a tract upon poisons by Shank (meaning Charaka) and a treatise on medicine by Shashrud1 (meaning Susruta).

Mrs. Manning says: "Later Greeks at Baghdad are found to have been acquainted with the medical works of the Hindus, and to have availed themselves of their medicaments."2 We learn with interest that Serapion, one of the earliest of the Arab writers, mentions the Indian Charaka, praising him as an authority in medicine, and referring to the myrabalans as forming part of Charaka's descriptions."3

Rhazes was a greater physician than Serapion. He lived at Baghdad with Al Mansur. He wrote twelve books on chemistry. On two occasions, Rhazes refers to the "Indian Charaka" as an authority for statements on plants or drugs.+

Another celebrated medical man is Avicinna (Abu Ali Sina), called Sheikh Rais, or the prince of physicians, who succeded Rhazes. He was the most famous physician of his time. He translated the works of Aristotle, and died in 1036 A.D. In treating of leeches, Avicinna begins by a reference to what "the Indians say," and then gives nearly the very words of Susruta,

1 Colebrooke's Algebra of the Hindus, Vol, II, p. 512. That Charaka should be changed by Arabic writers into Sarak, Susruta into Susrud, Nidana into Badan, Astanga into Asankar, and so forth, need not at all surprise us. Such transformations can well be explained on phonetic principies. Moreover, one must remember that the Indian works translated into Arabic were sometimes derived from pre-existing Phelvi versions, and in the migrations through successive languages the names often got frightfully disfigured.

describing the six poisonous leeches, amongst which are "those called krishna or black, the hairy leech, that which is variegated like a rainbow, etc.”1

Emperor Firoz Shah, after capturing Nagarkot, had the Sanskrit medical works translated into Arabic by Ayazuddin Khalid.2

In the reign of Harun-ul-Rashed, the Hindu medicine was not only valued by the Arabs, but Hindu physicians were actually invited to Bagdad, who went and resided in his court. For this information we are indebted to Abu Osaiba, whose biographies are quoted by Prof. Deitz in his Analecta Medica, Wustenfeld, Rev. W. Cureton, Flü Müller.

Abu Osaiba states that Mânka was a Hindu, eminent in the art of medicine and learned in Sanskrit literature. He made a journey from India to Iraq, cured the Khalif Harun-ul-Rasheed of an illness, and translated a work on poison by Charaka from Sanskrit into Persian. Another Hindu doctor named Saleh has also been eulogised by Abu Osaiba. He was, it is said, one of the most learned amongst the Hindus, and greatly skilled in curing diseases according to the Indian mode. He lived in Iraq during Harun's reign. He travelled to Egypt and Palestine, and was buried when he died in Egypt.

Gabriel Bactishna, a Syrian, became one of the translators of works on medicine from Sanskrit into Arabic. 5

1 Royle's Ancient Hindu Medicine, p. 38.

2 Max Muller's Science of Language, p. 167.
3 Leipsic Edition of 1833, p. 124.

4Journal of the R. A. Society, VI, pp. 105-115.

5 See Deitz's Analecta Medica. Dr. Furnell, Dy. Surgeon-General and Sanitary Commissioner, Madras, in his lecture delivered on the 1st April 1882, most vigorously supported the claims of Hiudu medicine as one of the most ancient and the most advanced sciences ever

Professor Sanchau says: "What India has contributed reached Baghdad by two different roads. Part has come directly in translations from the Sanskrit, part has travelled through Iran, having originally been translated from Sanskrit (Pâli? Prakrit?) into Persian, and farther from Persian into Arabic. In this way, e. g., the fables of Kalila and Dimna have been communicated to the Arabs, and a book on medicine, probably the famous Charaka.—of Fìhrist, p. 303.

"In this communication between India and Bagdad we must not only distinguish between two different roads, but also between two different periods.

"As Sindh was under the actual rule of the Khalif Mansur (A. D. 753-774), there came embassies from that part of India to Baghdad, and among them scholars, who brought along with them two books, the Brahmasidhanta of Brahmagupta (Sindhind), and his Khandakhadyaka (Arkand). With the help of these pandits, Alfazari, perhaps also Yakub Ibn Tarik, translated them. Both works have been largely used, and have exercised a great influence. It was on this occassion that the Arabs first became acquainted with a scientific system of astronomy. They learned from Brahmagupta earlier than from Ptolemy.

cultivated in the world. Speaking of the importance of drinking unpolluted water, he said that "as the ancient Hindus were superior to all others in other respects, so also were they superior to the others in recognising the importance and value of water, as well as in insisting upon preserving the water from filth of any kind whatever." He added that in his address to the Convocation in 1879 he had said that the Hindu physicians were unrivalled in all branches of medicine at the time when the Britons were savages and used to go about quite naked. He then described the instructions contained in the Hindu medical works with regard to the use of water, which he said were most remarkable,

"Another influx of Hindu learning took place under Harun, A.D. 786-808. The ministerial family Barmak, then at the zenith of their power, had come with the ruling dynasty from Balkh, where an ancestor of theirs had been an official in the Buddhistic temple, Naubehâr, i.e., navavihara, the new temple (or monastery). The name Barmak is said to be of Indian descent, meaning paramaka, i.e., the superior (abbot of the vihara?). Of course the Barmak family had been converted, but their contemporaries never thought much of their profession of Islam, nor regarded it as genuine. Induced probably by family traditions, they sent scholars to India, there to study medicine and pharmacology. Besides, they engaged Hindu scholars to come to Baghdad, made them the chief physicians of their hospitals and ordered them to translate from Sanskrit into Arabic, books on medicine, pharmacology, toxicology, philosophy, astrology and other subjects. Still in later centuries, Muslim scholars sometimes travelled for the same purposes as the emissaries of the Barmak, e.g., Almuwaffak, not long before Alberuni's time."1

Mrs. Manning says: "Greek physicians have done much to preserve and diffuse the medical science of India. We find, for instance, that the Greek physician Actuarius celebrates the Hindu medicine called triphala. He mentions the peculiar products of India, of which it is composed, by their Sanskrit name Myrobalans.2 Etius, who was a native of Amida in Mesopotamia, and studied at Alexandria in the fifth century, not

1 Sachau's Translation of Alberuni's India.
2 Ancient and Medieval India, Vol, I., p. 351,

only speaks of the Myrobalans, but mentions them as the proper cure for the disease called elephantiasis."

Among the ancient Hindu physicians of note may be mentioned (1) Atreya, Agnivesa, Charaka, Dhanwantri, Sashruta, Bharadvaja, Kapishthala, Bhela, Latukarna, Párásara, Harita, Kashraparu, Asavalyana, Badarayana, Katyayana, Baijvapi, Krisa, Samkrityayana, Babhravya Krishnatreya, Auddalaki, Svetaketa, Panchala, Gonardiya, Gonikaputra, Sabandhu, Samkara, Kankayana.

The Englishman (a Calcutta daily), in a leader in 1880, said: "No one can read the rules contained in great Sanskrit medical works without coming to the conclusion that, in point of knowledge, the ancient Hindus were in this respect very far in advance not only of the Greeks and Romans, but of Mediaval Europe."

Nearchas relates that the Greek physicians did not know how to cure snakebite. But the Hindu physicians cured it, and notified their ability to cure all who were afflicted with it, if they came to the court of Alexander the Great.1

As regards their knowledge of the Science of Chemistry, Mr. Elphinstone says: "Their (Indian) chemical skill is a fact more striking and more unexpected."

It is to be regretted that of the several works on chemistry quoted by Madhava, Rasarnava alone seems to have survived to our day.

1 See Wise's History of Medicine, p. 9.

2A famous representative of this art (alchemy) was Nagarjuna, a native of Daihak, near Somnath. He excelled in it, and composed a book which contains the substance of the whole literature on this subject, and is very rare."-Ilistory of Hindu Chemistry, Vol, I, p. 54.