
about 4 inches deep, with a rim round the central hole, this formed a
gutter, and by means of a hollow bamboo luted to this, the spirit, as it
condensed, ran off into the receiver.
"The arrangement was now completed by luting on a small copper pot or
vessel about 5 inches deep, 8 inches wide at mouth, and about 10 inches
at bottom, with its mouth downwards.
"The cooler was formed by placing on a support at the back of the
furnace an earthen vessel containing a few gallons of water, from which,
by means of a bamboo tube, the water was allowed to run on to the centre
of the copper pot, from where it collected in the clay saucer, and ran
off by a small hole and bamboo tube for use again.
"In about three hours' time from lighting the fire, they draw off fully
fifteen bottles of spirits."
Comparing this simple form of apparatus with those described by Geber,
we must admit that there is no doubt of the earlier date of this simple
apparatus; and, as we have seen, distilled spirit is expressly mentioned
in the Institutes of Menu, we are bound to admit that distillation was
in use long ere the Arabian times and that of Dioscorides.
Many such examples might be examined, but I will take one for
illustration--that of the manufacture of common salt.
Let us take this manufacture as a typical one.
We find in Jackson's Antiquities and Chronology of the Chinese that,
2500 B.C., Shin-nong invented the method of obtaining salt from
sea-water. He also gets credit for having composed books on medicine.
In George Agricola's De Re Metallica (1561) there is a curious set of
woodcuts representing the manufacture of salt, and in the first, in
which the whole process of evaporating sea-water by the sun's rays is
shown most completely from the raising of the sluices to allow the water
to flow into the various evaporating ponds, to the packing of the
finished salt in barrels--it is a curious fact that the trees which are
introduced are _palms_, and the figure in the distance is dressed in
_Oriental costume_, while even the ship seems to partake of this
character.
A more advanced state of things is shown in the third drawing of the
12th book, where a pan is shown, made of iron plates riveted together so
as to form a flat sheet, which forms the bottom of the pan, of which the
sides are composed of thick wood, strengthened with plates of iron at
the corners.
The bottom of the pan has a series of iron eyes or loops, and these,
when it is fixed over its furnace, are attached to iron rods, which are
hung from a network of wooden bars, so that the whole bottom of the pan
is supported securely at a considerable number of points.
The furnace is very simple, being simply a wall surrounding an oblong
space, a little smaller than the pan, so that the sides of the latter
may rest on the walls all round, except for a small space in front where
the fuel is introduced, which apparently burns on the ground alone.
The method of manufacturing salt in Japan is almost identical with that
figured in Agricola. There is the same arrangement of salt garden or
series of ponds and ditches, and the dirty salts mixed with sand are
again lixiviated, and the filtered liquid is boiled down in curiously
formed pans or boilers.
Of these there are two chief forms, the first being a tank or pan formed
of large pieces of slate, with the joints made with clay, and surrounded
with a mud wall. The whole is covered with an arch or vault and is
filled with the brine, which is then evaporated by surface heat, the
fire being placed at one end and the flue at the other.
The other form is very curious and interesting, and is almost identical
in its principle of construction with the pan I have referred to as
figured in Agricola, only in this case the materials are very different,
being, instead of wood and iron, nothing more than clay or mud.
It was described officially by the Japanese, in their publications at
the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876. The Japanese description of this
apparatus is highly interesting. It is as follows:--