On the nature and cure of diseases Manjusa, . 4770 stanzas. I Sara sangscpa, ? Yogar-nawa, ? Chintamaru, ? Wara-sura Sangraha, ? Vydia-lankara, 278 stanzas.
Commentaries on the Ma,njusa= Yogo-pitake. I Kola-wid'hu, 400 sentences Bhaisajja-kalpa. Wara-yoga-sara, 5000 „ Lakshana Jaya-deva. Ratna-kana, 4000 „ The Hindu physicians in British India are desig nated Baid or Vydian, and there are also many learned pandits practising medicine. The Mu hammadan physician is styled Hakim or Tabib ; and both of these religious sects have surgical practitioners, who occupy a humble position, as also oculists, suppers, bleeders, bone-setters. The elemental philosophy is adopted alike by Muham madans and Hindus; but the former recognise only the four elements of Hippocrates, fire, air, earth, and water, whilst the Hindus have the fifth ele ment in akasa or ether, as adopted by Pythagoras. In the central parts of British India, as in the Central Provinces and at Benares, the medical books in the possession of the Vydians are either in Sanskrit or in translations from that tongue. Their names are Koshmabati and Nidan Cudmogdur in Sanskrit. Sarangdhar-Amrit-Sagar in Sanskrit and Nagari. Vydia Chintamani, by Dhanwantari? on fevers, nervous affections, and derangements of the urinary system. Roga Nidhanam, by Dhanwantari? on constitutions, temperaments, and their peculiar diseases.
Vydia Sastram, by Dhanwantari ? materia medica. Dhanwantari Negundo, author unknown, a work on medicine, of great antiquity ; very scarce.
Benares, built on the bank of the sacred Ganges, is a holy city of the Hindus, to which many pilgrims resort, and with many residents. It is a great seat of Hindu learning; but neither there nor in any other part of what is now British India, has there been, for unknown centuries, any Hindu or Muhammadan public school for teaching the theory and practice of medicine. The estab lishment of such institutions at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Nagpur, Lahore, Agra, Dacca, and other places, has been the act of the British, imitated at Hyderabad in the Dekhan by the Nizam, and at Trevandrum by the maharaja of Travancore.
At Benares, as elsewhere in India, those who wish to follow the healing art, whether according to the doctrines of the Hindus or Muhammadans, place themselves under some well-known Vydian or hakim, as pupils or disciples ; and throughout that extensive country, the learned men willingly impart instruction gratuitously. The Vydian
practitioners of Benares are well supplied with books, some of them in Sanskrit, some in Bengali, some in Hindi, translations from the Sanskrit, but a mention of the names here will suffice— In the Travancore country three schools of medicine are known. The most generally accepted theory, however, is that taught in the Aslitanga hirudayam, and its disciples call themselves Ash tanga-hirudaya Vydians. Their therapeutic agents are chiefly vegetable substances, but with a few drugs of mineral origin, of a mild nature. This school prevails throughout North Travancore, Cochin, and Malabar, and seems peculiar to those districts. In South Travancore, where Tamil is largely spoken, the medical practitioners style themselves Chintamani Vydians. They follow the writings of Agastya. In the capital, Trevandrum, also, there was, in 1876, one Muhammadan hakim or physician practising according to the Yunani or Grecian school. He was resorted to by persons wishing aphrodisiac drugs ; and the books in his possession are such as are known to other Yunani hakims. The bulk of the Muhammadans in that part of India, however, avail themselves of a physician of one or other of the Hindu schools, which explains why there are so few of the Mu hammadan religionists engaged in medical practice. In the capital, where there are many Tamil immi grants from British territory, both of the Hindu systems are in operation. The Ashtanga-hirudaya Vydians are of all classes of the community, from the highest Namburi Brahman to the humblest Chova and Thien. Among Chintamani Vydians, also, there are some high-caste people, but, gener ally speaking, the barber caste form the bulk of these practitioners. The Chintamani. Vydians use chiefly the writings of Agastya. A large number of his books, printed in Madras in the Tamil language, are sold in Travancore ; but his books are also obtainable in manuscript on palm leaves. There are also on palm leaves the books in San skrit of Charaka and Susruta,- and one called Belem ; but they are very scarce, and few practi tioners are acquainted with them.