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TRANSFERRED TO

YALE MEDICAL LIBRARY

HISTORICAL LIBRARY

AN ESSAY

ANTIQUITY OF HINDOO MEDICINE,

INCLUDING AN

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

TO THE COURSE OF

MATERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS,

DELIVERED AT KING'S COLLEGE.

J. F. ROYLE, M.D., F.R. & L.S., Sec. G.S.,

LATE OF THE MEDICAL STAFF OF THE BENGAL ARMT,

MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC, THE MEDICAL AND PHYSICAL SOCIETIES OF CALCUTTA, OF THE

ROYAL MEDICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH,

AND OF THE MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON ; &C.

PROFESSOR OP MATERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS,
KING'S COLLEGEj LONDON.

LONDON:

Wm. H. ALLEN & Co., 7, Leadenhall Street ; and
J. CHURCHILL, Princes Street.

1837.

A \ f,

a o -•?

Wis*.

Printed by J. L. Cox and Sons, 75, Great Queen Street,
Lincoln's Inn lieldt..

DEDICATED

UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH,

AS A MARK

HIGH RESPECT AND GRATEFUL FEELING

THE AUTHOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

As some incongruity is obvious between the title and the
commencement of the present publication, it is advisable to
state how it has originated. The Author, on entering on
the course of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in King's
College, having been requested by his colleagues, as well as
some distinguished members of the Profession, to print his
Introductory Address, and by others to give proofs of his
opinions more in detail ; determined, in complying with the
former, to attend as much as possible to the latter request.
From the pressure of other occupations, it was not until the
greater part of the Lecture was in print that the additions
(with a few exceptions, those from p. 40 to 192) were made,
and at a time, when a publication to the extent it has now
reached was never contemplated. The object, in some of these
additions, having been to show the probability of the antiquity
of Hindoo Medicine in connection with Indian commerce,
independent of the proofs afterwards adduced, some repeti-
tion will perhaps appear to have been unnecessarily introduced ;
this was in some measure inseparable from the cumulative
nature of the argument adopted, in proceeding from com-
paratively modern to more ancient times ; but partly caused
by the interruptions, amidst which this essay has been written.
These circumstances are mentioned in hopes of obtaining the
reader's consideration, as well as to account for the imperfec-
tions of the work, in connection with its title. This has been
adopted in conformity to the suggestion of valued friends,
that the object of the publication should occupy a more pro-
minent position than its occasion.

62, Berners Street,
1st January 1838.

By the same Author :

ILLUSTRATIONS of ttie Botany and other Branches of the
Natural History of the HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS, and of the
Flora of Cashmere.

Parts I. to IX., imp. Ito., 20s. each, with Coloured Plates. — Part X.
\vill be published shortly.

CONTENTS.

Objects of the Course. Medicines supplied by Mineral, Vegetable and
Animal Kingdoms. Sciences connected with Materia Medica and
Therapeutics, p. I..

Botany, 2. Connexion between Structure and Properties of Plants, 5.
Geography of Plants in connexion with Climate, 11. Zoology, 17.
Mineralogy, 19.

Natural Philosophy, 19. Chemistry, 20. Physiological Action, 21, and
Therapeutical Uses of Medicines, 22. Countries whence Drugs are
obtained, 23.

Means adopted for acquiring a knowledge of Asiatic Materia Medica, 25.

History of Materia Medica. Persian, 26. Arabian, 27. Greek, 29.
Indian, 31. Indian Drugs known to Greeks, 32.

Arabs indebted to Hindoos for some of their knowledge of Materia Me-
dica, 34. Reference to Hindoo Authors byname, 37. Quotation from
Charaka, a Sanscrit Author, by Avicenna, 38.

Probability of Arabs having derived a knowledge of Chemistry from
Hindoos, 39. Chemical Arts of the latter, 46.

Contents of Hindoo Medical Works, 47. Surgery, 49. Distinction
between a Theoretical, a Practical, and a properly-educated Physician,
49. Diagnosis, 50. Prognosis, 50. Character of a Physician, 51.
Materia Medica, 53. Pharmacy, 54.

Abstract of the Contents of the Ayur Veda and of the Susruta, Sanscrit
Medical Works, by Professor H. H. Wilson, 56.

Hindoo Medicine, probably original, 62. Age of Hindoo Authors, 63.
Presence of Hindoo Physicians at the Court of Harun-al-Rashid, proved
by Professor Dietz, 64.

Translations from Sanscrit into Tamul, 65; Cingalese, 66 ; Tibetan Lan-
guage, 66.

Chinese Medicine, and connexion between India and China, 67 ; between
India and Persia, 68. Commerce of Indian Drugs, 69.

Connexion of Greeks with Persia, 70; with India, 71. Greek, Bactrian,
and Indo-Scythic Coins, from the time of the Seleucidte to the fourth or
fifth century after Christ, discovered in Punjab, or Northern India.

Argument for Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, from knowledge of Indian
Tropical Products in Northern Climates, 73. Indian Drugs noticed by
Arab Authors, 75 ; by Greeks previous to Arabs, as Paulus iEgineta, 76 ;
iEtius, 77 ; Oribasius, 78 ; Galen, 79 ; Pliny, 79.

Dioscorides, 80. Indian Vegetable Products, 82 and 33. Oriental Pro-
ducts known to Greeks, 92. Vegetable Products of Indian Tropical
Islands not known to Greeks, 93. Animal Products mentioned by
Dioscorides, 94. Indian Mineral Products, showing that the Hindoos
possessed such substances as are mentioned by ancient Authors, 95.

Knowledge of Indian Products previous to the time of Dioscorides, as in
Theophrastus, 105. Hippocrates, 109.

IV CONTENTS.

Hippocrates subsequent to times when Grecian Philosophers travelled
in Eastern Countries, 113. Greeks derived Arts and Sciences in
the first instance from Egypt, 115. Egypt early a highly-civilized
Country, 116.

Commercial Intercourse between Egypt and India, 1 1 7. Course of Ancient
Commerce by the North with Caubul, Persia, and Babylon, and up the
Euphrates, or across Arabia to Syria, Palestine, and Lower Egypt-
Communications of Phoenicians and Arabs by Sea with India, 120.

Commercial Products obtained in N. India and Bactria, 123; Persia, 124;
Babylon, 125; and Phoenician Colonies, 125.

Communication by the South, or by Egypt and Arabia, with India, 126.
Products of Arabia, 1 27.

Products of Egypt, 128. Indian Products in Ancient Egypt, 1.30. Simi-
larity between Indians and Ancient Egyptians in Arts, 130. Archi-
tecture, 131. Sciences, 132. Physiognomy, Dress. Manners, 133.
Communication between Ancient Egypt and India, 134. Egyptian
Chronology, 135.

India, Products of, 135. Agricultural, 136. Commercial, 137. Other
Indian Products in Egypt, 137..

Antiquity of Indian Commerce proved by Indian Products mentioned in
the Bible, 138.

Chronology of Indian Astronomy, and of some Literary Works, 148; also
of Indian Medicine, 150.

Cultivation, in addition to Medicine, of other Sciences, of Literature, and of
Philosophy by Hindoos, 150.

The Vedas, 154. Grammar, Lexicography, Puranas, Poetry, 156. Phi-
losophy, 156. Logic, 158. Law, 158.

Hindoo Science, Mathematics, 159. Arithmetic, 160. Algebra, 161.
Geometry, 163. Division of Circle and Trigonometry, 163. Astro-
nomy, 165. Division of Time, 167. Days of the Week, Zodiacs,
Settlement of Time, 169. Other Astronomical Determinations, 171.
Dates of Hindoo Astronomers, 173. Mention of Greek by Hindoo
Astronomers, 174.

Coincidences in Astronomy of Eastern Nations, 175. Absence of the same
Sciences among the Hindoos as among the Ancient Greeks, 175.
Hindoo Medicine and Materia Medica; Mineral. Vegetable, and Animal,
177. Fine Arts among Hindoos, 178. Useful Arts, 179.

Comparison of some points in the Science of the most ancient Grecian
Philosophers, and what we now find contained in Sanscrit Books of
great antiquity, 181. Probability of the former having acquired their
knowledge in Eastern Countries, 187.

Hindoo Chronology, Literary, Scientific, and Political, 187.

Continuation of Lecture. Means and Mode of teaching, 192. Division of
Course into two portions. 1. Natural and Historical Characters of
articles of Materia Medica. 2. Physiological Action and Therapeutical
Uses of Medicines, 194. Donation of a Collection of Materia Medica
by the Society of Apothecaries, 195. Conclusion, 195.

In commencing a course of lectures, it is usual to give
some account of the origin and history, the objects and
uses of the subject to be entered upon, by teacher and
student. The practice has its advantages, in many respects,
for all ought to be acquainted both with the object and the
use of any study they are about to commence; but few can
be interested about the history of a subject with which they
are supposed to be totally unacquainted. Though a lec-
turer may usually choose any part of his subject for his
introductory discourse, there are occasions when he feels
it expedient to give his own views on the subject to be
studied. As I consider that to be my case, I shall enter
at once into a consideration of the objects of Materia
Medica and Therapeutics, and the sciences with which
they are connected, and without which they cannot be
understood ; adding a short survey of the history of the
science, and concluding with some observations on the modes
and means of teaching.

Materia Medica treats of the nature in general of medi-
cines, and Therapeutics of their application in the treatment
of disease. * All substances which are applied to diseased
organs, with a view to cure or relieve, and which possess this
virtue, independent of their nutritive qualities, are medi-
cines.' They are obtained from both the Organic and
Inorganic kingdoms, i.e. from the Vegetable and Animal, as
well as from the Mineral kingdom. It is necessary, therefore,

B

to be acquainted with the sciences which treat of these as
objects of Natural history.

Vegetables and their products appear so naturally con-
nected with the healing art, that one of the gods of the
East is represented (having assumed the character of a
chief physician), as delivering his instructions on the
doctrines of medicine, in a forest of medical plants,
in the presence of gods, sages, and a large train of both
orthodox and heretical hearers. Certainly as plants
yielded some of the earliest, so they continue to afford
many of the most valuable articles of the Materia Medica
of every country of the globe ; and the science of vegetation
therefore is one of those most closely connected with our
subject. Whether we consider the vast variety of beautiful
objects brought under review ; or the interesting nature of
the information which we obtain, by examining into the
structure, functions, and properties of each ; or the value
of the inferences which may be deduced, as applicable to
medicine, agriculture, or the arts ; there are few that can be
compared with it either in variety or value. This statement
may appear overstrained to many who have been in the habit
of regarding Botany as a science of names only; but it can be
so accounted by those alone who, not considering that a
multitude of natural objects must necessarily be distin-
guished by an equal number of names, are appalled by
the apparently insurmountable difficulties, and never look
from names to the things they indicate. As if a stranger,
on entering the vestibule of one of our modern museums,
should, from a view of the dilapidated monuments and
illegible inscriptions of antiquity, pronounce at once upon
their uselessness, because he himself was unable in the one
to decipher the history of past times, or to read in the
other the mind and design of the sculptor or architect.

But we have not to examine the objects of Botany, nor to

s

study the structure and functions of plants; nor have we
to note the first appearances of life in conjunction with the
simplest states of organised cellular matter, to its further
development in Endogenous life; where vascular bundles,
though performing the same functions, are only bound toge-
ther, but have not attained that higher degree of centralisation
in which the different systems unite into different organs; as
the cellular into pith, bark, and medullary rays, and the
vascular into rings of wood. Neither have we to watch the
local circulation in the cells, nor to trace the more general pro-
gression of the sap from the roots to the leaves, and from these
downwards into the bark. But we are interested in the laws
of vegetable physiology, that we may be able to weigh the
influence of the various stimulants of light, heat, air, and
moisture ; the effects of soils and aspects ; that we may
understand something of their operation, in modifying the
products of plants, and be able to select our barks, woods,
and roots, bulbs, leaves, flowers, and fruits, at the age and
season when they contain the principles which render them
useful as medicines in their most abundant and efficient state ;
whether these be gums, fecula, or saccharine principle;
milky juice or resin; fixed or volatile oil; or any of those
numerous alcaloids which are so completely altering the
forms of medicines, since the subtleties of modern chemistry
discovered them to be secreted in nature^ nicer laboratory.
There are, however, two branches of this extensive
science, respecting which I am desirous of making a few
observations ; one is the connexion between the Structure
and Natural affinities of plants, and their Physical and
Medical properties ; and the other is their Geographical
distribution, especially as connected with Climate. Both
are important subjects, whether we consider them in a
scientific or a practical point of view. The one teaches
us the laws which influence the distribution of plants;

b 2

points out the countries and climates which different
families affect ; and gives us principles for their cultivation,
either as medicines, or as objects of agriculture : the other
is no less valuable in affording us innumerable indications in
every part of the world, for discovering the properties of
new and unknown plants, whether as fitting them for food,
for medicine, or for any of the arts of life ; and though
there are no doubt exceptions, (fewer, however, than
usually adduced) there certainly is no other method by
which we may so readily find a substitute for a medicine,
or an equivalent for an article of trade, as by seeking for it
in the families of plants, which are already known to
contain some possessed of such properties as we desiderate.
This is no trivial advantage ; for though our Pharma-
copoeias and Dispensatories may be models of what is
requisite for civilized society, yet if it be considered that
the English Schools of Medicine supply practitioners for
an empire, on which, without hyperbole, it has been said,
the sun never sets ; it will readily be allowed, that we may
frequently be placed where there are neither chemists to
analyse, nor herbalists to select the plants, secreting most
valuable products at our feet; but to which we might
readily be led by studying their natural affinities. Our
systems of Materia Medica might therefore inculcate these
more comprehensive doctrines, and a teacher extend the
range of his influence and usefulness, while describing any
officinal species, by introducing it with general observations
on the family to which it belongs, as well as the countries
where this is chiefly found. An Indian sage, after giving
a prescription of precious stones, for curing the diseases of
kings and rich men, very judiciously adds another, for
people in general, composed of vegetables, because these
are procurable by all.

The system of arrangement, however, alone applicable

to this purpose, is that called the Natural method, which,
enabling us to discuss questions concerning the structure of
its several groups, in conjunction with climate, geographical
distribution, medical and physical properties, makes modern
botany a highly interesting and philosophical study. The
artificial system of Linnaeus, usually taught in this country,
is ill adapted for our purpose, and for the present state
of science. But I am very far from wishing, by such an
observation, to reflect in any manner upon the character or
merits of Linneeus, one of the greatest naturalists that ever
lived ; than whom no one has more strongly expressed the
necessity of establishing a more philosophical arrangement,
which he considered the ultimate object of study; and who
did Natural History the highest services by the invention
of methods of arrangement, which prevented its being
overwhelmed by the very magnitude of the exertions made
in its service. But it is necessary to place the natural
classification in a proper point of view, since even one of
our principal botanists seemed to think the natural subor-
dinate to the artificial method of classification. In criti-
cising a work of Mr. Robert Brown, who is acknowledged
by all Europe as the first Botanist of his day, Sir James
Smith says, " He himself will surely not reckon it complete,
without a Linnaean Index, ' to give the precious metal
sterling worth :' we have done this, Gentlemen, without the
Index, by returning, if I may be allowed the expression,
from a paper to a golden currency."

The connexion between the medical properties of plants
and their structure, was a subject which attracted the
attention of botanists at an early period. Thus Cassalpinus,
in 1583, in the Preface to his work, " De Plantis," says,
" Quae enim generis societate junguntur, plerumque et
similes possident facilitates ; n while Camerarius, in 1699,
wrote a dissertation, entitled " De Convenientia Plantarum

in fructificatione et viribus;" Petiver,an apothecary of Alders-
gate-street, and well known as a botanist, has a paper in
the 21st volume of the Philosophical Transactions (1699),
entitled, " Some attempts to prove that herbs of the same
make and class, for the generality, have the like virtue, and
tendency to work the same effects.'" Again, Linna?us has
stated, " Plantae quae Genere eonveniunt, etiam virtute
conveniunt ; quae Ordine naturali continentur, etiam virtute
proprius accedunt; quasque Classi naturali congruunt,
etiam viribus quodammodo congruunt." But the progress
was inconsiderable in the path pointed out by these illus-
trious naturalists, until the publication by the celebrated
De Candolle, who has thrown a light over so many depart-
ments of Botany, of his " Essai sur les proprietes medicales
des Plantes." In this work he has shown, that as the
effects of the different substances used as medicines,
must be owing either to their physical characters or their
chemical composition, so must these depend on the peculiar
organization of the vegetable, especially in the organs
of nutrition, by which they are secreted. But as plants
are classified from their organs of reproduction, and not
from those of nutrition, it does not appear how we are led
to the nature of the secretions formed by these, from a
consideration of groupings founded on the examination of a
different set of organs. To this it has been well replied,
that though an artificial arrangement may draw its charac-
ters of classes from as small a number of organs as possible,
the natural method is, on the contrary, the more perfect in
proportion that the characters of its classes express a greater
number of ideas; hence those families which present the
most numerous points of analogy in the organs of reproduc-
tion, will also display them in the organs of nutrition, in
which the secretions are chiefly performed. Thus the divi-
sion of vegetables from the seeds, into Acotyledons,

Monocotyledons, and Dicotyledons, agrees with that taken
from the absence, the existence, and disposition of a vascular
system. Hence the peculiarities of the organs of reproduction
may be a sufficiently certain index of the structure of those
of nutrition ; but as these determine the nature of the
secretions or products of plants, so it follows that the
properties of plants may be in accordance with their classi-
fication into natural families.

But as examples are more convincing than general reason-
ing, we may readily refer to numerous instances, to render
this conclusive. No one is surprised at hearing that the
Graminece of tropical regions are as fitted for food as those
of European countries ; or that the oak of the Himalaya
yields excellent timber; or that pines abound in turpen-
tine, and may be made to yield tar wherever they are found.
So the Rosacea afford us our best fruits; among the
Papilionacece, are found all the legumes used as food in
different parts of the world, and the Labiatce yield most
of our odoriferous herbs, as lavender, rosemary, thyme,
sage, savory, marjoram, and mint. The Burseracece, a
tribe of TerMnthacece, afford resins combined with essen-
tial oil ; as we see in the balm of Gilead and Myrrh trees,
Balsamodendron gileadense and Myrrha ; B. opobalsa-
mum, Kataf and Kalaf, all give out a balsamic odour.
Indian Bdellium is probably produced by Balsamodendron
Agallocha ; African Bdellium is yielded by another of
this family, Heudelotia africana ; Olibanum by Boswellia
serrata ; Pistacia Terebinthus and Lentiscus, afford
us Chio turpentine and Mastic. The Laurels give us
the Camphor of Japan; the Cinnamon of China, as well
as that of Ceylon ; Cassia, Sindoc, Calitlawan, the Mala-
bathrum leaf in India, and the Bay-leaf in Europe. Of
the Dipterocarpece, one species yields the Camphor of
Sumatra ; Skorea robusta the resin called ral, but dammer

8

by the English ; while Vateria indira produces copal, and
Dipterocarjms costatus, turbinatus, incomes, alatus, and
probably other species, afford the balsam called Wood-oil.
So many of the Guttiferce exude a gamboge-like substance,
that we may safely conclude the officinal species, though
unknown, to be of this family ; as also that the Officinal
Rhubarb, though equally unknown, is yielded by a species
of Rheum; and as the Umbelliferce give us Assafcetida,
Galbanum, Opoponax, and Ammoniacum, we infer that
they also afford us Sagapenum.

The Cedrelacece are remarkable for their bitterness
and astringency, accompanied frequently by an aromatic
principle; and thence are endowed with febrifuge pro-
perties. So Soymida febrifuga, with others, is reckoned
in India a good stomachic and febrifuge ; the Khayn is
similarly employed on the banks of the Gambia ; Cedrela
febrifuga in Java, and Stvietenia Mahogani in the
New World. As we thence get Logwood and Brazil
wood, so from the Malayan Peninsula we have Sappan
wood, all from the Ccesalpinece. Of the Memisperrnacece,
Cocculus palmatus affords the well-known Columba
root ; but in India, C. cordifolius is no less extensively
employed as a tonic and febrifuge ; so the Brazilians
employ Cocculus platyphyllus, cinerascens, and ovali-
folius, for the cure of intermittent fevers ; as do the
Malays in Eastern countries, C. peltatus, crispus, and
Fibraurea. The Gentianece not only yield bitter roots
and herbs in Europe, as gentian and centaury, but in
the Himalayas they afford us Gentiana Kurroa as a bitter
root, and the Cheretta as a herb.

The Nima of these mountains is as bitter as the Quassia
of South America, and both belong to the family of Sima-
rubece. The Solanece are well known for their narcotic
properties, as exhibited in several solanums, the henbane,

datura, and deadly night-shade. Among the Cinchonacece,
the true Cinchonas are too well known for their febrifuge
properties to require further notice, except that in pro-
portion to the number of species yielding medicinal bark,
is the difficulty of assigning to any particular species,
those kinds which are officinal. But in countries where
the true Cinchonas do not exist, others of this family are
used as substitutes, as Pinckneya pubens in Carolina,
Portlandia heceandra in French Guiana, Rondeletia febri-
fuga in Sierra Leone ; so also Macrocnemum corymbosum,
Guettarda coccinea, Antirrhoea verticillata, Morinda
Royoc, and others ; with Hymenodictyon excelsum in India.

Of the Convolvulacece, Ipomcea Jalapa of Nuttal yields
the true jalap, and Convolvulus Scammonia, scammony;
so in India, Ipomcea Turpethum forms the toorbud of
the Arabs, probably corrupted from the Sanscrit trivrit ;
and the seeds of Ipomcea caerulea, described by Mesue
under the name of hub-al-nil and granum indicum, are
still used in India for their purgative properties. In the
Cucurbitacece there exists a bitter principle in the fruit of
many species ; and in the rind of the cucumber and the
melon. Of this family, colocynth, squirting cucumber, and
bryony, are used as purgatives ; in India, with the true
colocynth, there is a nearly allied species substituted for it,
which I have named Cucumis pseudo-Colocynthis ; some
other species of this genus, as well as of Trichosanthes,
Luffa, and Lagenaria, are likewise used as purgatives.

In connexion with this subject may be mentioned a
discovery to which I was led, entirely by inferences drawn
from the natural affinities of plants. In a paper lately read
to the British Association at Bristol, on the plants which
yielded Caoutchouc, I observed that they all belonged to
the milky-juiced families of Cichoracece, Lobeliacece,
Apocynecs, Asclepiadece, Euphorbia cece, and Artocarpece,
a tribe of Urticece. In the first place, it may be observed

10

that many of the plants of these families are remarkable
for the strength and tenacity of the fibre they yield for
rope-making: secondly, that bird-lime is prepared from
plants belonging to families which yield caoutchouc, as
from the apocyneous Voacanga in Madagascar ; and in
India, from different species of Ficus and Jrtocarptis.
But the most interesting fact which I obtained from the
investigation, was one most unexpected, and the least
connected with the subject. Having been previously
employed in considering the proper means for extending
the cultivation of silk in India ; it struck me as singular,
that so many of the plants which silk-worms prefer next to
the mulberry leaf, should be found in those families which
yield caoutchouc. Thus, in England, the lettuce and
dandelion leaves, belonging to Cichoracece, and in India
Ficus religiosa, belonging to the Artocarpece, have been
ascertained to be the best substitutes for the leaves of
the mulberry; while the Arindy silk-worm of India,
Phalcena Cynthia, feeds upon those of the castor oil
plant, Ricinus communis, belonging to Euphorbiaceoe.*.
Considering that a circumstance of this nature was not
likely to be accidental, I was induced to think that it
depended upon the presence of some principle common to
all these vegetables, and therefore that caoutchouc (perhaps
in a modified state) might really be contained in the juice
of the mulberry, though this is described as not being
milky. I therefore requested Mr. Sievier, who has made
so many discoveries in the properties of caoutchouc, to
ascertain whether my conjecture was well founded. In a

* Since this lecture was delivered, I have seen in the newspapers, that
a species of Scorzonera, which belongs to the natural family of Cichoracece,
has been found to be a good substitute for the mulberry-leaf in France. I
have also been informed by Mr. Morley, that a caterpillar which forms a
very large caooon, and spins a tough but coarse kind of silk, feeds on the
leaves of the South American caoutchouc-tree, Siphonia elaslica.

11

few days lie informed me that the mulberry-tree sap was
of a milky nature, and did actually contain caoutchouc,
especially on dry and bright sunny days.

With respect to the Geographical distribution of Plants,
especially in its connexion with Climate, I wish to say
a few words, in order to shew that the argument I after-
wards draw from it, is based on a sure foundation. In
repeating nearly what I have said elsewhere, I shall
confine myself to the more marked differences of climate,
and the vegetation it supports.

The peculiarities of the tropical zone we well know to
be brightness of light, great heat, and moisture, with
considerable uniformity of all throughout the year. These
are all favourable to the development of vegetation, whicn
is accordingly characterised by vastness ; the foliage, by
richness ; and the inflorescence, by brilliancy of colouring.
Hence, the proportion of trees is great, and their flowers
of a size and richness which, in colder climates, are only
the appanage of humbler plants ; as may be seen in the
noble Amherstia, the wide-spreading Bombax, or glowing
Erythrina. If we study the physiology of plants, as well
as the circumstances controlling their growth, and the
nature of their secretions, we find that vegetation is much
affected by the different physical states of the soil and
atmosphere, as well as by the supply of heat and light ;
hence we may conclude, that there are different sets of
plants fitted by nature for the particular circumstances in
which they are to be placed. Those who have visited
tropical countries, know that the position of their low and
mangrove-lined coasts may be recognised by the forests of
tall palms, shooting like distant masts above the surface of
the sea. The very mention of the Clove, the Cinnamon,
Nutmeg, Ginger, Cardamom, Plantain and Pepper recall
ideas of high .temperature and rich vegetation : but these
all belong to separate families of plants, as Myrtacece,

c2

12

LauracecB, Myristicece, Scitaminece, Musacece, and Pipe-
racecB, which prevail in equatorial forests, and perfectly
characterise tropical vegetation ; but they do not do so
more than the Anonacece, Dilleniacece, Guttiferce, Auran-
tiacecB, Dipterocarpece, Sapindacece, Meliacece, Combre-
tacece, Cinchonacece, Bignoniacece, Ebenacece, Sapotea:,
CycadacecB, Bromeliacece, Pandanacece, and many others.
As tropical climate is not terminated by an abrupt line, but,
according to the influence of local causes, extended into
higher latitudes, so does it carry with it the peculiarities
of tropical vegetation. Thus, if the country be open
towards the equator, the equinoctial rains will be blown
with the periodical winds to much higher latitudes than
where a mountain range intervenes, or the course of the
winds is diverted by a high and shelving coast. Hence
India, open to the south, is deluged by the periodical
rains ; while Egypt, in the same latitude, owes its fertility
only to the overflowing of the Nile. The same effects may
ensue, if the same causes operate, along a valley or a
mountain range. Thus, Humboldt has shewn that, in the
basin of the Ohio, Gleditsia monosperma, the Catalpa,
and Aristolochia Sipho, extend three degrees further north
than on the coast of the Atlantic. So, along the base of
the Himalayas, where there is considerable moisture of the
soil, a vigorous vegetation has sprung up, which adds to
the humidity of the atmosphere, as well by exhalation
from its leaves as by preventing free evaporation from
the ground. A greater equality of temperature is also
preserved, from the umbrageous covering at once im-
peding the ready absorption of heat by day, as it checks
free radiation during the night. Hence, along this tropic-
girt base, with greater equability of temperature, we find more
uniform moisture than in the open plains; and in it many
plants extending several degrees further north than they
do in any other part of India; as, a species of Cinna-

13

momum, yielding the tej-pat, or bay-leaf of India, the
Malabathrum of the Ancients ; also Piper longum, which
does not, however, furnish long pepper sufficiently good or
abundantly enough to be an article of commerce ; together
with Shorea robusta, one of the Dipterocarpece ; Embryop-
teris glutinifera, one of the Ebenacece ; as well as
Semecarpus Anacardium, and the Catechu-yielding Acacia;
with Bauhinia racemosa and HiptageMadablota, as gigantic
climbers. Here the geologist will be interested in seeing a
full-grown Pine alongside of a dwarfish Palm, and the
Rattan trailing in valleys, with the Plantain wild and flourish-
ing at the foot of mountains, on which species of Acer,
Ulmus, Betula, Carpinus, and Juglans (genera found in a
fossil state) are growing in fullest luxuriance. The agri-
culturalist will here notice the excellence of the rice cultivated
in some of these vallies, and that the Banana, Jack-fruit
(Artocarpus integrifolia), and Guava (Psidium pyriferum)
succeed nearly as well as in the rich soil and moist climate
of Bengal.

If we wish, however, to draw either scientific or practical
deductions from the prevalence in any situation of particular
plants, we must pay especial attention on the one hand to
the habit, and on the other to the proportional number
of the species, as compared with the general character of the
family ; for though the different families of plants occur in
the greatest numbers in particular countries and cbmates, yet
they frequently send their representatives into very distant
regions. Thus we have in the south of Europe, either
indigenous or introduced, a Laurel, a Palm, a Myrtle,
Oleander, Calotropis, Vitex, and a few Acacias, all which
belong to families occurring in the greatest numbers in
tropical countries. So, some of those which form the
largest trees of Equinoctial regions occur in European
countries as annual herbs ; as of the Malvacece, the huge
Silk-cotton-tree in the former, and the humble Mallow in

14

the latter ; of Verbenacece, the Teak in India, and the
Vervein in Europe; of Rubiacece, the Cinchona in South
America, and the weak Rubia in Europe; and of the
Euphorbiacece, the lowly spurges in European countries,
the shrubby Euphorbias in the hot parts of Africa and
India, and the arboreous species of Etnblica, Rottlera,
Elceococca, Stillingiq, and Siphonia, in tropical parts of
the world.

As the diminution of temperature in the atmosphere is very
gradual, according to the elevation ; so is the disappearance
of tropical forms as we ascend mountains : hence we
find such plants diminishing in number and size as we
climb either the Andes or the Himalayas. Their existence
at considerable heights may probably be favoured by
the range of the thermometer being less on mountain tops
than on plains, even where the mean temperature is the
same ; and, perhaps, the effect of the extremes of temper-
ature may be less injurious when transmitted through a
more rarefied medium. But in mountains under the influ-
ence of tropical rains, a peculiarity of atmosphere occurs
analogous to that so well characterised by Baron Humboldt
in the Andes, as "the region of clouds." So in the Himalayas,
at seven and eight thousand feet of elevation, the ther-
mometer does not vary ten degrees during three months :
and even when rain does not fall, there is constant humidity,
from the air charged with moisture in the heated valleys
rising and depositing it on the mountains, when it reaches
an elevation where it is cooled below the point of saturation.
The cloudiness, at the same time, preventing the full
influence of the sun's rays; and at night the radiation from
a mountain ridge bearing but a small proportion to the
mass of the atmosphere, comparative little cooling takes
place; and the thermometer is but a few degrees lower in
the morning than it was on the previous evening : so that
the same equability which we have observed at the base of

15

the mountains, takes place at considerable elevations,
from the operation of other causes. This being com-
bined with moisture, we have two of the characteristics
of a tropical climate, and find that, in such circumstances,
a less degree of heat is essential for the maintenance
of plants otherwise indicative, though only annuals, of
tropical vegetation. Of these may be instanced one of the
Scitaminece, the family to which the ginger and cardamom
belong, at as great an elevation as nine thousand feet, with Bal-
sams, Begonias, Cyrtandracetx, Melastomacece, a Smithia,
Cassia, &c. : even a Bamboo is found as high as ten thou-
sand feet ; but its annual stems are yearly levelled by the
falls of snow, while the roots are protected by their sub-
terranean situation from the great changes of temperature.
It is this moist state of the atmosphere, and the frequent
showers previous to its accession, which render practicable,
at considerable elevations in these mountains, the cultivation
of rice ; an annual that ripens in a few months. This shews
how futile was the attempt to cultivate it in this country,
merely because there appeared to those who thought only
of temperature, a similarity in climate.

But luxuriant vegetation is not confined to tropical
countries, as we know from the beauty and variety of
scenery in temperate climes, dependant on an entirely
different set of plants. Among these, the Coniferce are
conspicuous ; and the Amentacece give the greatest variety
of trees, as oaks, chestnuts, birches, horn-beams, hazels,
poplars, and willows ; with elms, maples, rhododendrons,
and the walnut, which, though found in southern latitudes,
grow in mountainous situations only. But these are not
more indicative of moderate temperature than are many
other families of plants ; as the Ranunculacece, Gentianece,
Primulacece, Saxifragece, Valerianece, Campanulacece,
Rosacece, some tribes of Labiates, Cruciferce, Caryo-

16

phyllece, and Urnbelliferce. As elevation produces the
same effects on temperature as increase of latitude, we find
in the Himalayas a climate so suited to these families,
that they form the most numerous portion of its flora.
In company with them, also, occur some of the plants of
China and Japan, as well as of North America ; and on
the northern face, several of those of Siberia. Many of
the lofty peaks being covered with snow for nine months in
the year, which melts only when the sun has the greatest
power, we may suppose the brightness of light in this thin
and rarefied medium, to be an equivalent for the uninter-
rupted sunshine of polar regions during the same months ;
and the climate as suited to the growth of plants, which
can scarcely be distinguished from some brought from
Melville Island. A dwarf willow and birch, with a rhodo-
dendron, forming the ligneous vegetation of high latitudes,
so does a species of the first, with rhododendrons, occur at
the highest elevations in the Himalayas, though the birch
exists only as a tree within the limit of forest. In the same
way that we have seen tropical families sending a few species
into temperate climates, so do those which are character-
istic of the latter, send their representatives into the midst
of tropical vegetation ; but these, with the exception of the
multiform willow, are only annuals which spring up,
flower, and seed, during the cold-weather months in India;
as one or two Gentians ; Anagallis, of the family of
Primulacece ; Silene conoidea, and Saponaria Vaccaria,
in corn-fields ; with Ranunculus sceleratus and aquatilis,
growing in, and near water ; therefore able, from its
equalising effects, to bear great vicissitudes of atmospheric
temperature.

But as these occur only in the cold-weather months, or
from October to April, so does the cultivation in these
months in the plains of India correspond with that of the

17

summer months of higher latitudes ; consisting of wheat,
barley, flax, peas, beans, &c. with the culture of the
poppy, and the collection of opium, in the very same
fields, perhaps, where, in the rainy season, had been grown
rice, sorghum, and other tropical grains.

Such are a few general views respecting the Geography of
plants in connexion with climate. Between the extreme
points of a tropical and a polar vegetation, we might shew
a series of gradations : but these would lead into unneces-
sary detail ; and the object has, perhaps, been sufficiently
gained, if I have been successful in shewing in what way
the distribution of plants is connected with climate ; and
consequently what is the value of any inferences that may
be deduced from their culture in new situations ; and also
from vegetable products being found in countries where
the plants themselves are unable to grow.

The Animal creation is the next which should attract our
attention, or at least be considered in connexion with the
vegetable kingdom, whether we adopt the ascending or the
descending series. Here we find sensibility superadded to
the vital principle, which we first saw in union with
matter in the lowest forms of organized vegetation. Inte-
resting and instructive as is the study of the forms and
habits of the animal world ; indispensable as is an acquain-
tance with their internal structure and functions to a scientific
knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the human
frame ; these are of comparatively less consequence in a
course of Materia Medica : because in proportion as the
progress of medicine has brought the art of prescription
nearer to its original simplicity, so the crowd of inert and
disgusting remedies, introduced by the corrupters of medi-
cine, have disappeared from our pharmacopoeias. As animals
require for their nutriment matter which has already been
organized, either by vegetables or lower grades of animal life,

D

18

so do they carry it to a higher state of organization, and bring
it nearer to the nature of man himself. Hence they are less
and less fitted for effecting those changes in the functions and
states of organs, which form the objects of medicines ; but
they are therefore the better suited for affording materials
of renovation to the exhausted frame; as we may see by the
large proportion of the Vertebrata employed for food. That
a greater number of medicines were formerly obtained from
the animal kingdom, is not therefore to be ascribed to their
powers having been supplanted by a more abundant and
perfect supply from the vegetable and mineral kingdoms.
But then, the general ignorance of both practitioner and
patient allowed the former, by means of loathsome remedies,
to operate on the imagination of the latter ; in hopes of
producing those changes in the state of disease, which his
knowledge did not tell him how otherwise to effect. The
reign of ignorance is not yet passed ; but more elegant
modes have been successively devised, for producing the
same results; by those who have less excuse than their pre-
decessors for such practices.

The exceptions to the above observation, are but few:
musk and castor still continue to be used ; but these seem
to be secreted by the respective animals for acting as
stimulants to some of their own functions: certain sub-
stances are employed as emollients, and operate chiefly
by their mechanical properties ; to these may be added
carbonate of lime, secreted in large quantities by lower
tribes of animals, as a defence against their numerous
enemies; but which the improved state of chemistry has
shown, can be procured of equal purity and with greater
facility from the mineral kingdom. So few articles being
now obtained as medicines from the animal kingdom, it is
of less consequence to ascertain whether there be that
connexion between structure and its properties, as we have

19

seen to exist in the vegetable kingdom. But if we look at
the different kinds of animals employed as food, and those
which are not so, we shall see a recognition of the principle;
as well as in the employment of several species of the tribe
of Cantharidia, as vesicatories in different countries.

From viewing the Organic we proceed to the Inorganic
kingdom of nature, and Mineralogy, as one great division
of natural history, embraces within its consideration the
structure and relations of minerals, or all bodies found in
or upon the earth, which are neither animal nor vegetable.
Crystallography is a branch of this science, which describes
and explains the relations that subsist among the crystal-
line forms of minerals, while Geology makes us acquainted
with the structure, relative position, materials, and mode
of formation of the mineral masses, of which the crust of
the earth is composed. Minerals, though inorganized, act
on organized matter, so as to produce those changes in its
state and functions, which make them useful as medicines.
They may, whether solid, liquid, or aeriform, be arranged
and distinguished, either according to their physical charac-
ters, or their chemical composition. But few are now
employed, either as external or internal remedies, until
they have been subjected to some chemical operation,
either to improve their quality, or to change their nature.
As all that are employed as medicines are also objects
of chemistry, it is in every way preferable to treat of
them according to the most approved arrangements of this
science ; introducing, however, in appropriate places, the
natural history and physical characters of such as are
chiefly the produce of nature. It is indispensable, therefore,
that we be acquainted with the sciences which treat of
them in this view, to know that we use their terms with
propriety and correctness.

But these studies, extensive though they be, and indispen-

d 2

sable as it is for us to understand the arrangements which
they adopt, and the places which the objects we wish to
examine occupy in the scheme of nature, do not embrace
all that is requisite respecting the substances we have to
employ as medicines, even independent of their uses as such.
For those which we find most useful as remedies may occupy
little of the attention of the naturalist ; as we only employ
them when they have ceased to be of use to the objects
of his care ; or at least they may never engage his notice in
the way in which we view them. A knowledge of natural
bodies implies also an acquaintance with their physical
states and chemical composition. The former consists
in the examination of such properties as their hardness,
elasticity, specific gravity, powers of electricity or
refraction ; all principal objects of attention in Natural
Philosophy, a science which should form a part, not only of
professional, but of general education. As students of
medicine, I know not how the admirable mechanism of the
human body, the circulation of its fluids, or the effects of
atmospherical vicissitudes with respect to temperature,
density, or moisture, as affecting especially the functions of
respiration and perspiration ; or the general effects of bght,
heat, and electricity on the human system, can be well
understood, unless we study these general powers, and see
how they control or affect almost every function. For if
we do not understand their operation on the animal eco-
nomy, when in a state of health, we are not likely to
do so when we wish to employ them as general remedies in
disease. These great powers, heat, light, electricity, and
magnetism, come under the cognizance of the chemical,
as well as of the natural philosopher, though in somewhat
different points of view ; the former considering them more
as agents effecting changes, and the latter as great prin-
ciples of nature and powers in motion.

21

The object of the Chemist being to ascertain the consti-
tuents of all bodies, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral ;
to investigate the way in which these constituents combine,
and the nature of the compounds which they form ; his
science must be admitted as indispensable as any for
acquiring an accurate knowledge of natural bodies, more
especially if we study them with a view to their employment
as medicinal agents. These, as we have said, are seldom
administered as afforded by nature, but undergo several opera-
tions, some mechanical, others entirely chemical, constituting
that branch of study called Pharmacy. For this, we require
to be intimately acquainted with the laws of Chemistry,
and the mutual action of bodies on each other, that we
may not compound what are incongruous, or prescribe
such as are incompatible. But the value of this science
towards acquiring an accurate knowledge of Materia Medica
is too well known to require being insisted on, whether we
regard retrospective services or prospective aids. For I
feel well assured, looking at the all-pervading grasp of
Chemistry, and its recent achievements, that we shall every
year be furnished with new agents and new forms, as well
from the mineral, as from the vegetable kingdom ; more espe-
cially if the chemical philosopher will subject to bis
examination, not only those plants of which the uses are
known, but the many others also which invite his atten-
tion ; and to which he will be best, nay, easily guided, by
attending to the Natural affinities of plants.

But the most finished natural-historical description, the
most accurate ascertainment of physical properties, the
nicest analysis, or the most elegant preparation, form but
a small, or, at least, only the preliminary portion of the
duties which devolve upon the teacher or student of Materia
Medica. For we have still to inquire, what are the
Physiological action of medicines, or the changes effected by

the substances so called, when applied to the different
surfaces of the human body, in health or in disease; whether
these changes be of a chemical nature, or owing to some
peculiar influence exercised on the vital energy ; whether
they be local or general, primary or secondary ; and
whether the substances be carried into the system by
absorption, or act by sympathy ; attending, at the same
time, to all the different circumstances which may modify
their action, when administered in disease.

Even this is only the last step of the ladder up
which we have been climbing, to reach the ultimate
end and object of the whole, which is Therapeutics, or
the administration of remedies, for the purpose of removing
the tendency to disease, and of inducing a return to a
healthy action of the various organs and functions of the
body. Every thing, therefore, capable of effecting
such objects, is called to his aid by the Therapeutist,
whether they be of the class usually called Medi-
cines, or come under the more comprehensive denomi-
nation of Remedies, whether these be Physical or Moral
agents. Materia Medica, therefore, instead of being on
an equality with Therapeutics, must ever be considered
as secondary and subordinate, " non soror, sed ancilla,"
a handmaiden only, not a sister, bringing together, pre-
paring, and trying whatever may be likely to fulfil the
indications, which the other, informed by the higher course
of pathological study, has ascertained to be necessary for
the removal of disease. Medicine is therefore connected
with other sciences through Therapeutics, which we have seen
cannot be successfully practised, without, on the one hand,
a knowledge of Pathology, or the doctrines of disease, and
on the other, an acquaintance with Materia Medica, or the
nature and actions of medicines. As M.M. Trousseau
and Pidoux, the most recent authors, and of high authority,

are of opinion, that all writers give too much attention to
Materia Mediea, and too little to Therapeutics, we must
endeavour, in our observations on each article, as well as
on each class of remedies, to avoid, if possible, incurring
this reproach ; without, however, encroaching on the pro-
vince of the Professor of Medicine.

Such are the several Sciences connected with the various
articles of Materia Mediea. These, it will be needless,
nay, impossible, to enumerate. Such as are now in use,
will, of course, be the objects of our special attention.
Those which have ceased to be so, or have not yet become
generally established, may, without entering into details,
serve to establish a principle, or elucidate the works of
some of the masters in medicine. Under each of the former,
we shall have to attend both to its Natural History charac-
ters, its Physical properties, Chemical composition, Physio-
logical effects, and Therapeutical uses, as well as its Pharma-
ceutical preparations, and its Literary and Commercial
history. The last, in a country like Great Britain, it
would be supposed must be both correct and easy to pro-
cure ; but it will generally be found that traders care little,
except about the price of a drug, and the port where it may
be purchased ; and brokers, in this country, think only of the
ship in which it was imported, and the place whence this
was cleared; though the substance itself may have been
first conveyed thither from very distant regions. We
shall be led, therefore, to a geographical inquiry into the
countries where our drugs are produced. America, the
latest discovered, may be most quickly dismissed, as com-
paratively less complicated in the commercial history of
its products; though from the unequalled extent of territory,
and great diversity of climate, it supplies almost every
variety of medicinal agent, and among them many of our
most valuable drugs, as bark, ipecacuanha, jalap, &c. The

24

Old World, however, is equally varied in its treasures,
whether we look to such as require a cold or temperate
climate with moisture, as almost every part of Europe ; or
such as are only elaborated in the bright skies and sunny
climes of the Mediterranean or Persian regions. Others
again refuse to flourish, or to secrete their highly stimulant
and aromatic properties, except in the elevated temperature
and uniform moisture of tropical countries. These might
have been obtained from a very broad belt, but Africa was
as inaccessible, and the transit of its produce as difficult in
ancient as in modern times. Asia, therefore, especially
India and its islands, must always have contributed a
great proportion of those articles which we now know can
only be produced in tropical climates. One general obser-
vation may, I think, be applied to the whole; which is,
that a large number of the more powerful drugs are
produced on mountains, or in their vicinity ; these
affording at their bases umbrageous shelter, uniform
moisture, and equable temperature, for such as require
them; while the rarefied atmosphere of their sides and
tops allows a free transmission of light and of heat,
and, in proportion to its increased capacity for moisture,
favours evaporation and the ready secretion of vegetable
juices.

The History of Materia Medica, upon which I would
now wish to make a few observations, is necessarily very
complicated, if we attempt to study it with respect to each
particular drug ; for many of these have been so long used,
and described by a variety of authors, in so many languages,
that it is sometimes difficult for any one, without particular
training, to be able to recognise the most familiar articles :
I will therefore briefly relate how I was led to the study,
and what means I have taken to ensure some degree of
certainty in my conclusions.

25

Having studied die first elements of my profession under
Mr., now Dr. A. T. Thomson, Professor of Materia Medica
in University College, a whose zeal in acquiring I ever
found equalled only by his desire to communicate infor-
mation; and having subsequently attended the comprehensive
Course of Lectures on Materia Medica, Therapeutics, and
Dietetics, by Dr. Home, in the University of Edinburgh,
it may be presumed that I acquired some predilection for
this branch of study. But it was only at the request of the
Medical Board of Bengal, to investigate the Materia Medica
of India, that I was induced to turn my attention more
particularly to the subject. It would be tedious to relate
the various measures I adopted for acquiring a knowledge
of the substances at present in use in the several parts of
that extensive empire; as well as for pointing out the sources
whence a still greater variety might, if desirable, be obtained.
It is enough to say, that I made collections of every thing
'that was procurable in their bazars, tracing them as much
as possible to the plants, animals, and countries, whence
they were derived. I had the native works on Materia
Medica collated by competent Hakeems and Moonshees,
and the several articles arranged under the three heads of the
animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. I made then a cata-
logue of the whole, in which, after the most usually received
name, the several synonyms were added ; and the part of
the animal or plant used, the medical properties ascribed
to it, and the country whence it was procured, were severally
inserted. When successful in tracing the substance, I inserted
the systematic Natural-Historical name, the Linnaean class
and order, and especially the Natural Family of the plant.
Subsequently the more important articles were arranged,
according to the principles which they afforded ; as acids,
alkalis, fecula, gums, resins, oils, &c, also, according to
their medical properties, as narcotics, tonics, cathartics,
&c, and the plants according to the Natural families to

E

26

which they belonged. This has enabled me, in observations
on the nature and distribution of the Flora of the plains
and mountains of Northern India,* to accompany them with
remarks on the physical and medical properties of the
different families of plants.

I trust I may be excused for entering into these details,
as they are indispensable for proving that I took some
trouble to make myself acquainted with the actual state of
the Materia Medica of the East, and was thence enabled to
pursue its history, and to trace individual articles, even
under varying names and in different languages, from the
present to the earliest times. It is by these means that
I have been able to pick up one or two of the lost links
in the history of the science.

I believe the object I have in view will be best effected
by dividing the subject into the four heads of Persian,
Arabian, Indian, and Greek Materia Medica.

In the first I include not only the works composed ini
Persia, but also those which were written in that language in
India, as the plan and sources of information of all are the
same. The period embraced by these authors is one of
400 years ; the latest and most copious of them is the
author of the Mukhzun-al-Udwieh, or Storehouse of Medi-
cines, written as late as the year 1769, and printed at
Hoogly in 1824, The best known of the Persian works is the
Ulfaz-Udwieh, compiled by the Physician of the Emperor
Shah Jehan. This is little more than a catalogue, but is
valuable as giving the synonyms in Arabic, Persian, and
Hindooee, in the Roman character, and from having been
translated into English in 1793 by Mr. Gladwin. The most
esteemed, however, of the Persian works, is that called Toohft-
ul Moomineen, written in the year 1669, by Meer Mo-
hummud Moomin, an inhabitant of Tinkaboon, in the

• Illustrations of the Botany and other branches of the Natural History
of the Himalayan Mountains, and of the Flora of Cashmere.

27

province of Mazendevan, on the S.W. coast of the Caspian
Sea. This author expressly mentions himself as the third
in order of time, who had written on medicines in the Persian
language, the author of the Ikhtiarat Buddee having been
the first ; and he states having completed his work in the
year of the Hegira 770, which is the year 1392 of the
Christian era, or 468 years from the present time, that is
shortly after the close of the classic age of the School of
Bagdad. Time will not permit that I should dwell at all
on the contents of these works ; but it is important to
observe, that their several authors, in their respective Pre-
faces, give the dates at which they wrote, as well as the
sources whence they derived their information. These they
state to be their own experience, and a long list of Arabian
authors, as well as translations of several Indian ones.

Passing from the Persians, we come next in the ascend-
ing series to the Arabs. They, we know, long held sway,
and their works were considered of supreme authority in
all the medical schools of Europe, even to the exclusion of
those of the Greeks, their masters. It is needless, therefore,
to refer to the merits or demerits of Avicenna, Haly Abbas,
Rhazes, Serapion, or Mesue, as these are dwelt upon in the
several histories of medicine. The Arabs usually receive
credit for having advanced the sciences of Algebra, Astro-
nomy, given origin to Chemistry, made some additions to
Medicine, and unquestionably to our more immediate
subject of Materia Medica ; as many of the milder, and
some of the more powerful purgatives, as well as some
aromatics and stimulants, made their first appearance, as
far as we at present know, in the works of Arabian authors.

The Arabian School is generally stated to have existed
for 500 years. It is necessary, therefore, if we wish to
connect the history of the past with the present, to ascertain
by how many years the last of the Arabs preceded the first

28

of the Persian authors, and also how soon the first of the
former followed the last of the Greeks. This is the more
necessary to he done, as he who closes the line, and is
among the most celebrated in the East on the subject of
Materia Medica, is unnoticed in our histories of medicine;
probably from his works only existing in manuscript.
But he was sufficiently celebrated to have attracted the
notice of Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, as well as of my late friend, Mr. Charles Mills,
in his History of Muhammedanism, and has been one of
the authors recommended to be translated by the Oriental
Translation Committee. This is Al-Beitar, frequently called
Ibn-Beitar, who flourished in the thirteenth century, and is
described as having traversed Africa, Arabia, and India,
in prosecution of his favourite study of Plants, particularly
those yielding medicinal substances. His MSS. are preserved
in the Escurial (No. 834), and are said to contain notices of
several thousand plants, and to have afforded considerable
assistance to the learned Bochart, in his work entitled Geo-
graphia Sacra, in elucidating many of the plants, animals,
and precious stones, mentioned in the Bible. His works,
called Jama Ibn Beitar and Jama-Baghdadee, or Collection
of Ibn-Beitar and of Bagdad, are constantly quoted by
the Persian authors on Materia Medica. His death is
reported to have occurred in the year 1248, so as to have
preceded only by 120 years the publication of the first work
in the Persian language on Materia Medica.

The Arabian School being well known to have originated
in the munificent patronage of the sciences by the Caliphs
of Bagdad, it is necessary only to allude to the first trans-
lations from the Greek authors on Philosophy, Mathematics,
Astronomy, and Medicine, having been made about a.d. 745,
or just five hundred years before the death of Ibn Beitar,
during the Caliphate of Al-Mansor. These translations

seem first to have been made into Syriac, and afterwards
into the Arabian language, by Christian Physicians
of the School of Alexandria, resident at Bagdad. These
Christian Physicians were held in high estimation in the
Court of Harun-al-Rashid, in consequence of having
cured both himself of apoplexy, and an Egyptian slave of
great beauty of a dangerous illness, which had baffled the
skill of the Arabian practitioners of medicine. But it was
chiefly under the Caliphate of Harun's second son, Al-
Mamoon, that Grecian science and medicine was made
known to the Eastern World ; as he, while holding the
government of Khorassan, collected learned men together
from all countries, and formed them into a college, appoint-
ing for their president, John Mesue of Damascus. On
his father complaining that so distinguished an honour
had been conferred on a Christian, Al Mamoon replied,
" I have made choice of Mesue, not as a teacher of reli-
gion, but as an able preceptor in useful sciences and arts ;
and my father well knows, that the most learned men, and
the most skilful artists in his dominions, are Jews and
Christians." On succeeding to the Caliphate, Al-Mamoon
employed the learned men whom he had collected in making
translations of the works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy,
Hippocrates, Galen, and Dioscorides. That the Arabs
were still unable to proceed without the assistance of
Christians, is evident from the physician Honain being the
principal person employed, of whom it is related, that being
threatened with death for refusing to prepare a poison,
and being asked what prevented his compliance with the
Caliph's command, answered, " Two things, my religion
and my profession ; my religion, which commands me to do
good to my enemies, and my profession, which was insti-
tuted purely for the benefit of mankind."

From the Arabs we pass naturally to the Greeks, whom

30

they so closely followed both in time and as disciples. But
it is requisite to distinguish those of the Greek authors, as
Actuarins and Myrepsus, who wrote in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, and were therefore subsequent to the
chief of the Arabs ; to whom it would not be difficult to
prove they are largely indebted for their improved Materia
Medica and Pharmacy. From these we ascend readily to
Paulus -Egineta, who wrote at the beginning of the seventh
century, and thence to Alexander Trallianus in the sixth,
yEtius in the fifth, and from him to Oribasius, who wrote
in the fourth century. Many of these are usually despised
as being mere compilers ; but besides the actual additions
that some of them made to the science, the production of
their works before the invention of printing must have been
positively useful in more extensively diffusing the science of
their more able predecessors. But as studying Materia
Medica, and anxious to trace the history of a drug from
recent to ancient times, or vice versa, we shall not com-
plain of their compilations, except when they are imperfect,
since they but serve to connect more closely the several links
of the chain of authors, which extends from ancient to
modern times.

Glancing for an instant at the continued existence of the
Alexandrian School, from the times of Erasistratus and
Herophilus, 300 years before the Christian era, to that of
the Arabs, as accounting for the frequent appearance of
Egyptian remedies among the articles of Materia Medica:
we should next trace the Greek authors from Oribasius to
Galen in the second century, and from him to Dioscorides,
the most copious author on the Materia Medica of the
ancients. He probably lived in the first century, as he is
frequently quoted by Galen, and may therefore have been a
contemporary of Pliny ; from whom, as well as Celsus, we
obtain a knowledge of the Materia Medica and Pharmacy

31

of the Romans. Prior to Dioscorides, we have only
Theophrastus, who, having died 284 years before the
Christian era, gives us, in his works on Plants and Mine-
rals, some of the earliest accounts of two of the kingdoms
of nature, as Aristotle, who shortly preceded him, does of
the third. This age is subsequent only by a century to
that of the " Father of Medicine, 11 whose Materia Medica
can, I believe, be best ascertained, by first identifying that
of his successors.

In this long enumeration of authors, who, in conjunction
with medicine, have treated also of Materia Medica,
the chain of connexion is upon the whole so complete,
that I have found it impossible to fix upon an appropriate
place for treating of the Hindoo Materia Medica
authors ; as these, like the writers on every other subject
among this extraordinary people, are without any other
than their fabulous chronology by which we may even
approximatively ascertain the age in which they lived. We
have, however, seen that the Persian authors at present in
use in India, acknowledge having derived their information
both from Indian and Arabian sources ; and the latter we
know have copied or appropriated what they possessed in
translation from the Greeks. The Persian Materia Medica,
we shall not, therefore, be surprised at finding is one of the
most copious ; as it is one of the most valuable, for tracing
the history of the several drugs which have been in use in
the Old World, from the most ancient to the present times:
of these many still form some of the most important articles
of our Materia Medica. Having, in the course of my
investigations, referred what I found described as much as
possible to both their Greek and Arabian originals, I have
been able to form almost a complete circle of reference
from one to the other, and thus, in a great measure, to
ascertain what was original and what was copied in each.

32

Though the literature of his profession should never be
a matter of indifference to any of its members, yet, as
it was in the performance of a public duty, and not
from any blind devotion to the dictates of antiquity, or
especial love for the science of weighing words, that I
was led to these investigations, so I endeavoured to identify
the things I found named and described. The results
would fill a volume, as may be seen by the MSS. on the
table: the specimens which illustrate them are in the
Museum. I can here adduce only a few instances to
shew the nature of the information which has been, and
may still be obtained, by perseverance in such inquiries.

The more common and well-known products of the East,
noticed in ancient authors, it is unnecessary to mention ;
but there are others, which are equally described as the
produce of India, but which have remained in uncertainty,
or entirely undetermined. Of these, the Lycium indicum
(kukiov h&Kov, Diosc.) may be given as an instance : this I
found to be the extract, called rusot, of species of Berberis
(B. Lycium, nob. and others), in use in India at the present
day, as in ancient times ; to this the name lufyon Ctr^JV
is applied as the Greek term ; which differs from Ivkyon
\\J^$) or Tiuxiov only by a diacritical point. To Cassia
Absus the name akakalis (axaxxM;, Diosc. 1. c. 119) is
applied : and the seed of Ccesalpinia Bonduc is given
as one of the kinds of Eagle Stone or iEtites of the Ancients.
Lupin Seeds may be obtained in the bazars of India in the
present day under the name of toormus, evidently a corrup-
tion of ^Eflubf. The leaves of Cinnanwmurn albifloritm and
Tammala, which are analogous to the Bay-leaf of Europe,
have malatroon assigned as "a. Greek name ; apparently a
corruption of Malabathrum. The Hemp {Cannabis sativa)
though probably originally an Asiatic plant, has kinnabus,
as well as dephrunus, assigned as its Greek, and kinnub

33

as its Arabic names. In the latter language it has, in
addition, , a variety of other names derived from its intoxi-
cating properties, as " increaser of pleasure," — " cementer
of friendship,'" — "exciter of desire, 1 ' — " leaf of delusion,"&c.
Hence it has by some been thought to be the so-much-
disputed Nepenthes of Homer. The Acorus Calamus
(aKopog, Diosc.) sometimes called the only aromatic of Euro-
pean countries, is equally common in many parts of India,
and has in Persian works akoron given as its Greek appel-
lation.

As Dioscorides has three kinds of Nard, the Celtic,
Mountain, and that which is simply called vaptio;, including
the two varieties of Syrian and Indian ; so, in Persian
works derived from the Arabic, we have Sunbul or Narden
ukletee; Sunbul jibullee (i.e. mountain); and Sunbul-
hlndee or Indian Nard. For this the synonymes given
are, Greek, Narden; Latin, Nardum; Arabic, Sunbul-
al-teeb, or fragrant Nard ; and, Hindee, Balchur and
Jatamasee. The latter is the Sanscrit, and the former
the common Hindoostanee name ; but under both names
I obtained the hairy spike-like roots of Nardostachys
Jatamansi. With this has often been confounded another
far-famed aromatic of Eastern climes, that is, the true
Calamus aromaticus, HaXapo; apupaTtHOf of Dioscorides,
said by him to grow in India. This he describes imme-
diately after crxwo;, which is translated Odoratus juncus,
a produce of Africa and Arabia, and generally acknow-
ledged by botanists to be Andropogon Schcenanthus, or
Lemon-grass, a native both of Arabia and India, perhaps of
Africa. The Calamus aromaticus immediately following
this, stated to be also a native of India, and among other uses
being mixed with ointments on account of its odour ; appears
to me to have been a plant allied to the former. Mentzel
(Ind. Nom. Plant. Multilinguis) gives H»hanoi exoivof as

F

34

one of its synonymes. It is thought also to be " the sweet
cane," and " the rich aromatic reed from a far country," of
Scripture; where it is spoken of as costly, and as applied to
sacred uses. There is no plant which more closely coincides
with every thing that is required; that is, correspondence
in description; analogy to S^ivo;; the possession of remark-
able fragrance and stimulant properties ; being costly and
the produce of a far country; than the plant which yields
the fragrant grass-oil of Namur (Cal. Med. Trans, vol. 1.
p. 367). This oil has been already described by Mr.
Hatchett, (On the Spikenard of the Ancients), who refers
it to Andropogon Iwaranciisa. It is derived, however,
as appears by specimens in my possession, from a different
plant; to which, believing it to be a new species, I have
given the name of Andropogon Calamus Aromaticus.

It has frequently excited surprise, that the Arabs, so
long a nation of warriors, and warriors hostile to lite,
rature, should so rapidly have become both the patrons
and cultivators of science. Study of the originals, how-
ever, soon revealed that the light with which they so
long shone, was borrowed from a Western source. But
it was to be expected, that any people of the East
would display some scintillations of genius, even though
lighting; their torches at the declining sun of Grecian
science, as they had lent some of the earliest rays to assist
its early rising. And accordingly we find that the Arabs
have received credit for advancing several of the sciences,
as well as that which is to be the object of our studies.

Knowing, as we now do, the laws which regulate the
Geographical distribution of plants, and how much some
families are confined to particular latitudes and climates;
we cannot but observe, in examining the accessions made to
Materia Medica by the Arabs of Bagdad, that many of the
separate substances now known to be the produce of

35

India, or theTropical Islands, are those for which Araby the
Happy so long received the credit, as well as the affix to its
name. These tropical productions could therefore he known
to northern nations by the means of commerce only, or by
the medium of travellers to or from those distant regions.

Since it was not the custom in those days, as now, to
explore unknown or uninhabited countries, for the purpose
of investigating their products, their becoming articles of
commerce, or the subjects of communication to distant
countries, presupposes an investigation of their properties
by a resident people, willing and able to originate such
inquiries. That India was peopled at a very early period,
we have the concurring testimony of every ancient history :
that its inhabitants were refined and intellectual, we have
proofs in the sublimity of some of their early hymns,
the truth and beauty of much of their poetry, the subtlety
of their philosophers, and their advances in. science; all
evincing the conjunction of powers of observation with
those of generalisation. We cannot, therefore, suppose
that among so observant a people, medicine was unstudied,
or the means of alleviating disease undiscovered. Accor-
dingly, we find that these subjects were far from being
neglected, and that works were written, which are still
in existence, on such subjects; though it is difficult,
if not impossible, to assign the age at which they were
composed. From the statement of Professor Wilson, to
which I shall immediately have occasion more particularly
to refer, we learn that, the work ascribed to Charak is
the most ancient, but the Siisruta, which ranks the
second in antiquity, is decidedly the first in merit.

That the Arabs were familiar with many of the products
of India, is sufficiently well known, but that they were ever
acquainted with any of its authors on medicine, I have never
seen stated ; though I hope to be able to prove the fact. I

will not, for this purpose, select their descriptions of either
the Cocoa or Betel-nut; Mace, Nutmeg, Tamarind,
Cloves, or Cinnamon ; Agallochum, that is Agila or Eagle-
and Sandal-woods ; Ginger, Cardamoms, or the different
kinds of Pepper : nor even such medicinal articles as Seme-
carpus Anacardium; Ipomcea ccerulea, called granum
indicum ; or dund, the Croton Tiglium ; nor what would of
itself be sufficient to prove that the Arabs had some other
means than commerce, of acquiring a knowledge of Indian
Materia Medica, though one of those which first roused my
own attention to the subject : I mean the Deodar, Pinus
Deodara, considered a discovery of modern times, but
which is described by Avicenna under its Sanscrit name :
where he says that deiudar, "est ex genere abhel (juniperus),
que dicitur pinus Inda ; et syr diudar est ejus lac," that
is, turpentine. As this tree grows at considerable eleva-
tions in the interior of the Himalaya, it could only have
been known to the Arabs through Hindoos, or their works.
Instead of these I take the instance which has already
been adduced by Dr. Friend, to prove that the later Greek
authors, as Actuarius and Myrepsus, had access to some of
the Arab works ; namely, the different kinds of Myro-
balans, of which Dr. F. observes : " What Actuarius says
of the composition of all these sorts, which is called Tryphala,
or rather Tryphera parva, is exactly the same we meet with
in Serapion and Mesue (whom he calls the barbarous wise
men), and is recommended by them in the very same
cases.'" (History of Medicine, 1. p. 273.) It is remarkable
that not only are all the constituents of this preparation
products of India, but the name of the compound itself is
Sanscrit, and Sanscrit not only in use in ancient, but also
in present times. Thus the three kinds of Myrobalans
alluded to, the black, yellow, and Chebulic, are the produce
of Terminalia Chebula; while the fourth, or Behera, is that

37

of T. Bellerica, all belonging to the tropical family of
Combretacece. The fifth, or Ernblic Myrobalans, is the
fruit of Phyllanthus Emblica, now Emblica officinalis,
which is equally Indian. That the name Triphala is in
use in India at present, may be seen in Shakespeare's
Hindoostanee Dictionary, where the word tirphala is
marked as Sanscrit, and explained as the name of a medicine,
composed of the three Myrobalans. That it was similarly
used in former times, may be seen in the Amera-Cosha, a
Sanscrit Dictionary, considered as having been composed
at the beginning of the Christian era ; and also in
Professor Wilson's paper on Leprosy, as known to the
Hindoos, in the first volume of the Transactions of the
Medical Society of Calcutta, p. 38, where a prescription is
given from Susruta, of which Triphala forms one of the
ingredients, and is translated as the Three Myrobalans.

This evidence might almost be considered sufficient to
prove my point : but on referring to a translation of one
of the earliest of the Arab authors, that is, Serapion, I
find, under the head De Mirobalanis, the earliest of the
Hindoo physicians,* Charak, actually referred to by name.
But as there is no che in Arabic, we have a slight change
in the name, (in the same way as the Sanscrit mocha was
converted by the Arabs into mox, whence our Musa sapi-
entum, or mocha of the Brachmans), as " Et Xarch indus
dixit in mirobalanis universalit'er mirobalani sunt calidi et
stiptici, et expellunt stercora ventris, et corroborant sensus
omnes, et memoriarn, et sensum, et confer unt lepre; et colice,
et emoroidibus antiquis, et soda et ydropisi ; et inducunt
nauseam et vomitum i" and, again, under the head De
emblicis et belliricis, that these, according to " Xarcha
indus calefaciunt et sunt domini medicinarum." In Avi-
cenna, sub emblico, we have a similar reference, but the
name differently written, as " apud Scirak indum? So, in

38

Rhazes, who was prior to Avicenna, wc have in the
article De Emblico, " Inquit Scarac indianus ,-" and in
that De Zingibere, " Dixit Sarac" But in the article
De Allio, another Indian author is quoted, whom I have
not been able yet to trace out — " Ait Sindifar (in another
place written " Dixit Sindichar' 1 '') indianus valet contra
ventositatem."

The Arabs were not, however, always satisfied with merely
referring to the opinions of these Indian authors, but as
they frequently copied from the Greeks, so have they
sometimes condescended to borrow from the Hindoos. To
illustrate this, I select a subject from the animal kingdom,
but still confining myself to the class of remedies. Professor
Wilson, in his notice respecting the medical and surgical
sciences of the Hindoos, published in the Oriental Maga-
zine, to be immediately more particularly referred to, says,
" Much pains, and perhaps to but little good purpose, were
bestowed upon the subject of leeches. It is said that there
are twelve sorts, of which six are venomous ; they are thus
enumerated : — The six poisonous leeches are, the krishna, or
black and two-headed ; the karbura, the large-bellied leech,
with a scaly hide ; the alagarda, the hairy leech ; the
indmyz/dha, which is variegated like a rainbow, whence its
name ; the samudrika, which is striped yellow and black ;
and the gobandana. The bites of these produce excessive
irritation, great itching, heat, and pain, spasms, sickness and
syncope; and that of the indrayudha, even death." On
referring to the chapter of Avicenna, " De Sanguisugis,"
and considering the double translation that the original has
undergone, the coincidence is remarkable ; for Avicenna
says, " Indi diooerunt quod in quarundam sanguisugarum
natura existit venenositas : ab eis igitur cavendum est, qua;
sunt ex genere magna habendum capita, et quarum colores
sunt antimoniales et nigrae : aut quarum color est viridis :

39

aut quae sunt lanuginem habentes et similes (marmaheigi)
et super quas existunt fila coloris lazuli : et quarum color
similatur (almebacalbum). This is translated " iridi 1 '' in
the margin, where Rhazes is referred to; " quasi omnia
excepta sunt" : he therefore must also have been acquainted,
as indeed we have already seen was the case, with the
Hindoo authors on Medicine.

Though not unwilling, because I believe it leads to truth,
to pluck a few more plumes from those who heated their
baths with the library of Alexandria, and littered their
horses with leaves from the books of Bokhara, I feel I
must not wander into other subjects, though I may touch
upon one which is connected with our own. Having
proved that the Arabs had access to some parts of these
two Hindoo works, we are entitled to conclude that they
had so to all, and to infer that as in the cases we have
cited, so would they be likely to be indebted for any other
new information which these contained. But this will deprive
them of the honour of originating a branch of science which
has always been allowed them, though I do not know that
they have ever claimed it themselves ; indeed, Geber, their
earliest Chemist, expressly states, that he acquired his
science from ancient sages.* That the Hindoos were among
these, I think we may safely conclude, as ProfessorWilson
informs us, that the seventh division of the Ayur Veda
(a work from which the above quotations were taken), is
" Rasayana, or Chemistry, or, more correctly, Alchemy; as
the chief end of the chemical combinations it describes,
and which are mostly metallurgic, is the discovery of the
universal medicine — the elixir that was to render health
permanent, and life perpetual." But as no Hindoo work

* Totam nostram metallovum transrautantlorum scientram, quam ex
libris antiquorum philosophorum abbreviamus, compilatione diversa, in
nostris voluminibus, hie in unam summa redigimus. — Geber Alch. cap. 1.

40

on this subject has yet been translated, I am unable at
present to prove directly, how much he was indebted to
Hindoo authorities. Of these, the subject is the same, and
treated of in .the works which, as we have seen, were
known to Arab authors ; the style, also, as I am informed
by Professor Wilson, is exactly the same, and enigmatical,
like that of the old alchemists; thus similar to the well-
known passage of " Bring me the six lepers that I may
cleanse them ;" there occurs in these ancient works of the
Hindoos, " Bring me the cow that I may take off its skin. 1 '
From other sources, however, we know, that the Hindoos
have long been acquainted with many chemical substances,
as well as that they have practised many chemical arts.
Looking to the different substances which were known to
the Arabs, and some of which they are supposed first to
have made known, and taking chiefly as our guide, Dr.
Thomson's History of Chemistry, and the chapter entitled
Chemistry of the Arabians, we shall find reason, I think,
to conclude, that many of these substances must have been
previously well known to the Hindoos : as common and
rock salt ; the former evaporated, as now, from sea-water,
in the Bay of Bengal ; the latter abundant in the salt
rocks of the Punjab. Borax was probably obtained in
former times, as at the present day from Tibet. Saltpetre
must long before the time of the Arabs have been washed
out of the soil, as it is in the present day, and was
required for making the fire-works, for which the Indians
have long been famous. Sulphate of Soda (Jc,haree muttee),
they are in the present day well acquainted with, and
obtain by similar means. Alum is made in Cutch, from
an alum earth ; it is in constant use by the Hindoos in
a variety of arts as well as in medicine ; and its Sanscrit
name, Phitkara, begins with a letter which is wanting in
the Arabic alphabet. Sal Ammoniac must have been

41

familiar to the Hindoos, ever since they have burnt bricks,
as they now do, with the manure of animals ; as some
may usually be found crystallized at the unburnt extre-
mity of the kiln. The Egyptians obtained it from the
soot of the same kind of fuel : the Sanscrit name Nuosadur
is that, moreover, under which it is described by Arabian
authors. Lime they have long known how to obtain,
by burning not only limestone, but also shells and corals.
Charcoal and Sulphur they were early acquainted with :
the former they obtain from a variety of plants, and value
that of each, according to the purposes for which it is
required. Hence the Hindoos must have had the chief
means for preparing many chemical products.

The alkalies even must have been known to the Hindoos:
as salts from the ashes of several vegetables, and caustics
made from them, are mentioned in the works to which the
Arabs had access. The ashes of Musa sapientum and of
Butea frondosa, most frequently mentioned for medicinal
purposes, must have afforded them a carbonate of Potash ;
while the incineration of the Salsolas and Salicornias on the
coasts of the Peninsula, and the shores of the salt lakes of
North-western India, must in former, as in the present days,
have afforded them a Carbonate of Soda; which is also
found effloresced on the soil in some parts of their country.

The Sanscrit name of this substance being sajika, and
the common Hindee ones sajji rnuttee and sajji loon, that
is, sajji-earth and sajji-salt, it is remarkable that it should
be described in Geber by the name of sagimen vitri. The
latter evidently refers to its use in glass-making, an art long
known to the Hindoos ; and sagimen is a corrupted form
of sajjiloon or sajjinoon; salt of sajji, which may be the
original of soza and soda, as k,har and k,hari may be of
kali. Geber having been acquainted with the method
of rendering these carbonates caustic by means of quick-

G

lime; it is more than probable that the Hindoos were not
ignorant of the process, as directions are given in their
writings for obviating the effects, when too powerful, of the
caustics made from these salts. From Dr. Ainslie, we learn
that a formula is contained in their works (of the date of
which I am ignorant) for making ammonia, which the
Tamools call navachara acranum, and the Dukhunees
AiSj-j soongneh, evidently derived from soongna, to smell.
Dr. Ainslie informs us, that it is prescribed only as a local
stimulant to the nose, in languors, fainting fits, and
hysterics.*

The acids, also, which Geber has noticed, are found in
Hindoo works, though I am unacquainted with the dates
when these were written; but the differences in the processes
indicate independence of investigation, if not of origin.
Vinegar was known in very ancient times; but Sulphuric
acid, which Geber obtained by distilling alum with a strong
heat ; the Tamool Vytians (physicians) prepare by burning
sulphur with a small portion of nitre, in strong earthen
vessels, and call Gunduk ha alter, essence of sulphur.
Nitric acid, which Geber called dissolving water, and made
by putting into an alembic lbj of sulphate of iron of
Cyprus, ^lb. of saltpetre, and £lb. of alum of Jumani
(Yemeni ?), the Hindoos prepare by mixing together salt-
petre, alum, and a portion of the liquor wrung out of cloths,
spread over plants of Cicer arietinum (the chick pea or
common gram of India). When the cloths become moistened
by the deposition of dew, they more readily absorb the
acid (or acidulous salt), which the plants secrete so abun-
dantly on the surface of their leaves and shoots, and which

* The process adopted by the Hindoos, as given by Dr. Ainslie (Mat.
Med. of India, I. p. 367) for making ammonia, is the following : — Take of
navacharum (sal ammoniac) one pollum, simie chunamboo (chalk) two
pollums ; dry the two ingredients carefully, then mix them and sublime
with a strong heat.

43

was ascertained by Vauquelin to consist of oxalic and acetic
acids : the former may be useful in decomposing the nitrate
of lime which is so frequently mixed with nitrate of
potass. Nitro-muriatic acid, which the Arabs made by
acting on sal ammoniac with nitric acid, and which
they employed in dissolving gold, and called aqua regia,
I have seen no notice of in the portions translated from
Hindoo works ; but this is probably contained in the
chapter of Susruta, describing the metallurgic arts
for making the elixir of life. But Muriatic acid, which
Dr. Thomson does not mention as included in Geber's work,
the Hindoos make by mixing together common salt and
alum, previously well dried and pounded ; they then add
some of the above-mentioned acid liquor of the Cicer
arietinum, and distil until the whole of the muriatic acid is
disengaged and condensed in the receiver.

The metals, or at least those known to all the civilized
nations of antiquity, were also known to the Hindoos, as
well as to the Arabs, and gold, silver, copper, iron, lead,
tin, and mercury, are mentioned in the Amera Cosha.
But in strictly medical works, we have also notices of
antimony and of arsenic, with indications of their know-
ledge of the ores of zinc. Indeed, one Sanscrit work
is mentioned, Rasarutna Samoochayem, which treats of
the medicines prepared with quicksilver, arsenic, and nine
other metals (Ainsl. Mat. Med. II. p. 494) ; and though
we have no notice of their dissolving these in the acids
with which they were acquainted, this may, perhaps, be
owing to those parts of their works not having yet been
translated. But the oxides of several metals, as of
copper, iron, lead, tin, and zinc, they were well acquainted
with, and used medicinally : of lead, we find mention
of both the red oxide and of litharge. With the sulphurets
of iron, copper, antimony, mercury, and arsenic, both

realgar and orpiment, they have long been familiar. Among
the salts of the metals, we find the sulphates of copper, of
zinc, and of iron, and of the latter, the red distinguished
from the green : the diacetate of copper, and the carbonates
of lead and of iron, are not only mentioned in their works,
but used medicinally. If we had time, we might shew
that some of the names by which these articles are indicated
are of Hindoo origin ; as Tutia, which occurs in Geber, but
is not explained by Dr. Thomson; and Misy, which is
mentioned by both Greek and Arabian authors.

That the substances indicated in these ancient works,
were actually such as what we now understand by the
English names we have assigned, is proved, as well by
the names under which we can, and I have procured
them in the bazars of India, as by the processes which
are given for making them. So that it was not merely
because some were found within the limits of their terri-
tory, that the Hindoos became acquainted with these
substances ; which, though a strong argument to show that
they must have been acquainted with a substance, before it
could have been exported to foreign countries; yet
would have proved little towards their originating, or
at least cultivating, chemistry prior to the Arabs, if we had
not had some chemical processes to which we could confi-
dently point. Thus, as in the case of the acids and
alkalies, we here see the formation of oxides, in the
directions for making the oxide of zinc; of a sulphuret,
in those of mercury or factitious cinnabar; and still more
interesting are the processes for making a kind of calomel,
as well as of corrosive sublimate. In these a sulphuret is
first formed by mixing quicksilver with fused sulphur;
a layer of the black powder, which is thus obtained, is
then placed over another of common salt, in a vessel half
filled with small bricks ; over this another vessel is directed

45

to be luted. These are to be then placed over a strong fire
for twelve hours; when cool, the muriates will be found in
the uppermost. (Ahmlie and Fleming.)

As the above substances are all noticed and described in
medical works, we may conclude that they were so only for
medical purposes. Though the ancient Greeks and Romans
used many metallic substances as external applications,
it is generally supposed that the Arabs were the first
to prescribe them internally. Le Clerc, indeed, says, that
the first physicians in Europe, who used mercury, lived in
the fifteenth century, and were induced to do so from
reading the works of Mesue. But in the works of Charak
and Susruta, to which, as has been proved, the earliest of
the Arabs had access, we find numerous metallic substances
directed to be given internally; as oxide of iron, with
ginger and cinnamon as a tonic; the rust in cachexy, and
the sulphate in dropsy. Arsenic they prescribed not only
in leprosy, and probably other cutaneous affections, but
the oxide (arsenious acid) has long been with them a
favourite and most efficacious remedy, in conjunction with
pepper and aromatics, for the cure of intermittent fevers.
Mercury appears to have been externally employed in
the time of Pliny, as in his work occurs the remarkable
passage (lib. xxxiii. cap. 8): " Omnia quas de minio in
medicinae usu traduntur, temeraria arbitror : praeterquam
fortassis illito capite ventreve sanguinem sistendum, dum
ne quid penetret in viscera, ac vulnus attingat : aliter
utendum non equidem censeam. 11 But the Hindoos have
from very early times been in the habit of prescribing the
sulphuret in the form of fumigation; and the prepara-
tions which we consider equivalent to calomel and to
corrosive sublimate, in the form of pills combined with
sugar, pepper, and aromatics ; in a great variety of affec-
tions and to the extent of exciting salivation.

46

From the positive directions respecting the formation of
these several substances, we see that the Hindoos must
have been acquainted with several chemical processes, as
solution and evaporation, calcination and sublimation.
Distillation they have for ages practised. Mr. Hatchett,
referring to Mr. Kier's paper on the method of distillation,
as employed by the natives of Chatra, in Ramgur, and
which is exactly the same as practised all over India;
has already observed, that the antiquity and generality
of the practice, and the rude simplicity of the contrivance,
stamp the originality of the invention, and tend to confirm
the claim of the people of India to the discovery of the
art of distillation. Simple as is their apparatus, they distil
with it two of the most fragrant of essences, the atur of
roses, and the oil of sweet calamus, or fragrant grass-oil
of Namur. That the Hindoos also practise distillatio
per descensum, may be seen in their mode of preparing
the empyreumatic oil, called oleum nigrum, from the
seeds of Celastrus nutans (malkungnee), described in
Mr. Malcolmson's able Prize Essay on the History and
Treatment of Beriberi; which he and others found the
most efficacious remedy in that intractable complaint.

Independent, however, of notices in their medical
works, of the knowledge which the Hindoos possessed of
many chemical processes ; we might have inferred that
they must have been acquainted with some, at least ;
from the high antiquity among them of many chemical arts,
such as bleaching, dyeing, calico-printing, tanning, soap,
and glass-making. The invention of gunpowder and of
fireworks has often been assigned them. Working in
metals they have long been famous for : their steel acquired
so great celebrity at an early period, as to have passed
into a proverb among the Persians, where fouladee hind
indicates steel of the best quality; and juwabee hind,

47

an Indian answer, means a cut with a sword made of
Indian steel. Their works in copper and brass early
attained perfection, and many of their nicer manufactures
in gold and silver still continue to be admired for delicacy
and beauty. This may, perhaps, be ascribed to that fineness
of touch, which enabled them, in remote antiquity, to
weave cottons and muslins of such unrivalled delicacy of
texture, as to be sought for to clothe the kings and priests
of Egypt, as well as those of the Holy Land.

Being satisfied of the existence of these Sanscrit medical
works, at a period antecedent to the Arabs, it would no
doubt be interesting: to know something; more of their
contents. But no complete work, and few passages, have
yet been translated into any European language. Owing,
however, to the exertions of a gentleman, with whom I am
proud to have been associated in the same service, who
was long President of the Medical Society of Calcutta,
and is now Professor of Sanscrit in the University of
Oxford, — I need hardly add the name of Horace Hayman
Wilson, — we are able to get a glimpse of the contents of
the works of Charak and of Susruta. (v. Calc. Orient.
Magaz. 1823 ; and On Leprosy, as known to the Hindoos,
Calc. Med. Trans, vol. i.) The antiquity of the Sanscrit
language is now well known, and Oriental scholars have
shown its " affinity with many ancient and modern languages
of Europe and Western Asia, as the Zend, the Greek and
Latin, the Sclavonic, and Germanic languages. 11 Of the
estimation in which these medical works were held in other
than the northern provinces of India, we have the proofs
in the care and frequency with which they were trans-
lated into the languages of those parts, as Tamul on one
hand, and the Tibetan on the other. The former is
described as " entirely distinct, and occupying nearly as
conspicuous a rank among the languages of the Peninsula,

48

as the Sanscrit does among those of the northern provinces,
as from it have been derived the Teloogoo, Malayalan,
and Canarese languages." This it is necessary to know,
in order to appreciate the value of the few translations
which we possess of Medical works from the Tamul; as the
first section of the Kalpastanum, which is a kind of com-
pendium of the general rules of Pharmacy; and an abstract
of another Indian Treatise of Medicine, published by Dr.
Heyne, in his Tracts on India, p. 125-171, where he states
that " most Hindoo works of any note have been originally
written in Sanscrit, from which they have been translated
into the modern dialects, as Tamul, Telinga," &c. A few
passages have also been published by Dr. Ainslie, in his
Materia Medica of India, from the works of the Megha
Reesha, or Saint Aghastier or Agastya, who is usually
considered as the representative of the introduction of
Sanscrit Literature into the Peninsula of India, and who
must be of considerable antiquity, as " he is named in the
Iiamayana, the oldest work most probably in the profane
literature of the Hindoos" (Wilson). In addition to these,
we have lately had published in English (Journ. Asiat. Soc.
of Calcutta, iv. p. 1), by the celebrated Hungarian traveller,
Csoma de Koros, a Synopsis of a Tibetan work on
Medicine, of which the contents, he informs us, like that
of the whole of Tibetan literature, has been derived
from Sanscrit in the eighth century.

From such sources, I find that the Hindoos, like ancient,
as well as modern practitioners every where except in large
towns, practised all branches of the profession. In their
works, therefore, we find notices in all departments of
medicine ; instances of which I have not time to adduce;
but it may be sufficient to mention that, with much
fanciful Anatomy, imaginative Physiology, and absurd
attention to numbers, there are accounts of Poisons and

49

thcirAntidotes ; mention of the Diseases of Women and
Children; with valuable notices relating to Surgery, Medi-
cine, Materia Medica, and Pharmacy.

It will no doubt excite surprise, to find among the great
operations of these ancient surgeons, those of Lithotomy
and the extraction of the Foetus ex utero ; and that no
less than 127 surgical instruments are described in their
works. But I think the Professor of Surgery will agree
with them when they declare, that " the first, best, and
most important of all implements, is the hand," and
cannot but be pleased to have his branch of the profession
described, as " the first and best of the medical sciences,
less liable than any other to the fallacies of conjectural and
inferential practices, pure in itself, perpetual in its appli-
cability, the worthy produce of Heaven, and certain source
of fame. 1 '

With respect to Medicine, there are descriptions of the
number, the origin and seat of diseases, with their symptoms,
diagnosis and prognosis ; accompanied, of course, with
copious instructions respecting diet and treatment. Distinc-
tions are drawn between a theoretical and practical, and
observations made, as well on the character as on the
duties of a Physician. Passages on the latter subjects
having been translated, (one of which I owe to the kindness
of Professor Wilson,) it will be seen, from his verbatim
translation, that these early Hindoos had no contemptible
ideas on the subject: —

" Having completed the indispensable course of study,
practice is then to be as indispensably acquired ; for he, who
is versed in both, deserves to be honoured as the chief of
physicians. As it is said (verse), he who is acquainted with
the science of medicine only from studying the books which
treat of it, and is not well grounded in the practice also, is
bewildered when called upon to attend the sick, like a

H

50

coward in the clay of battle. He who engages in practice,
presumptuously disregarding written science, is held in no
estimation by the virtuous, and merits death from the King.
Both these descriptions of persons are unskilful, incom-
petent in their profession, possessed of only one branch of
the necessary qualifications, like birds with but one wing.
The medicaments, which contain within them the properties
of ambrosia, are as sharp weapons, the deadly thunderbolt,
or fatal poisons when administered by the ignorant ; — let
no such man be trusted. He, who, imperfectly master of
his profession, treats maladies which require either medi-
cines or the knife, murders his patients — the vile practi-
tioner ! through his own cupidity, and the fault of the
ruling authority. But he, who is conversant with both
theory and practice, is competent to attain the object of
his professional career, borne onwards like a war-chariot on
two wheels through the ranks of the enemy."

With respect to Diagnosis, we are told that " the phy-
sician should attend chiefly to the following objects. 1.
The heat of the body, which he must ascertain by feeling
it with his hands. 2. Its colour : whether pale, yellowish,
blackish, &c. 3. The speech : whether weak or loud.
4. The eyes. 5. The colour of the fasces : whether black,
green, or yellow. 6. The urine and its colour. 7. The
tongue. If all these are attentively examined by an expe-
rienced physician, they will soon point out the nature of
the disease." — (Heyne's Tracts, p. 149.)

The Prognosis, whether favourable or unfavourable, is
to be formed by attention to the following symptoms : —
" Life," we are told, (p. 164) " is not in danger, when the
following favourable symptoms occur: — When the patient
takes medicines without aversion ; when his voice remains
unaltered ; when during his well days his pulse is clear and
perceptible ; when he keeps himself cleanly while asleep ;

51

when the hands and feet do not hang inertly from him ;
when the respiration is free and he does not expectorate
too much phlegm ; when he prostrates himself and adores
his God in the morning, noon, and evening ; when his
taste is natural, and especially when he can distinguish
between sour, bitter, and sweet. Under these favourable
circumstances, we have no reason to be apprehensive of life,
even if the patient should be very weak.

" Attention to the stars may likewise give us considerable
information respecting the fate of our patient.

" The symptoms of death are as follows : — 1. Want of
sleep. 2. A constant murmuring, or unintelligible endea-
vours to speak. 3. Want of memory 4. Deep groaning
breath. 5. Staring immoveable eyes. 6. Proneness to eat
and to drink many improper things. 7. Disquietude. 8.
Spasmodic contraction of the hands, feet, and extremities.
9- Failure of the sight. 10. An unsteady pulse, that turns
to the right or left when the finger is put upon it. 11. An
intermittent pulse. 12. When the body becomes cold, and
the eyes stare round. 13. Dryness of the breast. 14. The
protuberance of the veins, especially of that in the breast.
15. When the sides of the tongue, of the eyes, and of the
joints become pale. 16. The swelling of the scrotum.
17. Burned, dry excrements. 18. Swelling of the feet and
abdomen, especially of the navel. 19. Total costiveness.
20. Total want of appetite to eat or drink. 21. Constant
coughing and yawning. 22. Extraordinary degree of thirst.
23. The sinking in of the eyes."

Their opinions respecting the character of a physician, were
given many years ago in Sir W. Ainslie's Materia Medica
of India, where, we are told, " He must be a person
of strict veracity, and of the greatest sobriety and decorum ;
he ought to be thoroughly skilled in all the commentaries
on the Ayurveda, and be otherwise a man of sense and

52

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.

" When a sick person expresses himself peevishly or
hastily, a good physician is not thereby provoked to impa-
tience ; he is mild, yet courageous ; and cherishes a cheerful
hope of being able to save his patient's life : he is frank,
communicative, impartial, and liberal ; yet ever rigid in
exacting an adherence to whatever regimen or rules he may
think it necessary to enjoin.

" Should death come upon us, under the care of a person
of this description, it can only be considered as inevitable
fate, and not the consequence of presumptuous ignorance. 1 '

That the native practitioners have in some measure
benefited by these instructions, we have the satisfaction to
learn from a native authority in the Asiatic Researches.
If the picture be a true one, I fear they would throw some
of their European brethren into the shade ; as it is stated,
" that all the tracts on medicine must indeed be studied by
the Vydyas (doctors), and they have often more learning,
and far less pride than any of the Brahmins. They are
usually poets, grammarians, rhetoricians, and moralists ;
and may, in fact, be esteemed the most virtuous and amiable
of the Hindoos."

T regret that I have no such favourable passages to
adduce in favour of the study of Materia Medica : but as
the physician is unable to effect much good without the
means it affords him ; we have what is equally valuable, a
long list of useful medicines, of which many continue to be
employed in modern as in very ancient times. As we might
expect from the mild habits, simple diet, and unexcitable
constitutions of the Hindoos, with attention to regimen,

53

there is a long list of what are translated assuaging and
depuratory medicines. Rut as we should likewise expect
from the observers of nature, in a country where the
accession of disease is as sudden as is the rapid accumu-
lation of fearfully fatal symptoms ; which are to be arrested
only by promptness of decision, and vigour of practice ;
so for such cases the Hindoo sages have observed the
efficacy of blood-letting, cupping and leeches, with drastic
and mild purgatives, emetics, diaphoretics, baths, and
aspersions of water. Some of the acrid poisons even, were
used at this early period, with, as we have seen, arsenic
and mercurial preparations, as well as stimulants, sedatives,
and narcotics. With respect to their prescriptions and
works, Professor Wilson makes the valuable remark, that
in proportion as the work is more modern, the com-
pounds become more extravagant, and assume a more
important place in the practice. But India, gentlemen, is
not the only country where the simplicity and clearness of
observers has been displaced by the obscurity and mysti-
fication of compilers.

The arrangement of Materia Medica, in the Susruta,*
is one which I do not recollect to have elsewhere seen, but
one portion of which plainly betrays its origin. All
medicines are divided into locomotive and non-locomotive :
— among the former are included all animals, whether
viviparous, oviparous, or produced in moist places. On
the banks of the Ganges, as on those of the Nile, we see
the phenomena resulting from moisture and heat in the
swarming of animal forms, gave rise to the doctrines of

* My attention was lately more particularly called to the Materia Medica
of Susruta by Dr. de Glenn, from St. Petersburgh, who did me the favour
of a visit to inquire into the state of medicine in India ; as he had, with
the assistance of Dr. Rosen, obtained some insight into the contents of
that Sanscrit author.

54

equivocal generation. Among the non-locomotive medicines,
plants are placed, and are followed by mineral medicines ;
among which, gold, silver, arsenic, mercury, diamonds,
pearls, and earths, are enumerated. Heat and cold, light
and darkness, the increase and decrease of the moon's age,
are mentioned as means to be employed in the cure of
diseases. Thus we see sol-lunar influence very early
attracted the attention of physicians in tropical countries.
In the Kalpastanum also, we are told, that " as patients
are apt to grow worse in the night, double doses of medi-
cine should be given them in the evening. These nightly
exacerbations are owing to the influence of the moon, and
especially of its beams, which produce injurious effects even
on healthy persons."

In the last-mentioned work, medicinal drugs and plants
are arranged under the following heads : Tuberous and
Bulbous Roots ; Roots ; Bark of Roots ; Bark of large
Trees ; Trees possessing a peculiar smell ; Leaves ;
Flowers ; Fruits ; Seeds ; Acrid and Astringent Vege-
tables ; Milky Plants ; Gums and Resins. This work is
also extremely interesting, as giving probably the earliest
notices respecting Botanical Geography ; the sites and
climates where different kinds of plants grow ; the soils
and seasons whence, and when medicinal plants should be
collected ; modes of keeping medicines and their prepara-
tion ; time during which they remain good ; with the
weights and measures to be used. Among the rules of
Pharmacy, we have directions for making Rasaha, or the
expressed juice of fresh vegetables ; Kalkaha, the powder
of well-dried plants ; Sitaha, cold infusions ; Srutaha,
Kashaim and Pandaha, decoctions. Ingredients that are
added to the decoction after the boiling is over, as syrup,
honey, pippaly, salts, &c. are called Brativapam by the
Sastrums. Decoctions made with oil are called Tailam.

55

Some authors, it is said, prescribe decoctions made of meat.
The Leham or electuary, is composed of a strong decoction
of dry powdered ingredients, and some oil, or ghee (clarified
butter), and sugar or honey. Dr. Heyne also gives, from
the Treatise on Medicine, the directions for making
" Flowers of Zinc, 1 ' also of their " Iron Cendurams,"
which are " so many modes of preparing martial ethiops,'"
informing us that they " consider the colour of medicines
prepared from metals, as the greatest criterion of their
excellence. 11 There are also several preparations of copper,
which the Hindoos have long used both internally and
externally. In the midst of the good sense displayed in
many of their practical instructions, we may in these
days smile at the ceremonies with which these are directed
to be accompanied. Thus it is explained, " that by
the prayers and reading of the Veda by the Bramins,
Brahma and Vishnu will be pleased ; by the light we
conciliate the favour of Bhagavatadu, or the supreme
being; by the heaps of the different kinds of grain we
please the nine heavenly bodies ; by the painted ground
in particular we gratify the sun ; by the painted goblet,
Aswary, the god of physic ; and by the pearls and precious
stones we conciliate the favour of Latchmy Davie, the
goddess of riches. 1 ' — (p. 147.)

And it is further recommended for his good, that
" Before the patient takes the medicine, the god of physic
is to be worshipped, in the person of his deputy, the phy-
sician, who must be paid well for his services. 11

In the abstract of the Tibetan work, all medicines are
subdivided as remedial agents, into thirty-seven different
classes, and consist of 715 different substances. With
respect to such as I am acquainted with, in all these old
works, it appears to me, that with the exception of Assa-

56

fcetida, mentioned in the Jrnera-Cosha, I can see none
but what are indigenous in India.*

The foregoing extracts, together with those in the sub-

* As the work (Oriental Magazine, Calcutta, February and March 1823)
in which the notices respecting early Hindoo medicines were ano-
nymously published by Professor Wilson is not easily to be procured,
except at Messrs. Allen and Co.'s, Leadenhall-street, it will not, I
conceive, be out of place, to insert some extracts from these notices and
translations.

Professor Wilson commences with a few preliminary observations, in
which he states, " that there is reason to conclude, from the imperfect
opportunities of investigation we possess, that in medicine, as in astronomy,
and metaphysics, the Hindus once kept pace with the most enlightened
nations of the world ; and that they attained as thorough a proficiency in
medicine and surgery, as any people, whose acquisitions are recorded, and
as indeed was practicable, before anatomy was made known to us, by the
discoveries of modern inquirers.

" It might easily be supposed, that their patient attention, and natural
shrewdness, would render the Hindus excellent observers; whilst the
extent, and fertility of their native country would furnish them with many
valuable drugs and medicaments. Their Nidan, or Diagnosis, accordingly
appears to define and distinguish symptoms with great accuracy, and their
Druvyabhidhana, or Materia Medica, is sufficiently voluminous. They
have also paid great attention to regimen and diet, and have a number of
works on the food and general treatment, suited to the complaint, or favour-
able to the operation of the medicine administered. This branch they
entitle Pathapathya. To these subjects are to be added, the Chikitsa, or
medical treatment of diseases— on which subject they have a variety of
compositions, containing much absurdity, with much that is of value ; and
the Rasavidya, or Pharmacy, in which they are most deficient."

— " The Ayur Veda, as the medical writings of highest antiquity and
authority are collectively called, is considered to be a portion of the fourth
or Atharva Veda, and is consequently 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 they then became the
medical attendants of the gods— a genealogy, that cannot fail recalling to us
the two sons of Esculapius, and their descent from Apollo. Now what
were the duties of the Aswins, according to Hindu authorities ?— the gods,
enjoying eternal youth and health, stood in no need of physicians, and conse-
quently these held no such sinecure station. The wars between the gods
and demons, however, and the conflicts amongst the gods themselves, in
which wounds might be suffered, although death was not inflicted, required
chirurgical aid— and it was this, accordingly, which the two Aswins ren-
dered.

57

joined notes from Hindoo works, viewed in connexion witli
the apparent antiquity and independent origin of their
Medicine, display, I conceive, considerable merit, not only

dered. They performed many extraordinary cures, as might have been
expected, from their superhuman character.

" The meaning of these legendary absurdities is clear enough, and is
conformable to the tenor of all history. Man, in the semi barbarous state,
if not more subject to external injuries, than internal disease, was at least
more likely to seek remedies for the former, which were obvious to his
senses, than to imagine the means of relieving the latter, whose nature he
could so little comprehend.

" Surgical, therefore, preceded medicinal skill ; as Celsus has asserted,
when commenting on Homer's account of Podalirius and Machaon, who
were not consulted, he says, during the plague in the Grecian camp,
although regularly employed, to extract darts and heal wounds. The same
position is maintained, as we shall hereafter see, by the Hindu writers, in
plain, as well as in legendary language.

" According to some authorities, the Aswins instructed Indra, and Indra
was the preceptor of Dhanwantari ; but others make Atreya, Bharad-
waja, and Charaka, prior to the latter. Charaka's work, which goes
by his name, is extant — Dhanwantari is also styled Kasiraja, prince of
Kasi or Benares. His disciple was Susruta, the son of Viswamitra, and
consequently a contemporary of Rama : his work also exists, and is our
chief guide at present. It is unquestionably of some antiquity, but it is not
easy to form any conjecture of its real date, except that it cannot have the
prodigious age, which Hindu fable assigns it — it is sufficient to know, that
it is perhaps the oldest work on the subject, excepting that of Charaka,
which the Hindus possess. One commentary on the text, made by
Uehatta, a Cashmirian, is probably as old as the twelfth or thirteenth
century, and his comment, it is believed, was preceded by others. The
work is divided into six portions — the Sutra St'hana, or Chirurgical
Definitions ; the Nidana St'hana, or section on Symptoms, or Diagnosis ;
Sarira St'hana, anatomy; Chikitsa St'hana, the internal application of
Medicines ; Kalpa St'hana, Antidotes ; Uttara St'hana, or a supplemen-
tary section on various local diseases, or affections of the eye, ear, &c. — In
all these divisions, however, surgery, and not general medicine, is the
object of the Susruta.

" The Ayur Veda, which originally consisted of one hundred sections, of
a thousand stanzas each, was adapted to the limited faculties and life of
man, by its distribution into eight subdivisions, the enumeration of which
conveys to us an accurate idea, of the objects of the Ars medendi amongst
the Hindus. The divisions are thus enumerated — 1. Salt/a ; 2. Salakya;
3. Kaya chikitsa ; 4. Bhutavidya ; 5. Kaumarabhritya ; 6. Agada ; 7. Ba-
sayana ; and 8. Bajiharana. — They are explained as follows :

I \."Salya

58

as shewing that they had at an early period paid attention
to what now constitute the several branches of medicine, but
also that they had discovered the various kinds of remedies,

1. " Salya is the art of extracting extraneous substances, whether of
grass, wood, earth, metal, bone, &c. violently or accidentally introduced
into the human body ; with the treatment of the inflammation and suppu-
ration thereby induced ; and by analogy, the cure of all phlegmonoid
tumours and abscesses. The word Salya means a dart or arrow, and points
clearly to the origin of this branch of Hindu science. In like manner the
'Ut^o;, or physician of the Greeks, was derived, according to Sexlus
Empiricus, from 'Us, an arrow or dart.

2. " Salahya is the treatment of external organic affections, or diseases
of the eyes, ears, nose, &c. ; it is derived from Salaka, which means any
thin and sharp instrument; and is either applicable in the same manner as
Salya, to the active causes of the morbid state, or it is borrowed from the
generic name of the slender probes and needles, used in operations on the
parts affected.

3. " Kaya Chikitsa is, as tbe name implies, the application of the Ars
medendi (Chikitsa) to the body in general (Kaya), and forms what we mean
by the Science of Medicine — the two preceding divisions constitute the
Surgery of modern schools.

4. " Bhutavidya is the restoration of the faculties from a disorganised
state, induced by Demoniacal possession. This art has vanished before
the diffusion of knowledge, but it formed a very important branch of medical
practice, through all the schools, Greek, Arabic, or European, and de-
scended to days very near our own, as a reference to Burton's Anatomy of
Melancholy may prove to general readers.

5. " Kaumara bhritya means, the care of infancy, comprehending not
only the management of children from their birth, but the treatment of
irregular lactic secretion, and puerperal disorders in mothers and nurses —
this holds with us also the place, that its importance claims.

6. " Agada is the administration of antidotes — a subject which, as far as
it rests upon scientific principles, is blended with our medicine and surgery.

7. " Rasayana is chemistry, or more correctly alchemy, as the chief end
of the chemical combinations it describes, and which are mostly metallurgic,
is the discovery of the universal medicine — the elixir, that was to render
health permanent, and life perpetual.

8. " The last branch, Bajiharana, professes to promote the increase of
the human race— an illusory research, which, as well as the preceding, is
not without its parallel in ancient, and modern times.

" We have, therefore, included in these branches, all the real and fanciful
pursuits of physicians of every time and place. Susruta, however, con-
fines his own work to the classes, Salya and Salakya, or Surgery; although,
by an arrangement not uncommon with our own writers, he introduces

occasionally

59

as Well as the modes of applying them. That many of
these are of a valuable nature, we may readily be assured
by looking at their Materia Medica, or our own obli-

occasionally the treatment of general diseases, and the management of
women and children, when discussing those topics, to which they bear
relation."

— " The practical part of the subject of Surgery is preceded by a few gene-
ral remarks. ' Living bodies are composed,' it is said, ' of the five elements,
with action or life superadded: they are produced from vapour, vegetation,
incubation, and parturition, as insects, plants, birds, fishes, reptiles, and
animals. All the Hindu systems consider vegetable bodies, as endowed
with life. Of animals, man is the chief, and in proportion to his compli-
cated structure is his liability to disease. The disorders of the human frame
are of four kinds; accidental, organic, intellectual, and natural. The
injuries arising from external causes form the first class; the second com-
prehends the effects of the vitiated humours, or derangements of the blood,
bile, wind, and phlegm ; the third class is occasioned by the operation of
the passions, or the effects on the constitution of rage, fear, sorrow, joy,
and others ; and the last is referable to the necessary, and innate condition
of our being, as thirst, hunger, sleep, old age, and decay. "

— " The instrumental part of medical treatment was, according to the bes'
authorities, of eight kinds — Chhedana, cutting or scission ; JBhedana, divi-
sion or excision ; Lek'hana, which means drawing lines, appears to be
applied to scarification and inoculation ; Vi/ad/iana, puncturing ; Eshyam,
probing, or sounding ; Aharya, extraction of solid bodies ; Visravuna,
extraction of fluids, including venesection ; and Sevana, or sewing : and the
mechanical means, by which these operations were performed, seem to
have been sufficiently numerous. Of these, the principal are the following :

" Yantras, properly machines, in the present case instruments ; but to
distinguish them from the next class, to which that title more particularly
applies, we may call them implements; Sastras, weapons, or instruments ;
Kshara, alkaline solutions, or caustics; Agni, fire, the actual cautery;
Salaka, pins, or tents ; Sringa, horns, the horns of animals open at the
extremities, and, as well as Alabu or gourds, used as our cupping glasses ;
the removal of the atmospheric pressure through the first being effected by
suction, and in the second byrarifying the air by the application of a lamp.
The next subsidiary means are Jalaulm, or leeches.

" Besides these, we have thread, leaves, bandages, pledgets, heated
metallic plates for erubescents, and a variety of astringent or emollient
applications."

— The detailed descriptions of the very numerous Hindu instruments
not being very minute or precise, Professor Wilson says, we can only
conjecture what they may have been, from a consideration of the purport

of

60

gations to it ; as well as by remembering how recently some
among them of old date, have been introduced into Euro-
pean practice; as the smoking of Datura leaves in asthma;

of their names, and the objects to which they were applied, in conjunction
with the imperfect description given.

" The Sastras, or cutting instruments, were of metal, and should be
always bright, handsome, polished, and sharp, sufficiently so, indeed, to
divide a hair longitudinally."

— " The means by which the young practitioner is to obtain dexterity in
the use of his instniments are of a mixed character ; and whilst some are
striking specimens of the lame contrivances to which the want of the only
effective vehicle of instruction, human dissection, compelled the Hindus to
have recourse, others surprise us by their supposed incompatibility with
what we have been hitherto disposed to consider as insurmountable preju-
dices. Thus the different kinds of scission, longitudinal, transverse,
inverted, and circular, are directed to be practised on flowers, bulbs, and
gourds. Incision, on skins, or bladders, filled with paste and mire ; —
scarification, on the fresh hides of animah, from which the hair has not been
removed,- — puncturing, or lancing, on the hollow stalks of plants, or the
vessels of dead animals ; — extraction on the cavities of the same, or fruits
with many large seeds, as the Jack and Bel ;— sutures, on skin and leather,
and ligatures and bandages on well-made models of the human limbs. The
employment of leather, skin, and even of dead carcases, thus enjoined,
proves an exemption from notions of impurity we were little to expect, when
adverting to their actual prevalence. Of course, their use implies the
absence of any objections to the similar employment of human subjects ;
and although they are not specified, they may possibly be implicated, in the
general direction which the author of the Susruta gives, that the teacher
shall seek to perfect his pupil by the application of all expedients, which he
may think calculated to effect his proficiency."

— " Of the supplementary articles of Hindu surgery, the first is Kshara,
alkaline or alkalescent salts. This is obtained by burning different vegetable
substances, and boiling the ashes with five or six times their measure of
water. In some cases the concentrated solution is used after straining,
and is administered internally, as well as applied externally."

— " Care is enjoined in their use, and emollient applications are to be
applied, if the caustic occasions very great pain. At the same time these
and the other substitutes for instrumental agents are only to be had recourse
to, where it is necessary to humour the weakness of the patient. They
are especially found serviceable, where the surgeon has to deal with princes
and persons of rank, old men, women and children, and individuals of a
timid and effeminate character."

— " The cautery is applied by hot seeds, combustible substances inflamed,
boiling fluids of a gelatinous or mucous consistence, and heated metallic

bars,

61

the prescribing of Nux vomica in paralysis and dyspepsia,
and the revival of the use of Croton Tiglium. From the
mixture, however, of much ignorance and absurdity with
what is valuable, many will be apt to despise altogether
the Medicine of the East. But if it be recollected how
long in Europe prevailed the influence of Galen ; as well
as how many absurd formulas still figure in some conti-
nental Pharmacopoeias, as also how comparatively recent is
the time since our own was so greatly improved ; some
feeling of humiliation will control the pride with which we
now view the medical sciences. As records of early civi-
lisation, and as elucidating the history of medicine, a more

bars, plates, and probes. The application is useful in many cases, as to
the temples and forehead, for head-aches ; to the eye-lids, for diseases of
the eyes ; to the part affected, for indurations in the skin ; to the sides, for
spleen and liver ; and to the abdomen, for mesenteric enlargements. As
amongst the Greeks, however, the chief use of the cautery was in the case
of hemorrhages, bleeding being stopped by searing the wounded vessels."

— " If leeches, when applied, are slow and sluggish, a little blood may be
drawn from the part by a lancet, to excite their vivacity ; when they fall off,
the bleeding may be maintained by the use of the horns and gourds, or the
substitutes already mentioned, for the cupping glasses of our own practice."

— " The operations are rude, and very imperfectly described. They were
evidently bold, and must have been hazardous: — their being attempted at
all is however most extraordinary, unless their obliteration from the know-
ledge, not to say the practice, of later times, be considered as a still more
remarkable circumstance. It would be an inquiry of some interest, to
trace the period and causes of the disappearance of Surgery from amongst
the Hindus — it is evidently of comparatively modern occurrence, as ope-
rative and instrumental practice forms so principal a part of those writings,
which are undeniably most ancient ; and which, being regarded as the com-
position of inspired writers, are held of the highest authority."

Besides these sacred writings, there are many valuable professional tracts
which correspond with, and are, in fact, commentaries on them. These
are said to have been composed by prophets and holy men ( Magha Reeshees),
to whom is generally given a divine origin.

The different nations of India have their respective medical authors. In
the Peninsula and the South of India, in Tamul ; those of the Telingas
in Teloogoo ; in Bengal and the Northern Provinces, the works in use
among the Hindoos are in Sanscrit ; while among the Mahomedan popu-
lation, Persian works and translations from the Arabic are chiefly in use.

62

intimate knowledge of the contents of these Hindoo works
would be highly interesting; and I hope that there is
sufficient zeal in the profession here, as well as in India,
to command the translation of at least the two oldest
works, (those of Charak and Susruta,) as well as of one
on each of the different departments, to give European
readers a complete view of Hindoo Medicine, and enable
us to weigh its claims to originality.

Hindoo works on Medicine having been proved to have
existed prior to the Arabs, little doubt can be entertained,
I conceive, respecting their originality; as we know of no
source from which they could have been borrowed, except
from the Greeks; and there is little probability of the
Hindoos having had access to any original or translated
works at so early a period, as must have been the case
from their containing no traces of the Galenical doctrines
so conspicuous in the writings of the Arabs. Some coin-
cidences would appear rather to be that of observers of
the same facts, than of borrowers from the same books.
The description of some diseases which seem to have been
first known in India, as well as the internal administration
of metals, they could not have borrowed from the Greeks.
That there must have been independent observers in
India, at a very early age of the world, we have proofs
in the commerce of their manufactures and of their medi-
cines. Many of the latter may be found described in the
works of the Greeks, but we see no trace of European
medicines in those of the Hindoos ; and though know-
ledge may travel from north to south, tropical products
can in our hemisphere only travel from south to north.
Their employment, therefore, in the latter, proves their
previous investigation by a people resident in the countries
of their growth. On such grounds, therefore, I conceive,
we may infer the antiquity of Hindoo medicine ; and while

63

unable to get any positive dates for their works, we may
yet, by circumstantial evidence, obtain an approximation
which will, I think, prove its independent origin. We
may, however, conceive it to be the remains of a still more
ancient system, of which we have no records, but of the
existence of which there can be no doubt, as Herodotus
relates, that in his time, in Egypt, there were distinct
physicians for different diseases, which were classed
according to their seat in the human body ; and from
Diodorus Siculus we learn, that every physician was
obliged to follow a written code. Hence it is more than
probable that there was early in Egypt a distinct system of
medicine, and we have notices also in the works of the
ancients of its being a subject much attended to by the Per-
sian magi. Notwithstanding that the Greeks travelled to the
East and to Egypt in quest of knowledge, it has been
said, that Egyptian medicine consisted chiefly in incan-
tation ; but this explanation is as likely to have been
owing to the ignorance of the narrators as of the physicians;
for even in our own day we seldom see even well-informed
writers able to explain or to describe correctly facts of a
scientific nature. In the same manner, those who were
unable to decypher their hieroglyphics, pronounced all
the knowledge of the Egyptian priesthood to consist in
magic.

The only direct testimony we have with respect to the
date of the works of Charak and of Susruta, is that of
Professor Wilson, who states that from their being men-
tioned in the Puranas, the ninth or tenth century is the
most modern limit of our conjecture; while the style of the
authors, as well as their having become the heroes of fable,
indicate a long anterior date. The Arabs must have become
acquainted with the translations in the eighth, or early in
the ninth century, as Harun-al-Rashid and Al-Mamoon

64

succeeded respectively in the years 786 and 813 to the
Caliphate, when it stretched to the Indus: the latter sur-
vived only twenty years. Geber is supposed to have lived
in the seventh or eighth century, and we have shewn the
probability of his having had access to the chemical
knowledge of the Hindoos. But for their merits to have
been sufficiently established for their works to be translated
at the same time with those of the principal Greek authors,
these Hindoo physicians must certainly have lived and written
long before ; to allow their fame to extend into foreign coun-
tries, in an age when the communication of literature must
have been at least as slow as it now is in the East.*

• Having mentioned to Professor Wilson the discovery I had made, of
the Arabs having been indebted to the Hindoos for some of the infor-
mation for which they have hitherto received credit, he informed me that he
had seen a notice in the Foreign Quarterly Review, of a German physician
having made the same discovery. I looked through every number of that
periodical, but was unable to find the notice alluded to- It is only since
the foregoing part has been in type, that Professor Wilson has informed
me, that the notice was contained in the Journal of Education. On applying
to Messrs. Taylor and Walter, booksellers to University College, they
were good enough to look out the passage for me, where may be seen,
in volume viii. p. 176, that " Dietz, one of the medical professors at the
University of Konigsberg, who has spent five years of his life in visiting the
principal libraries of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France, and
England, in search of manuscripts of ancient Greek, Roman, and Oriental
writers on Medicine, is now engaged in publishing his ' Analecta Medica.'
The work contains several interesting papers on the subject of Physical
Science among the Indians and Arabians, and communicates several intro-
ductory notices and illustrations from native Eastern writers. Dietz proves
that the late Greek physicians were acquainted with the medical works of
the Hindus, and availed themselves of their medicaments ; but he more
particularly shews, that the Arabians were familiar with them, and extolled
the healing art, as practised by the Indians, quite as much as that in use
among the Greeks. It appears from Ibn Osaibe's testimony (from whose
biographical work Dietz has given a long abstract on the Lives of Indian
Physicians), that a variety of treatises on Medical Science were translated
from the Sanscrit into Persian and Arabic, particularly the more important
compilations of Charaka and Susruta, which are still held in estimation in
India; and that Manka and Saleh, the former of whom translated a special
treatise on Poison into Persian, even held appointments as body-physicians

at

65

If we now consider the period when translations were
first made from these works into other languages,
though indicating rather the age when neighbouring

at the Court of Harun-al-Rashid." The fact of the translation of numerous
works on medicine from the Sanscrit into Arahic we have long known,
from the list of those works given by Sir W. Ainslie at the end of his
Materia Indica ; but the age when these translations were made we were
unacquainted with. The nature of the works of Charaka and Susruta we
had a glimpse of from Professor Wilson's translations ; but the fact of
Manka and Saleh being at the Court of Harun-al-Rashid is extremely
curious, as well as that of the later Greek physicians having had access to
some Hindoo works. Actuarius and Myrepsus are unimportant, as both
were subsequent to the Arabs; but even previous to them, as I have
more than once mentioned to Professor Wilson, the occurrence of long
prescriptions, composed of tropical products, appeared to me to be taken
from Hindoo works.

Tlie work of Susruta, it may be useful to remark, is now easily procu-
rable, as it was one of those ordered to be printed by the Indian Govern-
ment for the use of its native subjects ; but strange to say, the printing
was stopped, of this as well as of many others, when most were nearly
completed: the first volume and three-fourths of the second of the
Susruta having been printed. Fortunately the Asiatic Society of Calcutta,
with the spirit and zeal which has ever distinguished it, and with a true
knowledge of what was for the benefit of the government itself, undertook,
at their own risk, to complete the abandoned works. If the occurrence
had not been so recent, it might, like the burning of the Alexandrian
library, from its incredibility, have afforded disputants or defenders an
opportunity of denying, or, at least, doubting the fact. The Asiatic
Society has been energetically supported in its representations by the
Royal Asiatic Society; and it is gratifying to state, also by the " Societe
Asiatique" of Paris, and by German literati, in promoting the sale of
these works on the Continent. That their efforts, coupled with the
accession of Lord Auckland to the Indian Government have been in some
degree successful, we have the assurance, in comparing the statement at
the end of 1835 with that at the conclusion of the year 1835, of the
Editor of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta.

" Without venturing to impugn in any degree the wisdom or policy of a
measure, which has in the face of all India withdrawn the countenance of
government from the learned natives of the country, and pronounced a
verdict of condemnation and abandonment on its literature, it may be
allowable in this place to prophecy, that the conduct of the Asiatic Society,
in stepping forward to rescue the half- printed volumes of Sanscrit, Arabic,
and Persian, will be approved and applauded by every learned Society and
every scholar in Europe. Left in their unfinished state, they would h.'.ve
indeed merited the opprobrious designation of an ' accumulation of waste

K paper,'

66

nations were able to appreciate the value of such works
than the time when they were written, we still get a
confirmation of the previous testimony. Thus they were
translated into Tamul by the Maha Rishi Aghastier,
(v. p. 48), who appears to have introduced the religion, as
well as the science of the Hindoos, into the Peninsula before
the Christian era. That the Hindoos of the north had com-
munication anterior to that date with the inhabitants of the
south, has been proved by Mr. Tumour, who has been
able to shew, from Pali annals, the connexion between Cey-
lon and Ancient Behar, from the period of the rise in the
latter of Buddhism (543 B.C.) nearly six centuries before
the Christian era. This connexion is attested, according
to the Rev. Dr. Mill, by the very language in which
these annals are written : the Pali being no other
than the classical form of a peculiar modification of
Sanscrit speech in Ancient Behar. The general correct-
ness of these annals has, among other facts, been further
confirmed by their containing the names of six sovereigns,
whose existence had been indicated by coins only recently
found in India. (Journ. As. Soc. Calcutta, v. p. 829).
Sanscrit Medical Literature, we have seen, (p. 48) was
introduced into Tibet in the eighth century ; whence it
probably spread further eastward, though we have no
means of ascertaining the fact ; but I think it likely that

paper,' applied to them by the government which had originally ordered,
and had expended vast sums upon, their publication." (Dec. 1835).

" If, in our last volume, we could not refrain from noticing, as the most
prominent object of interest in its contents, the suspension of oriental
publications by the British Indian Government, and the general discourage-
ment under which oriental studies were doomed to languish, we must not,
on the present occasion, omit to make honourable mention of the patronage
and favour which has once more dawned upon science and literature in
India under the present administration. The proceedings of the Asiatic
Society, last year so full of painful discussion and unsuccesslul appeal, this
year shine forth with tokens of distinguished consideration." (Dec. 1836).

67

some connexion will be found to have existed between the
medicine of the Hindoos and that of the Chinese.

On the subject of Chinese Medicine, we have a short
notice, and another on the Chinese Treatment of Paralysis,
in the Calcutta Medical Transactions, Vol. I., (p. 146), where
it is stated that the Science of Medicine may be said to
have commenced with Chang-ke (about A.D. 229) ; for
all works before that (said to be dated 189 and 1105 years
B.C.) treat of medicine, without giving prescriptions. As
this is extracted from a new compilation made by order of
the Emperor in 1739, it is difficult, from the necessary
changes in arrangement and the heading of chapters,
to be able to trace the sources whence they may have been
derived, or where they communicated information. But
it may be remarked as important, that small-pox is
noticed, both in this and the Tibetan work, in conjunc-
tion with infectious diseases in general. More recently,
Mr. Gutzlaff, Missionary in China, has in the Proceed-
ings of the Asiatic Society, part vii. p. 154, given a short
view of a celebrated work, in forty volumes, on Chinese
Medicine, which is called " Ching che chun ching," i.e.
"Approved marking line of Medical Practice." Of this,
seven volumes consist of Nosology, Tsa-ching ; eight of
Pharmacology, Luy-fang; five of Pathology, Shang-han;
six of Surgery, Wae-ka ; and the remaining volumes treat
of the diseases of Women and Children. The Chinese
Pharmacopoeia is described as being very extensive ; almost
every shrub, leaf or root, being adopted as an article of
Materia Medica. Among many indigenous products, of
which we may get a pretty accurate idea from the drawings
which have been published, as well as from the collection
of Chinese Materia Medica, in the possession of the
College of Physicians; there are others, which they
import from foreign countries. Among the former may be

68

mentioned musk, rhubarb, ginseng, the larvae of the
silk-worm, &c. ; while among the exotic articles are opium,
assafcetida, and many aromatics, as nutmegs, cloves, cinna-
mon, and pepper. It is curious to observe the number of
animal products which they employ as medicinal articles;
as the bones of tigers and elephants, the horns of animals,
and the fins of fishes, with reptiles, snails, and scorpions.
It is interesting to find among them also, the employment
internally of cinnabar and the oxide of mercury, as well
as of the oxide and sulphuret of arsenic. I may briefly
remark, that many articles are common to the Hindoo and
Chinese lists of Materia Medica. From the translation
of a Chinese account of India, published in the Asiatic
Journal, July 1836, it will be seen that there was constant
intercourse between these countries even before the Christian
era, by means of travellers and ambassadors ; aud that
Buddhist priests in visiting China, took with them as
presents classical Indian books. It is also worthy of
notice, in connexion with the chapter on this subject in
Susruta, that in A.D. 648, the Emperor of China having
sent an ambassador to India, this officer met with a
doctor, who told him that he was 200 years old, and that
he possessed the recipe of immortality. Upon hearing
which, a second embassy was dispatched in search of the
philosophical stone.

If we now revert to the north, we may readily concede
that from the position and history of Persia, there must
always have been considerable intercourse between it and
India. But independent of this, we have positive testi-
mony on the subject, as the Baron de Sacy, in his account
of the now well-known Sanscrit origin of theFables of Pilpay,
states that these were first translated into Pehlevi during
the reign of the Persian King Nooshirwan, who ascended
the throne in 531, and died in 579; and who is reported

69

by historians to have encouraged learning, and to have
introduced Grecian philosophy at his court. The trans-
lations were made by the Physician Barzouyeh who had
brought the original from India with other books, and
who by more than one previous journey to that country,
had acquired a knowledge of Sanscrit. He is stated parti-
cularly, to have made two journeys, one for the purpose of
procuring medicaments and herbs, and the other for
obtaining specimens of the literature of the Hindoos.

That commercial intercourse subsisted between India
and the Babylonians and Assyrians, is generally admitted ;
that in this the Persians subsequently participated, is
well known, as well as that they invaded India, and held
sovereignty over some of the north-western provinces. But
that the Persians obtained any knowledge of the medicine
of the Hindoos, when they first became acquainted with
their literature, we are not informed. From a physician,
however, visiting Hindoosthan to procure medicaments and
books, we are assured that the former were then in high
repute, and that their virtues had been described by the
authors, or at least ascertained by the practitioners of
medicine in India. Some therefore may have formed a
portion of the trade which always subsisted between
these countries, and of which Assafcetida, and perhaps
some of the other foetid gum-resins, formed a part of the
return which Persia made for the spices and aromatics of
the East.

That some of these did form articles of commerce in
very ancient times, we know from the accounts of Greek
and Roman writers ; that they were employed not only
as condiments, but also as medicines, we likewise know
from their being included in the most ancient lists of
Materia Medica, with some, as Lycium indicum, which
could only have been employed as medicines. These might

70

certainly have all become known to the nations of the West,
through the medium of Egypt, which was early visited
by Grecian Philosophers ; and to which, from remote
antiquity, an active commerce was carried on along the
Red Sea, by the Arabs of Yemen. They, as well as the
Phoenicians, may have been enabled to visit India even
in the infancy of navigation, either by coasting or by the
aid of the monsoons. But this commerce, long as it
had been established, and extensive as it no doubt was,
cannot be compared, in the opinion of Heeren, with that
which had, from probably earlier times, always taken place
by land.

As the Persian Court and kingdom were for nearly
twelve centuries in the most flourishing condition, they
necessarily became the resort of travellers and merchants
from all parts of the world. Here, therefore, the products
of the East must at an early time have been in great
demand : and, here, as well as in Egypt, -they may have
become known to the philosophers and physicians of Greece.
That these resorted to, and were held in high estimation
at, the Court of Persia, when this held sway over some of
the north-western provinces of India, is easily proved.
Even as early as 430 B.C., or during the plague of
Athens, with which the inhabitants of Persia were also
afflicted, Artaxerxes is said to have invited Hippocrates to
his Court: and though neither the proposal, nor the answer
of the latter refusing to leave his countrymen at such a
juncture, is credited, there can be no doubt of the high
estimation in which Greek .physicians were then held, as
only thirty years later, Ctesias was Physician to the Persian
sovereign, and remained in that capacity for seventeen
years, during which he wrote a history of the Persian
Empire, and an account of India, the latter of which has
been shewn by Professor Wilson, in a paper read to the

71

Ashmolean Society of Oxford, to contain notices of the
natural productions of the country, which, though often
extravagant and absurd, are nevertheles founded on
truth. Besides, there were always Grecian mercenaries
in Persian pay ; and the Grecian prisoners taken at
Eretria were settled in Persia, within a day's journey of
Susa. In the year 830 B.C., Darius Codomanus was
killed, and an end put to the Kaianian dynasty of the
Persian empire by Alexander, who carried his arms to the
shores of the Indus, and there, as we learn from his histo-
rians, held intercourse with Indian sages. On his death,
Persia fell to the share of Seleucus, (307 B.C.) who soon after-
wards penetrated even to the Ganges : but being threatened
by Antigonus, he entered into an alliance with the Indian
Sovereign, Sandracottus (Chundragupta) which was main-
tained for many years; he even, it is related, gave his
daughter in marriage to the Indian sovereign, as well as
sent him Grecian auxiliaries to assist in repelling his
enemies. Megasthenes and Onesicratus were also sent as
an embassy, and the former having resided for some years
at Palibothra (Patna), gave the Greeks some of the most
correct accounts they had of India. During the reign of
the Seleucida?, and their successors, who held possession of
all the countries between the Euphrates, the Indus, and
the Oxus, the commerce of India with the North is described
as having been very considerable. The recent discovery in
the north-western part of ancient India, and in Caubul, of
innumerable coins, commencing with the third of the
Seleucida?, and his known successors, and continuing for
many centuries, has revealed a series of unrecorded Bactrian
princes, who, at first independent, afterwards held sway
under the Persian King of Kings over the countries between
Persia and India, including some of the north-western pro-
vinces of the latter. It is extremely interesting, in this long
series of coins, to observe the purely Greek ones succeeded

by those having a Greek inscription on one side, and a
Pehlevi on the reverse ; Native designations, even in Greek
characters, becoming substituted for the purely Greek
titles ; whence the Greek characters are found to have
continued in use even until the fourth century, in the
provinces of Caubul and the Punjab. From the later Indo-
Scythic coins, themselves the continuation of the purely
Greek, the Hindoo coinage of Canouge has been clearly
proved to have originated by Mr. Prinsep, in his invaluable
Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. 3, 4, and 5. The
Parthians, who swayed these Bactrian princes, and who so
long and so successfully opposed the Roman arms, made
their first attempts 250 B.C. on, and held the Persian
sceptre to A.D. 223, when Artaxerxes overthrew their
power, and established the Sassanian dynasty, which
reigned in Persia from this time to A.D. 632, when the Arabs
invaded Persia. During this dynasty, the connexion of
Greek physicians with Persia was continued, as some
followed the Emperor Valerian, when he was taken
prisoner in the year 262 A.D., by Sapor I. Greek phy-
sicians were also sent with the daughter of the Emperor
Aurelian, when given in marriage to Sapor II., who is
said to have built the city of Jondisabour or Nisabur, in
honour of his queen. It is related by Dr. Freind, that
during the reign of Chosroes, and previous to the embassy
from the Romans to Persia of Archindus, who was accom-
panied by the pseudo-philosopher Uranius, " Damascius
the Syrian, Simplicius of Cilicia, Diogenes of Phoenicia,
and Isidorus of Gaza, &c, the greatest and most learned
philosophers of the age, having an aversion to the
established religion, retired into Persia.'" (1. p. 133). It is
thought by some authors, that it was in consequence of
the settling of the above Greek physicians at Jondisabour,
that this became celebrated as a medical school, and that
so many of the more celebrated Arabian physicians, as

73

Rhazes, Haly Abbas, and Avicenna, were educated in
the more eastern parts of Asia.

From this historical review, it is evident that continued
communication was maintained between the Greeks and
Persians from the time of Ctesias, or the fourth century
before, to the sixth century after our Saviour. But this
brings the connexion even beyond the time of Oribasius
and M this, who are noted for having preserved whatever
was valuable in what has been called the Egyptian, but
which to me looks very like Indian Polypharmacy. These
authors having lived in the fourth and fifth centuries, are
not much, if at all, anterior to the time of Nooshirwan,
when Barzouyeh was sent from Persia into India for
medicaments. Previous even to this (A.D. 330), we hear
of the Persian king Bahrain visiting, in disguise, the
Court of Basdeo, sovereign of Canouge, to study the
laws, religion, and manners of the Hindoos. To this inter-
communication has usually been ascribed the coincidences
which have been observed between the science of the
Greeks and that of the Hindoos ; and it has, therefore, been
inferred, that the latter must have borrowed from the
former ; though the facts, I conceive, are as well calcu-
lated to prove the reverse.

As Plants, from their fixedness to the soil, and subjection
to the atmosphere, indicate to geologists the climates in
which they lived in former ages of the world, even better
than animals, which from changes of covering frequently
adapt themselves to new situations ; so shall we find plants,
or such of their products as are applied to medical purposes,
well suited to indicate the antiquity of the cultivation of
medicine, in the countries where alone we know they can
grow. Taking, therefore, the articles of Materia Medica
as they were handed to us by the Arabs, we shall find in
their names and the countries whence they must ever have

been introduced, indications of the different schools of
medicine, which have flourished at different times; and
all of which find a place in history, except the Indian. Thus
the plants and medicines of European climates, of Asia
Minor and of Syria, we can account for, from the conti-
nued existence of Greek physicians, from the time of
Hippocrates to that of Paul us jEgineta; those of Egypt
and Africa, from the Alexandrian School, which subsisted
from B.C. 300 to A.D. 700, or to the period of the destruc-
tion of its institutions by the Arabians. The occurrence
of Jewish names may also be accounted for, from many
physicians having been of the Jewish nation for a series of
ages. The properties of medicinal articles must, in very
ancient times, have been investigated in Persia, as their
foetid gum-resins early make their appearance in the
records of medicine ; and in Dioscorides, we have numerous
names of plants as given them by the Magi {prfo<pr\rai).
Jondisabour, also, was a celebrated medical school, previous
to the Arabians, as G. Bactishua was educated there, and
celebrated as well for his skill in medicine, as for his
proficiency in the Persian and Arabian languages ; whence
he was sent for to attend Almanzor, the second Caliph of
the Abbasides, and being detained, translated, at his request,
several books of medicine. But even previous to him, an
impulse had been given to translations from other languages,
as the work called Pandects of Medicine, of Aaron the
Presbyter, who lived at Alexandria subsequently to the
era of the Hegira, was translated in 683 into Arabic by
Masarjawaihas. The Old Testament, moreover, was first
translated by Warka, the son of Naefel, who is mentioned
in the Koran, and who died in A.D. 612.

Considerable as appears to have been Hindoo medicine,
and extensive as no doubt has been the influence of its
Materia Medica, the absence of all record of the former

75

in the annals of medicine, can only be accounted for from
the geographical position of India with respect to Europe,
and the total unacquaintance with the refined language of
the former, which prevailed in the latter even to our own
day. For when the name of even the most celebrated
Hindoo writer presented itself before a modern author
writing expressly on the subject, it is passed over without
comment or examination — " Scharak Indus, a Rhazeo
citatus plane ignotus."" (Sprengel. Hist.Rei. Herb.l. p. 234)
That a Hindoo system of medicine does exist, we know
from their numerous books on all branches of that science ;
that some of these were written prior to the Arabs, we have
shewn by their being quoted in the works of the latter.
How much earlier than the eighth century the principal of
them were composed, we may only hope to ascertain by
the progress now making in settling Indian Chronology.
But in absence of this it is practicable, as I have stated,
to get a conviction of the cultivation of medicine among fhe
Hindoos at still earlier periods, from occasional notices
by writers of the West ; and we cannot but allow them an
early knowledge of the properties of many of the valu-
able drugs which their country afforded them, when we
see the necessarily subsequent employment of the same by
the Greeks and Romans.

For this purpose it is not again necessary to notice the
Hindoo drugs mentioned in the works of the Arabs, and
still less to refer to such of the Greek authors as Actuarius
and Myrepsus, who were subsequent to them. But it is
advisable to keep in mind, that the Arabs, from their
position and communication with the East, must necessarily
have had a practical knowledge of the articles imported
from India, and described in their works; while the
Christian physicians employed as translators in the City of
the Caliphs, being equally acquainted with both the Greek

76

and Arabic languages, must have correctly applied the
synonymous terms, to such drugs as had been long in use;
while those which then began to be first employed, must
have been introduced either by new or by their Indian
names. In this view the continued chain of authors is
very valuable, as each is likely to have been well acquainted
with the drugs described by at least his immediate pre-
decessor : Myrepsus, therefore, is useful in forming the
connexion with the Arab authors, as well as with Paulus
^Egineta, whom they so closely succeeded ; while he com-
pletes the reference to iEtius and Oribasius.

These authors, however, being chiefly copyists of their
predecessors, as well as having for the most part prac-
tised as far West as Rome, contain little information
which is not found in older works, and few new medicines;
though their prescriptions are often almost entirely composed
of Indian drugs. Paulus of jEgina, who lived in the
seventh century, and was a great traveller, treats parti-
cularly, as remarked by Dr. Freind, of the diseases of
Women, and in his sixth book gives us, even if we compare
him with Celsus, the most perfect account of Surgery, as
it stood in the time of the ancients. " The chapter concern-
ing the extraction of Darts and Arrows, &c. contains many
excellent rules ; and the description he gives of that sort of
weapon, then in use among the ancients, particularly the
Egyptians, is very curious, and clear, as well as concise. 1 ''
(1. p. 163). He notices few new medicines, but, among
the Plasters, there is an " Emplastrum indicum; 11 — " he
is probably the first to mention the internal use of Steel,
as he speaks much of its virtues in scirrhus of the spleen,
and recommends it both in infusion and in substance ;" he
seems also to have been the first to take notice of Cloves,
and of Rhubarb, by the name of " rheum barbaricum," which
Actuarius, and after him Myrepsus, called " reon indicon,"

77

Fr. I. p. 82-115. He has also a " Collyrium mitigatorium
Trypherum," (p. 169); and a " Smegma aut pulvis egre-
gius : vocant autem quidam ipsum Indum, alii Ascle-
pium ;" and of which the prescription is given, as "Descriptio
pulveris Indici;" respecting which he observes, " Hie
pulvis praestantissimus est et efficax.'' 1 (Med. artis princip.
p. 305. ed. Steph.)

iEtius, a native of Amida, in Mesopotamia, who lived
at the end of the fifth century, and studied at Alexandria,
must, from his connexions, have had means for obtaining
more correct information on eastern subjects. He is most full
and original on surgical subjects ; much so on both the actual
and potential cautery, describing the several ways of making
the latter, as well as issues. " He employs nearly a
whole book upon plasters, including all those known to
the Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks;" and appears to
have had some acquaintance with the medicines, diseases,
and practice of the East, as he has a " Collyrium Indiarum,' 1 ''
mentions Sandaracha (Sulphuret of Arsenic) by its Persian
name Zarnach ; states that " Presbyteri Indi" prepare
" pharmacum ad calculos, quod itidem externum lapidem
in grumos resolvere posse quidam aiunt." Nuces Indices,
Cocoa-nuts, Zador,* (Zudwar) and Galanga (Sansc. Kolin-
jana), Zedoary and Galangal roots, Santalum, Sandal-
wood, all Indian tropical products are mentioned, for the
first time; as well as the fruit of Semecarpus Anacar-

* As this prescription is as well calculated as any to give a notice of
their nature, and the number of Indian articles usually introduced, it is
here transcribed — " Zador id est zedoariae, galangae, ligustici, seselis, car-
damomi, piperis longi, piperis albi, cinnamomi, zingiberis, seminis Smyrnii,
caryophylli, phylli, stachyos, myrobalani, phu, costi, scordii, silphii sive
laserpitii. rhei barbarici, pceoniee, alii etiam arboris nucis viscum et paliuri
semen, itemque saxifragum ac casiam addunt ; ex his singulis stateres duos
commisceto. Datur cum condito aut vino vetere ad balneum ituris, et
sine balneo vespere, similiterque mane." In the " Suffumigii moschati
praparatio," there are also numerous, if not all Indian products.

dium, in the " Antidotus Theodoretos ex Anacardiis ;"
though the introduction of these, as well as of musk and
of ambergris, is usually referred to the Arabs. It is
remarkable, that he states, " Qui nunc ab omnibus Lobi
nominantur apud omnes veteres dolichi et phaseoli appel-
lantur." In India, at the present day, one of the most
common of the pulses, a species of Dolichos, is called
lobia, which, in all dictionaries, is marked as a Persian
word. There is also an " Antidotus ex duobus piperis
generibus, 11 from Archigenes, who seems also to have had
considerable knowledge of the East. He was a Syrian,
practised at Rome, wrote much on medicine, and is alluded
to by Juvenal more than once. A well-known Indian disease,
" Elephantiasis a quibusdam leontiasis, ab aliis satyriasis
appellatur, 1 '' is described in iEtius from Archigenes.
" Regio vero hujus mali inductrix est turn quas valde
calida est, turn quae vehementer frigida." Among the
remedies, we have " Eboris etiam et cornu cervini
ramenta ;" and we have it stated that " In regione Indorum
elephantiasi affectos, assidue per sedem eluere per urinse
asininas infusionem heminae mensura calefactae consueverunt.
Crocodilium item terrestrem accipiunt, et magnum sane
testimonium de hoc remedio praebent." Among the remedies
we have also "Myrobalanus item cum aceto praestat : probe
auxiliatur et alumen cum sale et sandaracha aequis partibus
in vino et oleo, maxime lentiscino, aut si non adsit, rosaceo
tritis." iEtius quotes Leonides, for another complaint
common in India, that is, the Dracunculi, or guinea-worms,
which he says, " Nascuntur autem hi in jEthiopia ac
India."

Oribasius, though born at Pergamus, is usually styled a
Sardian, from having studied probably at Sardes, in the
school of Zeno the Cyprian, who afterwards removed to
Alexandria. He was not only the countryman, but also

79

the copyist, of Galen, of whose Materia Medica, as well as
of that of Uioscorides, he has given an alphabetical epitome,
arranged under the heads of plants, minerals, and animals.
Among these I do not perceive any articles not known to
his predecessors. Galen himself, though so voluminous a
writer, takes his Materia Medica almost entirely from
Dioscorides ; and though sufficiently interested in the
subject to have visited Ccelo-Syria to see the Balsam-tree,
I find no drugs which are not contained in the work of the
former. Indian medicines are, however, abundantly pre-
scribed in the compounds which he enumerates, and among
them, some which are called Indian, as " Indicum Tharsei
chirurgi emplastrum. — Cera?, resinse fricta?, picis aridse,
bituminis liquidi Zacynthii, singulorum lib. ij. cerussae,
aeruginis, chalictedis, misyos peregrini, melanteriae, aluminis
et scissilis et rotundi, galla; omphacitidis, malicorii, rhei,
thuris, singulorum silibram, aceti quantum sufficit ;" also,
" Collyrium Indicum aerianum inscriptum ;" and " Indicum
basilicon inscriptum indicus lapis :" — that Indian medi-
cines were much used in Rome, even prior to his time, we
know from Pliny, who inveighs against their introduction :
" Arabia atque India in medio aestimantur, ulcerique parvo
medicina a Rubro Mare imputatur."

From Pliny we might adduce numerous instances of the
knowledge which the ancients possessed of the natural
productions of India, but as his information is chiefly
derived from earlier sources, it will be better introduced
when we have to notice these. But in his account of the
country and climate, the names of towns and rivers, as
well as in his description of the animals and plants of India,
we find much correct information intermixed with monstrous
fables. This naturally diminishes our faith in the other
parts of his statement : but as a natural historian, he
seems to have thought it necessary to repeat what he found

80

related, even when he shews that he does not himself
believe the statements. In his accounts of the plants and
articles of Materia Medica, he chiefly follows Theophras-
tus and Dioscorides; those not described by them are
almost entirely European plants. It is interesting, for our
purpose of investigating the origin and connexions of
ancient medicine, to find him mentioning many Egyptian
medicines, and giving the opinions respecting others of
the Persian Magi. The art of magic, he says, " Natam
primum e medicina nemo dubitat;'" and " pariter utrasque
artes effloruisse medicinam dico, magicenque, eadem aetate
illam Hippocrate hanc Democrito illustrantibus, circa
Peloponnesiacum Grascia? bellum :" lib. 30. c. 1. and 3.
In proceeding to the description and uses of precious
stones, he further says, " Nunc gemmarum confessa genera
dicemus, a laudatissimis orsi. Nee vero id solum agemus,
sed ad majorem utilitatem vitas obiter coarguetur Magorum
infanda vanitas, quando illi vel plurima prodidere de
gemmis, medicinag ex his blanda specie prodigia trans-
gressi." 37. c. xiv. Gems and precious stones we have
seen (p. 4. and 54) were also employed by the Hindoos as
medicines ; many of those dilated on even by Persians,
must then, as now, have been procured from India. This
must also have been the case with those described by Pliny;
as indeed he has mentioned in numerous places, besides
saying, " Gemmiferas amnes sunt Acesines et Ganges;
tefrarum autem omnium maxime India." lib. 37. c. 76.

Galen and Pliny having both borrowed much from
Dioscorides, the most celebrated, as well as the most
copious author on the Materia Medica of the Ancients,
it is necessary for our purpose to consider more fully
the parts of his work having reference to India, since,
from his eastern connexions, he was able to procure more
full and more correct information, especially after the

81

increased trade which took place with India by the ReA
Sea, subsequent to the foundation of Alexandria. " The
numerous copper coins of Egyptian fabrication, found in
India, confirms what is known from history of that country
having been the principal channel of commerce between
India and the Roman empire." (J. A. S.) To these causes
must be chiefly ascribed the information we find in Dios-
corides, who was a native of Anazarbus, in Cilicia, and
probably studied at Tarsus, the capital of that province, as
well as visited Alexandria and the North of Africa, and also
Spain, France, and Italy. He must have lived in the
early part of the first century, as in his preface he men-
tions Licinius Bassus, who was consul in A.D. 63. He
was probably contemporary with, as he is so frequently
quoted, though never named by Pliny; but appears to
be alluded to in the passage, where, after transcribing
the account of Schistus by the former, Pliny adds, " hanc
esse sententiam eorum qui nuperrime scripserint. 11

Dioscorides is, besides, the most ancient author who has
written expressly, at the same time that he has done so most
fully, on Materia Medica, a subject to which he was so much
attached, as to have travelled in many countries, and to
have followed the Roman armies for its investigation. His
work, therefore, is the best calculated to shew how much
the ancients were indebted to India and the East for their
medicines ; especially as he assists us in identifying them
by introducing some degree of arrangement, as well as by
describing their physical properties with their medical uses.
He is particular also in giving many synonymes, as well as
in specifying the countries where they were severally pro-
duced. Taking, therefore, those which are stated to be
of Indian origin, we are struck by finding some of them
also mentioned as being the produce of Syria and Media ;
but this is easily explained by our knowing that the pro-
ducts of the East reached the West both by the Red

M

82

Sea, Arabia, and Egypt, as by the Euphrates, and through
the desert-surrounded Palmyra to Syria. Hence the last
place of export, as is the case even in the present day, came
to be considered as the country actually producing the drug.
The majority of Indian articles are arranged by Dios-
corides in his first book, among aromatics, for which India
has always been, and still is famed. Among these are
the substances already mentioned at p. 33, as Nardos,
which is no doubt Nardostachys {Patrinia, Don) Jata-
?nansi,~D.C., which I have procured from the very mountains,
where it is described by Dioscorides as growing — " Qua?
Gangitis appellatur, a fluvio quodam, cui Ganges nomen,
montem praetercurrente in quo nascitur." The Syrian and
Mountain kinds, the latter called also sampharetica, are
thought by Sprengel in Diosc. ed. Kuhn II. p. 346, to be,
the first — Patrinia scabioscefolia Fisch., found in Dahuria;
and the second — Valeriana Hardwickii. The roots of the
latter are still used in medicine in Nepal and N. India, being
imported into the latter from the Himalayan mountains.
S%oivof (sometimes written S%ivo{, but which is the mastic-
tree) very distinct from the 11x om s c * c,a OI " tne fourth book,
c. 52, is usually translated Juncus odoratus, and is uni-
versally allowed to be Andropogon Schwnanthus, or Lemon-
grass. Calamus Aromaticus (v. p. 33) is, I conceive,
Andropogon Calamus Aromaticus, nob., which covers the
extensive arid plains of Central India, a country inter-
spersed with large and numerous lakes, and therefore
resembling that described by Theophrastus, as the country
where this " sweet Calamus" grows. Some authors, as
Sprengel, &c, suppose that this is the plant now called
wuj in Arabic, the Acorus Calamus of botanists ; but of
this Arabian authors give akoron, as the Greek name,
and apply to it the description by Dioscorides of annpo(,
which this plant no doubt is. Wuj is itself derived from
the Sanscrit vacha, as is the common Hindee name,

83

buck, by which, in Indian bazars, I obtained the roots of
Acorus Calamus; one of the Aroidece, and very different
from the most fragrant of grasses, as is that of Namur.

The other species of xaXa/*o{, Diosc. 1. 114, is translated
arundo, and by the Arabs kusb, under which they arrange
the different kinds of bamboo, which were probably included
under the general denomination by Dioscorides. This we may
infer, from solid or male and female kinds being mentioned,
as well as their uses for pipes, arrows, and for writing;
for which these, with species of Arundo and Saccharum,
are now employed in India. Allied to these in a botanical
point of view, is Saccharum qfflcinarum, which has need-
lessly been supposed not to have yielded saccharum, or
the substance known by this name to the ancients ; the
same authors conjecturing this to be Tabasheer, now so
well known as found within the bamboo. Considering
that this substance is pure silex, it is not likely to have
been arranged with the honeys, and described under the
head of ste^i Xaxx<xpou /usTiitoj. The Arabic name, moreover,
of sugar, is sukkur, derived from the Sanscrit sarkura, or
Tamul sakkara.

Under ttwimpo;, Cyperus rotundus, L., a second kind is
described as the produce of India {Cyperus indicus, Auct.).
The Arabs give sad as the synonyme of Cyperus ; and, in
India, motha, Sans, moostha, is given as the synonyme of
sad ; and we obtain, under that name, the roots of Cyperus
heocastychus, Rottb., a species which, was considered by
Dr. Roxburgh to be identical with C. rotundus. The
irregular-formed tubers, about the size of acorns, which
constitute the root, are eaten by cattle in India, and used
as a perfume at the weddings of the natives.

In noticing the various productions of India, supposed
to have been known to the ancients, it is interesting to
observe how many of these are the produce of the Peniu-

84

sula, and of the neighbouring island of Ceylon ; for it is
to these parts historians have shewn that the earliest trade
was directed from Arabia, Egypt, and the Red Sea. Among
the principal of these products is Cinnamon, Kina/xa/jiov, often
written mvafiov, corrupted into akimona, in Persian works,
of which the Cingalese cacyn-nama, (dulce lignum), or
the Malayan kaimanis, appear to have been the original ;
as Herodotus says, " quos nos petentes a Phcenicibus
cinnamomon vocamus." The Arabic name is dar-seeni,
evidently derived from the Hindee dar-chinee, of which
daroosita is said to be the Sanscrit. Cinnamon is pro-
duced by Cinnamomum zeylanicum. But if we infer
from the name, that the Hindoos first became acquainted
with Cinnamon from China, C. aromaticum of Cochin-
Cliina and the southern provinces of that country, yields
a Cinnamon, by some considered nearly equal to that of
Ceylon. The Cassia of the ancients it is not easy to deter-
mine: that of commerce, Mr. Marshall says consists of
only the inferior kinds of Cinnamon. Some consider
Cassia to be distinguished from Cinnamon, by the outer
cellular covering of the bark being scraped off the latter,
but allowed to remain on the former. (Thomson Dispen.)
This is, however, the characteristic of the bark of the
above-named C. aromaticum ; as we are informed by
Mr. Crawford, that it is not cured like that of Ceylon,
by freeing it from the epidermis (Emb. to Siam. p. 470).
— The Arabians consider Cassia to be their sulikhe,
probably the selackal or sindoc bark of Amboyna, pro-
duced by Cinnamomum Culitlawan, or by C. Sintoc
of Blume, if this be distinct from the former. C. nitidum,
the koolit-manis of Sumatra, has bark with the taste and
smell of Cinnamon. Some species are peculiar to the
Feninsula of India; and one, Dr. Hamilton informs us,
yields a kind of Cassia in Canara. Considering that besides

85

these, there are other species of this genus with aromatic
bark, and that ten varieties are described of both the
Ceylon and China Cinnamon, it will not appear surprising
that we are unable to distinguish accurately the Canella,
Cassia lignea, and Cassia fistula, or achy, sigir, mosylites,
aphysemon, kitto, dacar, as the varieties of Cassia, nor
mosylon, xylocinnamomum, xylodes, &c. as those of
Cinnamon. It is not an accidental coincidence, that both
ancients andmoderns mention a great variety of each ; but none
as growing elsewhere than in southern latitudes. Another
produce of the same family is the Malabathrum leaf of the
ancients (v. p. 32), which appears to be a corrupted form of
writing Tamala-patra (Tamala leaf.) This, in Arabic
works, is described under the name sa<iw7,with malatroon as
the Greek, and tuj and tej-pat as the Hindee synonymes.
By the latter names may be obtained every where in the bazars
of India, the leaves of Cinnamomum Tamala and of
C. albiflorum ; being as commonly used there as bay-leaves
are in Europe. Their being brought out of the forests
stript from the branches, or picked up after they have
fallen, may have given origin to the fables with which their
early accounts were accompanied.

These leaves having frequently been described simply as
Folium or Folium indicum; some authors have been led (v.
Bodaeus in Theophr. p. 1035) to suppose, that they might
be the betelAeai or pan of the Hindoos, Pers. tumbol,
Ar. tunbol, Sans, tumbolee, the produce of Piper Betle,
which is extensively cultivated in all the southern parts of
India. The plant has probably been introduced from some
of the Tropical Islands (India aquosa of old writers), as no
botanist has yet found it in a wild state in Continental
India. Being used by the natives in its fresh state, it is not
likely to have been an article of commerce to the West.
So, Cubebs, kubabeh of the Arabs, and kubab-chini of the

86

Hindoos, produced by Piper Cubeba, also a native of the
Indian Archipelago, has been thought to be the Carpesium
of the Greeks, because it was so of the Arabs ; but the
description does not apply, and the geographical distribution
of the plant is beyond the range of those which seem alone
to have been known to the Greeks. The knowledge of
the others may have been introduced into India in an
age subsequent to that when the Greeks were best
acquainted with that country. This is probable, from
their having been so well acquainted with the indi-
genous species of Pepper; as Piper nigrum must then,
as now, have yielded both black and white pepper, as
P. longum does long pepper. The root of the latter also, so
extensively used in India as a stimulant medicine, and
called pippula-mool, is, no doubt, the mtmi(ta% pi(a, though
Sprengel says, " Quid radicem piperis veteres vocarint,
non liquet.'" The Sanscrit pippulee, (Hindee pippul, Pers.
pilpil, Ai.JilJil,) is, no doubt, the origin of the Greek
Ttarept. In all the above languages, the adjuncts, black or
round, white and long, are added, to distinguish the
different kinds ; but the natives of India alone have distinct
names, mirch, (Sansc. mircha), for P. nigrum, and pippul
for P. longum.

After the Peppers, and described by Pliny as " sapore
simile,' 1 '' is mentioned an equally well-known Indian plant ;
this is Ziyyip^i;, or Zingiber, of which the name, like the
Arab. Zinjabil, Pers. Shungveex, is derived from the
Sansc. Shringuverum, as has been shewn by Mr. Colebrooke.
Zingiber officinale, the plant, is cultivated in the plains of
Bengal, as well as at elevations of from 3,000 to 4,000
feet in 30° N. latitude. As its crop depends upon the root,
which is protected by the earth from great vicissitudes of
temperature, this may, with irrigation, be cultivated further
north than is practicable with other tropical plants; and

87

it is described as having been so in Egypt. In the
same family with the Ginger, is the Cardamom plant,
Elettaria or Alpinia Cardamomum, found only in the
mountains of the Malabar coast. It has been doubted
whether our Cardamoms are those which were known to
the ancients, and of which several kinds are mentioned by
Pliny by this name. They have been considered such
from the time of the Arabs, who describe them under the
names of kakleh and khyrboa, and distinguish the large
from the small kind. They also keep distinct their trans-
lation of kirdamana, the cardaminen or Sisymbrium
alterum of Dioscorides, which has been confounded with
Cardamoms by some of the older commentators.

There is a produce of this family which one is
surprised was not known to the Greeks. This is Turmeric,
or the tubers of Curcuma longa, so universally employed,
and apparently from the highest antiquity, both as a
medicine and as a condiment, in every part of India.
The Latin name is evidently derived from kurkum, the.
Persian name for saffron, Ar. xafran. Some authors,
indeed, suppose that the ancient saffron was turmeric.
This, by the Arabs, is called arook-al-safr, or yellow root.
The French formerly called it Terra-merita (Curcuma,
haec Gallis Terra merita male dicitur), and the Portuguese
Saffran da Terra, as well as Crocus indicus. Some
have supposed Turmeric to be the Cyperus indicus of
Dioscorides, and his description in some measure warrants
the inference, as Pliny, apparently copying the passage,
says, " Est et per se Indica herba, qua? cyperis vocatur,
zingiberis effig-ie : commanducata croci vino reddit. 11 From
the colour and form, this root would appear to have been
known to the ancients, as, indeed, must have been inferred
by the Arabians, who give, as its Greek synonyme,
khaldoonion tomagha, evidently a corruption of xemSowo*

88

to ptya, but the colour of the juice alone agrees with the
description of the plant by Dioscorides.

Costus, of which three kinds are described, Arabian,
Syrian, and Indian, the produce of these several countries;
is called kust by the Arabs, with koostus assigned as the
Greek, koshta as Syriac, and kooth as the Hindee name.
By the latter I obtained two kinds in the bazars of N.
India, one called koost-tulkh and koost-hindee, Indian or
bitter Costus, and the other koost-sheeren, also koost-
buhree and Arabee, that is, Arabian or sweet Costus, this
having a fragrant odour, resembling that of iris root ; but I
was unable to trace out either the country or the plant
which produced it, though it was said to be brought into
India from Caubul and Cashmere. On comparing this
sweet Costus with the specimens of Materia Medica I col-
lected in Calcutta, I cannot distinguish it from a root well
known in the market there by the name of Puchuk. This
identity was long ago ascertained by Garcias ab Horto, as he
says, "Est ergo Costus dictus Arabibus Cost aut Case-
in Guzerate Vplot, in Malaca ubi ejus plurimus est usus,
Pucho, et inde vehitur in Sinarum regionem." — " Nascitur
circa Guzarate, inter Bengalea, Delli, et Cambaya, in
Mandou et Chitar." Clus. Exot. lib. 1. c. 35. On referring
to Maculloch's Com. Diet, and Milburn's Orient. Com.,
I find Putchook described as the " root of a plant growing
in Sinde, and imported in considerable quantities from the
north-west coast of India into China. When burned it
yields a fine smell. The Chinese beat it into a fine powder,
which they burn as incense in the temples of their gods."

Another product of India known to the ancients, and
still employed by the Chinese as an incense, is Agallochum,
Lign-aloe, or eagle-wood, pao-d'agila, and pao-cTaquila
of the Portuguese, names, no doubt, derived from the
Malayan agila, which in Sanscrit is agura, Hindee aggur,

89

but which the Arabs know by the name aod hindee.
Of this, there are two kinds ; the Indian is the produce
of Aquilaria Agallocha, Roxb. (Royle Illustr. Him. Bot.
Tab. 36. f. 1.) abundant in the forests of Silhet and Chit-
tagong, and probably extending into the Burmese terri-
tories. Calambac, or the Cochin-Chinese kind of Agallo-
chum, is that produced by Aloexyhim Agallochum of
Loureiro. Nothing can be more inapplicable to the
descriptions of Lign-aloe, than any part of the genus
Aloe, which is often referred to as yielding this fragrant
wood. The mistake Sprengel supposes may have arisen
from one of the Arabic names, alloivat or allieh, having
been converted into axow. Aloes is probably derived from
elwa, the common Hindee name for aloes (Ar. sibbur), which
is produced by Aloe vulgaris, and other species, in Africa,
India, and Arabia. It would be easier to contend, as has
sometimes been done, that the Lign-aloe of the ancients is
the Sandal-wood of India (Pers. sundul, Hind, chundun,
Sans, chandana, Tamul, shandana). The tree Santalum
album is a native of the Malabar coast,where the best is pro-
duced ; and it is possible, from the fragrant nature of the
wood, that it may have been thought a kind of Agallochum,
or Lign-aloe; but Arab authors keep distinct its description.
Ebony is a product of the Malabar coast, which has been
known from the earliest times, and its name appears of eastern
origin, as, in India it is called abnoos. It was also, and no
doubt still is, produced in Abyssinia, though we have no
recent botanical testimony on the subject; but both Maillet
and Burkhardt mention it as one of the articles brought
by the caravans into Egypt. Diospyros Ebenus yields the
best kind in the Mauritius, perhaps, also, in Madagascar :
but D. Ebenaster and D. melanowylon, the ebony-trees of
the Coromandel coast, yield it in the Peninsula, of very
good quality, as other species do in other parts of India.

90

Bdellium is another Indian product described by Dios-
corides, who gives madelcon and bolchon as other names.
This the Persian authors describe under mokl, giving
bndleeon and madikon as its Greek, and googul as its
Hindee synonymes, stating it to be produced by the
Doom Palm (Cucifera thebaica). The googul obtained in
N. India I was told was the product of a tree, which,
from its birch-like bark and other characters, I knew
to be the Amyris (now Balsamodendron) Agallocha of
Dr. Roxburgh ; which he, almost at the other extremity
of India, had also been informed was called googula.
This he describes to be a native of the districts of Silhet
and Assam, diffusing, when bruised, a grateful fragrance,
like that of the finest myrrh. This googul must be a
very different substance from the gogul described as a
species of Bitumen, used at Bombay, Bengal, &c, for
painting the bottoms of ships (Milb. Or. Com. p. 102).
The African Bdellium, probably the mokl-al-mukkee,
Bdellium mechium of Avicenna, is produced by Heudelotia
africana (Arch, de Bot. 1. p. 421), another of the Terebin-
thacece ; Avicenna describes one of the kinds, as mokl-al-
yahoodee, or Bdellium judaicum.

Olibanum, from *i@avos (Arab, looban), the thus of the
ancients, is another fragrant resin, of which both an Ara-
bian and an Indian variety are described : two kinds
continue to be known in modern as in ancient commerce.
The tree producing the first kind has not yet been ascer-
tained, but it may be a native both of Africa and Arabia
(v. Spr. in Diosc. 11. p. 376). The Indian kind, which is
called koondur, and under which name Olibanum is
described by the Arabs, has been shewn by Mr. Colebrooke
to be the produce of Boswellia serrata v. thurifera. I
have taken some off the tree, which closely, though not
exactly, resembles that of commerce, burning with a

91

highly grateful perfume. The only other Indian product
certainly made out is Lycium indicum, v. p. 32. Garcias
supposed this to be the Cate or Catechu of the present day,
but there is no proof of its having been such. It is,
however, remarkable, that Catechu is not noticed among
the substances known to the ancients ; but it may have been
confounded with some other astringent, as Acacia; or
having so long been called Terra Japonica, it may be
elsewhere described; as Indigo is among mineral sub-
stances. (Diosc. v. c. 107.)

Two substances alone of those stated to be Indian pro-
ducts, have not yet been ascertained. Of these, Nar-
caphthon, or Nascaphthon, has been supposed to be Mace;
as Cancamum, described as the exudation of an Arabian
tree, has been conjectured to be the lac (luk) dye and resin
of India. Macer, a bark from the Barbaric region, has been
thought to be Wrightia antidysenterica, supposing this
to be the macre, described by Crist. d'Acosta, of the
Brahmans on the Malabar coast, (Clus. Exot. p. 266).
Though Macer is always described as a bark, I had given
me as such the highly aromatic leaves of Rhododendron lepi-
dotum, under the name of talisfur. Mafur and mafurbooz
(the /. is easily changed into k. v. p. 32) are, in Persian
works, assigned as the Greek names of talisafar, under
which name, the Macer of Dioscorides is alluded to by
Avicenna. Amomum is another substance, which still
remains unknown, but for which the Asiatics give a sub-
stitute, if it be not the original substance. It is remark-
able, that under the name hurnama, I obtained the same
plant, composed entirely of a cluster of small leaves, which
Clusius has figured Exot. lib. 1. c. 31. p. 199. as huniama
sent him from Ormuz ; and which Sprengel has supposed
to be Forstera magellanica, brought by Sir F. Drake.
From the foregoing enumeration, in which I have con-

92

fined myself to those substances expressly mentioned as
being procured from India, we perceive how largely the
Greeks were indebted to that country for their Materia
Medica. From the tropical latitudes and climates in which
alone these substances can flourish, we may infer the early
populousness and civilisation of these countries, as well as
the extent to which ancient commerce reached, independent
of historical testimony on the subject. That the Greeks
were still more indebted to eastern nations, might also be
shewn by numerous articles, which are, and from the
dependence of vegetation on climate, must ever have been
the produce of the East. Of many of these the original
oriental names have, with slight alterations, passed into the
Greek, and been the source also of the European names
of these substances.

Without dwelling on the early employment of Galbanum,
Assafcetida, Ammoniacum, Sagapenum, and Opoponax,
the products of Persia, and therefore, indicating the antiquity
of their investigation in that country, as well as of the
nations by whom their use was adopted, there are others
of which the names prove their oriental origin ; as
kumoon, Cuminum ; kitinub, Cannabis ; kibbur, Cap-
paris ; koorkum, Crocus; koortum, Carthamus ; semsem,
Sesamum ; yasmin, Jasminum; sosun, Susinum, Diosc. 1.
c.62; nurgzis, Narcissus; hoormul, Harmala; molee, Moly;
belessan, Balsamum ; moor, Myrrha; rnim, Manna; suk-
moonia, Scammonia; pista, Pistacia; kurseea, xepaao;,
Cerasus ; burkook, Prcecocia ; the last is also called mala
armeniaca ; but this, and the names of some of the other
fruits, as mala medica and persica, point out at once the
countries whence they became known to the ancients.

Besides these, there are many others, which we know
were early employed as medicinal agents, as the Pome-
granate (Arabic roman, Greek poct(), of which the bark of

93

the root, the rind of the fruit, and both the single and
double flowers are employed in oriental, as in Greek
medicine. I do not know whether it be an accidental
circumstance, that the purgative root of Pityusa has
turpet assigned as a synonyme, as this is remarkable for its
resemblance to turbud, the root of Convolvulus Turpethum.
Many also of the Cucurbitacece, Umbelliferce, and Labiates,
are common to the Materia Medica of the East, as well as
to that of the West ; but to dwell further on these is
unnecessary.

In examining the list of articles enumerated, as imported
by the Greeks from India, there are some substances now
extremely common and extensively used there, which one
would expect to find among those first known to strangers,
as Turmeric and Catechu, already mentioned ; so also,
Turbith, Galangal, Zedoary, and Zerumbet, as well as
Sandal-wood and Areca-nut. Some of these may have
been known by other names, or confounded with other
substances. Such poisons as bish, Aconitum feroas, and
Strychnos Nux vomica, the ancients seem to have been
unacquainted with ; but some trace of them may be found
when the works of the Hindoos on poisons and their
antidotes, are compared with the oldest works on such
subjects in the literature of the West, as that of the Poet
Nicander ; for both Egypt and India were celebrated for
their poisons, as early even as the time of Theophrastus
(lib. ix. c. 15).

If it excite surprise that some of these were unknown to
the ancients, there are others, of which the absence is signi-
ficant of the extent to which commerce and navigation had
advanced, at the times when the other articles were well
known ; as, for instance, Camphor, Cloves, Nutmeg,
Mace, Benzoin, Betel-leaf, Cubebs, Croton Tiglium, Gam-
boge, &c, all of which are so remarkable in nature, that

94

we could hardly fail in recognising them, if they were
described at all like those which have been enumerated as
the produce of India or its islands. The others, being
produced only in more southern tropical islands, were
probably in those days but imperfectly, if at all known
in India : or the supply might not, in addition to their
own demands, be sufficient for export; or this might not
be desirable, when they had so many indigenous products,
suited to the wants of those who visited or traded with
the Peninsula of India.

The animals mentioned by Dioscorides not being
exclusively confined to India, do not afford the same
kind of argument that we have derived from plants ;
especially as the want of precision in the identity of the species
described, and those existing in India, as well as the
extent of distribution of the latter have not yet been
ascertained ; yet we may obtain some corroboration of the
inferences deduced from plants. Thus, though the African
Elephant may have yielded its spoils to form the ivory
of the ancients, Peacocks could have been procured from
India only. The Cantharides, described by Dioscorides,
are species of Mylabris, and M. Cichorei is that now most
commonly employed in India. The Scincus, stated to be
a native of both Egypt and India, is considered to be
Scincus officinalis ; a similar species is employed in medi-
cine in the north of India in the present day. From the
descriptions of E%i3v»i;, viperce, it may be inferred that some
of those of southern latitudes were known to the ancients.
The Asiatic kind, mentioned by Nicander and Galen, is
supposed to be Coluber cegyptius (Spreng.) Castor, the
joondbeduster of the Arabs, being called xaoTopo; by the
Greeks, it is curious to find the name kustooree applied
to the musk animal in the Himalayas, where this is
abundant, and constantly hunted for its valuable musk-

95

bag. Owk, usually translated Unguis odoratus, and Blatta
Bizantia, (the operculum of Strombus lentiginosus, but
which is less fragrant than that of Pleurotoma Babylonia
or PI. Trapezii), is described as being brought from the
nard-producing lakes. This may every where be obtained
in Northern India by the Arabic name azfar-al-teeb, though
I was unable to ascertain whence it was brought. I
am informed by Professor Wilson, that nakhi, literally
nail, is enumerated amongst perfumes in the Amera Cosha,
and that it is common in the bazars, and procurable by
that name in Bengal. Pearls are well known to have
been procured in ancient times, as now, from the Persian
Gulf and the western coast of Ceylon. Corals, sponges,
and cuttle-fish bone, may be found in the bazars of India,
as articles of Materia Medica ; as well as lapis judaicus
(Jiijr-al-yahoodee) the calcai'eous olive-shaped spine of a
fossil Echinus. Among these we should expect to find
some notice of the Lac insect, and its valuable dye and
useful resin. It was certainly known to the Arabian
authors by the name CJ$, Ink or luch. By the translators
of Avicenna, it was considered identical with the Can-
camutn of Dioscorides : but if so, it is remarkable that,
acquainted as the Arabians were with Chermes (from kirm, a
worm), no mention should be made of the remarkable
colouring property of this substance, difficult though this
may be of extraction. Dr. Bancroft states, it " was pro-
bably unknown in Europe, until after the Portuguese
had visited India, by sailing round the Cape of Good
Hope.'" Phil, of Perm. Colours, v. ii. p. 1.

If we adopt with minerals the same method as with
vegetables and animals, that is, shew from their being the
products of the country, that they were likely to have been
known to its inhabitants, and to be identical with the
substances described in their works, however ancient these

96

may be : it is necessary to premise, that we cannot always
draw the same inferences from their being used in other
latitudes, as we may do with substances produced by the
organic kingdom, because their distribution is uninfluenced
by climate. It is well known that under the equator, as
in polar regions, we may have rocks identical in composition,
as in their mineral and metallic treasures. But still some
inferences may be deduced even from them, and it is
incumbent, in contending for the original investigation
of the properties of such substances, to shew, at least, that
the Hindoos had the means within themselves, or by
communication with their immediate neighbours, of
becoming acquainted with such substances, independent
of the civilisation, or even existence, of distant nations.

Owing to the peculiarity of the soil in many places, and
the dryness of the climate in some parts of the year, many
of the salts known as mineral substances in other parts of
the world, are found in India effloresced in considerable
quantities on the surface, or may be washed out of the soil
with comparatively little labour or expense. Most have been
already mentioned, as saltpetre and nitrate of lime, car-
bonate of soda, sulphate of soda, and also of magnesia;
so also common salt on the banks of the Jumna, and
on the shores of the Samur lake. Though sal-ammoniac and
alum are manufactured, and the latter even imported from
China, native sulphate of alumine is found in considerable
quantities in Nepal, as also in Behar ; and sal-ammoniac
in Persia, near Basman, where it is called Icoh-nuoshadur,
as well as in Chinese Tartary and Khoten (J.A.S. iv.p.659.)
Carbonate of magnesia has been found in considerable quan-
tities in the Peninsula, though it has probably never been
used medicinally. Carbonate of lime is common every where,
either in the form of the calcareous concretion called kunkur,
or as limestone, both in the mountains of the Peninsula

97

and in those of the Himalayas. In the latter, it is asso-
ciated both with gypsum and with sulphate of barytes in
the neighbourhood of Mussooree. Tincana, the Sanscrit
name for borax, is no doubt the origin of the Persian
tinkar, and of the English tincal. An artificial compound,
extensively used in India as a medicine, may be men-
tioned with the above substances: this is the salt com-
monly called bitnoben or bit-loben, and black salt {kala
nimuk), which consists of muriate of soda, oxide of iron,
and some impurities. There is some difficulty in ascer-
taining the identity of all the above substances, with those
known to Dioscorides ; but it is interesting to remark,
that all those which are now produced in Egypt, are also so
in India. The ancients were no doubt acquainted with
argol and potash, impure Bitartrate and Carbonate of
Potass., as rpvl; seu Fsex vini, Diosc. v. c. 13. must have
afforded the former, and reipptx KM/*arivni, or Sarmentorum
cinis, Diosc. v. c. 134, the latter. The Sal Indus of old
authors, has, by some commentators, been thought to be
sugar, and by others to be Tabasheer ; but it has not yet
been definitively determined.

Many earthy minerals were employed by the Greeks,
and are described in the works of the Arabs ; none are,
however, stated to be the produce of India ; most, indeed,
were obtained in the Mediterranean region. Some are
found in Indian bazars, no doubt introduced in conse-
quence of the prevalent use of Persian translations of Arab
Medical works ; but the different ochres and clays do not
afford distinctive enough characters to enable us always to
recognise them by the short descriptions appended to their
names. The substance in the present day known as Red
Earth, or Indian Red, is obtained from the islands of the
Persian Gulf. Talc, introduced by this name into medicine
by the Arabians, is supposed to be the Terra Samia of the

o

98

ancients ; Mica, in plates, is given as Talc in India ; it is
mentioned in the oldest Hindoo works by the name abruk,
and is found in abundance in Central India.

Of combustible minerals, the Diamond, procured from
the mines of Panna and of Golconda, may be considered
as almost peculiar to India. Sulphur, found in Cutch, in
the Peninsula, and in Nepal, is imported also from the East-
India islands, as well as from those of the Persian Gulf.
Plumbago is found both in Ceylon and the Himalayas.
Amber, (which the Arabs call kahroba, grass attractor)
is dug up in Cutch, and in the Hukong valley on the S.E.
of Assam. Ambergrise is found on the eastern seas and
the coast of Madagascar. The Sanscrit Ambara is no doubt
the origin of both terms, though the first was early known
in Europe by other names. Asphaltum is found near the
Dead Sea : it is called by the Arabs kufr-al-yayoodee,
the translation of bitumen judaicum. Jet is procured
both in Ceylon and China. Of mineral oils, naphtha is
found in large quantities, both in Persia and near Rangoon,
in Burma. Petroleum is said to be found in Silhet.

Of metallic minerals, the abundance is great in different
parts of India, and must always have afforded the Hindoos
the means of procuring the several metals in a pure state.
Gold has been long washed out of sand, both in the Penin-
sula of India and along the foot of the Himalaya. Silver
occurs in the Malayan Peninsula, but the great portion of
both in India must have consisted of the tribute paid by all
nations, as well for its natural riches as manufacturing skill.
The ores of iron, copper, and lead, are abundant, both
in Southern and Central India ; also in the Himalayan
mountains. Indian Wootz has long been celebrated, and
Mr. Wilkinson has ingeniously shewn that the figuring of
the genuine Damascus blades depends upon the peculiar
crystallization of the Wools of Western India with which

99

they were manufactured (Journ. Royal As. Soc. No. VII.),
and which would not be seen were they made with any other
kind of steel. This proves that a trade must have existed
between Damascus and Cutch ; of which, indeed, there is"
other testimony. The best steel, in Pliny's time, came
from China, that is, most probably from India. Steel was
used in Egypt long before the Trojan war, when the
Greeks, like the Peruvians at the time of the discovery of
America, hardened their copper with an alloy of tin. A
native sulphate of iron is found in the hills of Behar.

Copper being abundant in India, enabled the Hindoos to
become acquainted with its ores, and make use of its pre-
parations, both internally and externally. Lead is procurable
in the form of galena in different parts of India, and has
been obtained from Ava in the state of a natural litharge.
The Molybdcena of the ancients is supposed by Dr. Thomson
to be litharge, as it is described to have been in scales. Tin
is one of the metals earliest known ; it was employed by
the Egyptians before the time of Moses, and is mentioned
by the name Bedel, as procured, with iron and lead, from
Tarshish. (Ezekiel, xxvii. 12). The Greeks and Romans
obtained tin (kassiteros) from the Insula? Cassiterides, or tin
islands, lying off the north coast of Spain ; hence it has
been inferred that the Scilly Isles are intended, and that tin
must always have been obtained from Spain or Cornwall.
Rut the Hindoos, like the Egyptians, have employed tin
for various purposes from- very ancient times; and though
there is no proof of its being found in the jjresent day in
tlie Peninsula of India, yet it is abundant on the opposite
coast of the Bay of Bengal, as in Burma, Tenasserim,
Junkseylon, and Malacca. There must in very ancient
times have been a trade between India and these places.
It is also found in the islands of Madagascar, of Banca,
and Sumatra. Antimony, in the form of its sulphuret,

100

was employed in remote antiquity, as in the present
day by Asiatic females for painting the eyebrows and
eyelids. It is the stimmi and stibium of the ancients,
itmud and ismud of the Arabs, commonly known in India
by the name soorma. With it, I believe, is frequently
confounded the sulphuret of lead, which, in Northern
India, is called soormee (ee is the feminine termination in
Hindee) and used as a substitute for the former : a mistake,
not of recent occurrence only, as Sprengel says, " Distin-
guit vero Plinius marem a femina.'" The sulphuret of
antimony is produced in abundance in the island of Borneo;
also, at Moulmein and in Pegu, in Persia, and in Caubul.
The ores of Zinc, calamine and blende, are produced in
the province of Yunan in China, and it is said also in the
Peninsula of India, and in Nepal. Until very recent times,
zinc or spelter, was extensively imported from China into
India. The name tutenague, by which Chinese zinc was
known in commerce, is evidently derived from the Tamul,
tatanagum. The common name, tutty, of impure oxide
of zinc, is apparently also of eastern origin ; as tiitia
(Tamul tootum) is in common use in India and Persia,
being applied to an ore of zinc imported from the latter.
The sulphate of zinc is called suffed (white) tutia ; sul-
phate of copper, neela (blue) tutia ; and sulphate of iron,
hura (green) tutia; so, in Avicenna, different kinds are
described under this name, which occurs also in Geber.
Of Arsenic, the Hindoos have been long acquainted with
the white oxide, and the sulphurets. Of these, the first, or
arsenious acid, called sanchya in Sanscrit, with Tamul,
Hindee, and Malayan names, has been known in India
from high antiquity, and imported from China ; but it is
probable, that it was also obtained artificially by the
Hindoos. Realgar, or the red sulphuret, their mansil
(Sans, manahsila), the Sandaracha of the ancients, is a

101

product both of Burma and China, while the yellow sul-
phuret or orpiment (Auripigmentum) is so much a product
of eastern countries, as to be imported into England even
in the present day by its Hindee name hartal (Sans, hartala),
being brought there from China and Sumatra : it is found
also in Caubul and in Persia. The ores of arsenic and of
mercury are, as far as hitherto ascertained, more abundantly
found in China than in India, but as both are employed
in medicine by the Hindoos, as well as by the Chinese,
the fact, I think, indicates early communication between
these nations. Chinese vermilion has long been famous ;
and, like native cinnabar from Japan, used to be imported
into Europe. The Hindoos give processes for its manu-
facture, but it is also found in Tibet and in Nepal, and,
according to Dr. Hamilton, occasionally also in Guzerat.
Some other metals might be mentioned, as found within
the limits we have been examining ; as platina in Burma,
manganese near Ajmere in Central India, and titanium
in the Peninsula ; but these not having been known as
distinct substances to the Hindoos, it is needless to dwell
longer on the subject.

As almost all the substances we have enumerated are
also found in Europe, we might, as drawing inferences
from the native countries of different substances, find it
difficult, perhaps, to prove that their properties had not first
been investigated in the West, and thence been communicated
to the East. But the metals, we have seen were known in
Egypt long before Europe was civilized, perhaps, even
inhabited. From the same substances therefore existing
both in the East and the West, we do not get any assistance
from names, as European authors mention them of course
only by their European names : yet, a few betray their
origin, and leave little doubt that some at least, were first
imported from the East. Thus, misy and sory of Dios-

102

corides, have been shewn by Rossius, as quoted by Sprengel,
to be Egyptian words, and both are supposed to be sulphu-
rets of copper ; but it is remarkable, that mis is a Fersian
name for copper, and that missy is a name frequently
applied in India to sulphate of iron, of which the common
Indian name, however, is kusees. Galen, in the prescription,
transcribed at p. 79, expressly mentions foreign misy (misyos
pcregrini in the Latin translation).

Though Dioscorides has judiciously omitted taking any
notice of the supposed medical properties of jewels and
precious stones ; yet as the majority of these are obtained
from India, and were still more so in ancient times, so
they corroborate the foregoing line of argument. They may
be briefly enumerated, to complete the list of substances
anciently used as medicines, and procured from India even
in times as remote as those of the Persian Magi.

Thus, of siliceous minerals we have great variety of
quartz crystals; amethyst, catseye, and calcedonies, as onyx,
plasma, heliotrope, cornelians, and every coloured agate;
with jaspers, in the island of Ceylon, in the rivers and
mountains, as well of Central as of Peninsular India.
Common garnets are found at great elevations in the
Himalayas, but the precious variety with pyrope, in
Ceylon and Pegu. From the former island we also have
cinnamon-stone, with tabular spar ; stilbite and heulandite
from the Vindya, or transverse central range of Indian
mountains, and Indianite with corundum from the Car-
natic. So also, Ceylon and the opposite coast of Ava and
Pegu, with the Capellen mountains, are equally famous
for those ranked as aluminous minerals. Common corun-
dum (Hind, koorun) has long been imported into Europe
from Malabar and the Carnatic, where it occurs in granite
rocks. Indeed, Dr. Thomson is of opinion, that the sand
brought from the isle of Naxos and Ethiopia, which the

103

ancients employed to facilitate the sawing of marble, was
emery and corundum. So, also, in Ceylon and Pegu, are
found the rhombohcdral corundum or sapphire (yakoot),
including the several varieties of blue or oriental sapphire
(H. nilam) ; the red or oriental ruby (H. ma?iik) ; and
the yellow or oriental topaz (H. pokhraj) ; with the oriental
emerald. The opalescent sapphire, with pearly reflections,
is called ayn-aUhireh, or cat's-eye, in some Arabian works
(Journ. As. Soc. Calc. 1. p. 353); but this must be distin-
guished from the common cat's-eye, the chatoyant variety
of quartz. It is remarkable that the Belioculus, mentioned
by Pliny, lib. 37. c. 55., is considered in the annotations
by Hardouin, to be equivalent to ceil-de-chat, and that
this should be named in India billi-ke-ankh, or cat's-eye.
In the above Arabic works, turmali (from which probably
is derived our tourmaline (Singalese tournamal. ReesCycl.),
though applied by us to a different mineral v. Princep. 1. c.)
apparently embraces both the zircon and tourmaline families,
as turmali is described as of a greenish yellow tinge,
often called zabarjad or beryl ; and specimens obtained in
Calcutta proved to be the " jargoon of Ceylon," or precious
zircon, which, when colourless, is cut and sold as a false
diamond in the bazars of India. Here is also found the
hyacinth zircon, with the topaz, chrysoberyl, and spinel
ruby: the variety Balas ruby of the latter, occurs only
near Balkh, in Badakshan. The emerald, it is supposed,
was anciently procured from Upper Egypt only: less
distinct varieties are now got from Cauganjam, in the
Peninsular district of Coimbatore. The turquoise is pro-
duced only in the mines of Ansar, near Nishapore, in
Khorasan ; and, " in Badakhan, on the Jihun (Oxus)
river, near where the Samarkand road crosses it, is
the mine of Lapis lazuli.'" (J. A. S. 1. p. 362.) The other
more common mineral substances found in the bazars

104

of India, as Serpentine, Soapstone, &c, and many
others, which are often mere varieties of one another, but
have peculiar medical properties ascribed to each, are
produced in various parts of the Primary and Trap forma-
tions of Central and Peninsular India. They will afford
ample employment to those who, acquainted with the
mineralogy of the country, and the names of the different
substances in the various languages of the East, will
endeavour to identify those said to be procured from India,
of several of which native names are given in Pliny, lib. 37;
as sacal, sandaracus, sangenon, sacon, &c. It would be
interesting to ascertain, whether Tabosheer was known to
the ancients, as it has from early times been employed in
medicine by the Hindoos. The Arabic name is derived
from Sans. Twak-kshira. The latter part of this com-
pound is evidently the same as that mentioned in p. 36, as
syr.-diudar, which Professor Wilson informs me is Sans.
khir, kshir or chir, and means milk, milky juice or extract.*
In investigating the history of any subject among ancient
nations, it is to be expected that the materials for in-
quiry will become fewer and more obscure, the higher we
ascend. To this, as is well known, there is an exception
in the accounts of India in the works of the ancients,
for we find the references frequent, and the information both
more original and correct, if we consult the works of the
Greeks who wrote prior even to the time of Pliny and Galen.

• To do justice to the above subject of identifying the mineral, vegetable,
and animal products, which were known to the Greeks and Romans,
would require much more time and means than I at present possess ; but
it is hoped that others may be induced to pursue the subject. I regret
that while these sheets are passing through the press, I have not had
access to my own MSS., which may, perhaps, form the foundation of ■
future work on the Materia Medica of the East. In the mean time, I
have been chiefly indebted for the various oriental names to the works of
Carey, Roxburgh, and Ainslie, except where the obligations are separately
acknowledged.

105

This is easily accounted for as a consequence of the increased
communication of the Greeks with Persia and India, subse-
quent to the expedition of Alexander, the voyage of Nearchus,
the reign of the Seleucidae, and the embassy of Megasthenes
and Onesicritus. In ascending, therefore, at once from
Dioscorides to Theophrastus, or at least 300 years, it
might be supposed, if we omitted taking the above facts
into consideration, that the separation between these authors
was too great to justify us in concluding that the same
names always indicated the same substances, in these
different times. To this, it may be replied, that though
there were no celebrated authors during this period who
treated expressly of the same subjects, yet there was
throughout a series of writers on medicine, as well as of
practitioners, who must have employed the same medicines ;
among which, those from the East always held a conspi-
cuous place. Thus, Celsus, Archigenes, Andromachus,
Aretaeus, Ccelius Aurelianus, Soranus, Themison, Ascle-
piades, Heraclides, Serapion, Nicander, and many others
lived during this time, and the sects of the Methodics,
Pneumatics, and Eclectics, principally flourished. Hence
it is most probable, that the knowledge of the names
and drugs was correctly transmitted downwards. We
may therefore safely infer, that the few drugs described
even by Theophrastus, are the same as those which we
find under the same names in Dioscorides : as, for instance,
the two kinds of pepper, cinnamon, cassia, cardamoms,
ebony, olibanum, costus, calamus aromaticus (xaxa^oj
tvQaiAQs), schcenanthus, amomum, spikenard, and some
others; with myrrh, crocus, carthamus, coriander, sesamum,
&c. It is interesting to find that most of the above aro-
matic substances are described by Theophrastus (lib. ix.
c. vii.), as being brought from India, with some from Arabia.
Cinnamon and Cassia, I may mention, are described with

p

106

Comacum, which has not, I believe, been hitherto ascer-
tained : but two kinds of it are described, one a fruit, and
the other employed for mixing with the most precious
ointments. This seems to me to be the substance of which
we have only in recent times acquired any correct know-
ledge, and that is, the fruit of the cinnamon plant ; and
the fatty oil expressed from it, of which there are
specimens in the College Museum of Materia Medica.

As Theophrastus treats of plants as a philosopher, and
not with respect to their medical properties, many are
necessarily omitted which must in his time have been well
known. But for this very reason, several are particularly
noticed, which are entirely overlooked by Dioscorides.
These are frequently grouped according to general view
as those which grow in mountains or in plains, wild c
cultivated, &c, as well as such as are found in Africa,
especially in Egypt ; and with reference to our purpose it
is interesting to find those enumerated which are peculiar
to India.

Among these we find Ficus indica ; and the plant, with
leaves like those of the mulberry or vine (Gossypium),
from which cloth is made, more particularly described as
a produce of the island of Tylos, now Bahrein, in the
Persian Gulf. Among the fruits also, is one remarkable
for sweetness, serving as food for the Sapientes Indi, and
of which one is enough for four men ; the plant having
long leaves, similar to ostrich feathers. Pliny, evidently
describing the same plant, informs us, that its name is
pala, though Arrian calls it tala. This there is little
doubt must be the plantain (Musa sapientum), of which
one bunch of the fruit frequently weighs many pounds ;
the long leaves also with their parallel veins at right
angles to the midrib, becoming when blown about by
the winds, divided into innumerable narrow shreds,

107

justify the comparison to the feathers of the ostrich ; and
which, according to Garcias, " Nascitur etiam in Malavar,
ubi Palan dicitur." (Clus. Exot. p. 229). The mangoe
and tamarind are, perhaps, the other fruits, alluded to in
the same chapter. The knowledge which had been attained
is also observable in the accounts of the several grains
cultivated in India ; as rice, sorghum, the different kinds
of millet, as of the vise of some of the Leguminosce and
Cucurbitacece, for food.

Myrobalans having been so frequently referred to, it is
necessary to observe, that the substances first known by
this name, are not the same as those noticed at p. 36. The
Pahavo; or fiahavos /iups^iKv of Dioscorides, translated Glans-
unguentaria, celebrated in making the most precious
ointments, is the ban of the Arabians, whence the ben-
nuts of old writers, from which oil of ben was expressed.
The seeds are those of Moringa pterygosperma, a native of
India, as also of M. aptera, which is confined to Arabia
and Egypt : the oil expressed from the seeds of both
species is described as not becoming rancid ; and being
inodorous, is still employed in the East, especially for
retaining the aroma of delicate flowers. Of the accuracy
and minuteness of the information obtained in those early
times, we have an instance in the passage of Pliny, lib. 12.
c. 18. " Onesicritus tradit in Hyrcania? convallibus ficis
similes esse arbores, qua? vocentur occhi, ex quibus defluat
mel horis matutinis duabus. 11 This plant has been supposed
by Sprengel to be Hedysarum Alhagi, now Alhagi mau-
rorum, from which the manna called toorunjbeen exudes;
but from the form of the leaf it is much more likely to
have been Calotropis procera, called ashur, or some nearly
allied species : as on these also a kind of manna is secreted
or deposited. Many other trees are mentioned, as being

108

produced in India different from those in Greece, but
which are stated to be without names.

The attention which was paid to the identification of
plants, and the country in which they were produced, may
be seen from the account given of the Ivy, which, though
refusing to grow in some parts of Syria, was found flourish-
ing in India on Mount Meru, the birth-place, according to
some accounts, of Bacchus ; this Harpalus attempted, but
unsuccessfully, to cultivate in the gardens of Babylon.
Bacchus is said also to have been the discoverer of the
apple, and some other fruits, which are now found to be
indigenous in the ramifications of Hindoo Ehoosh, where the
holy Meru of the Hindoos is by the best authorities placed.

Considering, therefore, the minuteness and nature of
the information obtained in those times, respecting even so
remote a country as India; it is not assuming too much,
or placing too great a reliance on our inferences, to con-
clude that a great portion of the substances mentioned as
the produce of that country, are exactly the same as those,
to which we now apply the names found in the early
Greek authors. But this, according to the views we have
taken, proves the still earlier investigation of their pro-
perties, and therefore the cultivation of medicine in the
countries where alone these substances are found to grow.
This will equally follow, even if it be denied that the
several substances mentioned as Indian products, have
been correctly ascertained; for there is no doubt that
many such, whether correctly or only approximately ascer-
tained, formed articles of commerce to, and were used
as medicines in, the West, even in times prior to those of
Theophrastus,

Admitting the above degree of knowledge of Indian
plants and products at the time of the last-named philo-

109

sopher, as subsequent to the Anabasis into Asia of Alex-
ander ; it might be contended that it afforded no proof of
their having been known at any earlier period, as at
that of Hippocrates, though he was anterior to Theo-
phrastus only 150 years. The Father of Medicine is
supposed to have lived 4-50 years before the Christian era;
but so little is known of his history, that among his works
are thought to be included many of those of his pupils and
successors. Sprengel was of opinion, that they embraced
altogether a period of 250 years, and that some were there-
fore subsequent to the time of Alexander, which he seems
to assign as a reason for the knowledge displayed of Indian
drugs ; but anterior even to the time of Hippocrates, some
of these were known in Egypt, through which channel it
is probable they first became known to the Greeks.

Hippocrates is stated to have studied medicine under
Herodicus, and to have embraced the philosophical hypo-
thesis of Heraclitus ; he is therefore classed among the
followers of Pythagoras ; and, like this philosopher, is
described as having spent a considerable portion of his life in
travelling in foreign countries, as Scythia, Colchis, Asia
Minor, and perhaps Egypt, chiefly for the purpose of acqui-
ring information, and studying the diversities of climate.
Adopting the excellent abstract of Dr. Bostock, it appears
that the philosophical tenets of Hippocrates were those of
Heraclitus, " whose leading doctrine was, that fire is the
prime origin of all matter, and that by the collision and pecu-
liar combination of its particles, which are in perpetual
motion, the four elements are produced. From this doctrine
Hippocrates derived his leading principles of pathology, it
lies at the foundation of all his medical hypotheses, and is
brought forward in various parts of his works ;" as " the
body itself is supposed to consist of the four elements, com-
bined in different proportions in different individuals :"" and

110

" the combination of the four elements into the four states or
qualities with which they were affected, of hot, cold, moist and
dry, gave rise to the four fluids or humours of the body ;
blood, phlegm, bile, and black bile, which originally tended
to produce the four temperaments, and which, in their turn,
contributed to the excess or defect of each of the humours."
Hence arose the pathological doctrines, which, under the
denomination of the Humoral Pathology, became the pre-
vailing opinion of all sects and of all theorists, until the
commencement of the eighteenth century. (Cycl. of Pract.
Med. 1. p. xi). Dr. Bostock has, however, justly observed,
that Hippocrates " appears to have had the sagacity to
discover the great and fundamental truth, that in medicine,
probably even more than in any other science, the basis of
all our knowledge is the accurate observation of actual
phenomena, and that the correct generalization of these
phenomena should be the sole foundation of all our reasoning. 11
In examining the modes of applying remedies by Hippo-
crates as stated by Le Clerc, and the list of his Materia
Medica, as given in the Index of Faesius, the works of
Sprengel and Dierbach, we find that he was indebted for
it to the same sources as his successors, of whom, adopting
the ascending series, we have already treated. Thus, with
a great majority of European plants, we find the products
of the Persian region, with drugs from Egypt, and spices
and aromatics from India. Since mineral and metallic
substances are mentioned chiefly for external exhibition,
his Materia Medica consisted almost entirely of vegetable
substances. These, it has been observed, from their being
simply named in prescription, it is more difficult to deter-
mine, than where we have had their nature described ; or
lind them arranged with similar products, as in the works
of Theophrastus and Dioscorides. But as there is no reason
to suppose that these authors applied the names found in

Ill

Hippocrates differently to himself, so do these, (as there is
nothing contradictory in the medical properties ascrihed
to the several suhstances), indicate, with sufficient precision,
the nature of the articles, as well as the countries whence
they were procured.

As forming parts of a general system, which was probahly
more widely diffused than is generally supposed, it may be
useful to enumerate the nature of the remedies, and the
modes of applying them, which were adopted by Hippo-
crates. Like others of his contemporaries, the Father of
Medicine appears to have been unacquainted with anatomy,
and necessarily with physiology ; but, like the Hindoos, he
was remarkable for simplicity in prescription. He " was
particular in watching the effect of external agents upon
the system, such as temperature, the influence of the
atmosphere, the effect of particular situations, the seasons,
and other analogous circumstances ;" and paid particular
attention to diet, as well as to exercise, and prescribed
baths, both general and local, as well as fumigations. He
employed evacuations of various kinds as purgatives and
emetics — " he prescribed diuretics and sudorifics ; he drew
blood both by the lancet and the scarificator ; he applied
the cupping-glasses ; he administered injections and inserted
issues ; he made very frequent use of external applications,
such as ointments, plaisters, liniments, &c.'" (v. Le Clerc
and Bostock).

Of the articles of Materia Medica, for which Hippocrates
was indebted to the Oriental or Persian region of botanists,
we have Galbanum, Ammoniacum, Sagapenum and Assa-
fcetida (if commentators are correct in considering Silphium
to be this substance), Cummin, Coriander, Safflower, Saffron,
and Scammony,with Sesamum. The pomegranate, and Viteoc
Agnus Castus, with some of the Cucurbitacece, and the
oils called Susinum and Narcissinum, are all originally

112

products of the same region, though it may be difficult to
trace the course by which they were introduced into Europe.
Ricinus communis was no doubt well known in Egypt ;
whence several other medicinal articles were procured, as
we find them severally named Egyptian ; as the so-called
thorn and nut (probably Hyper anther a apterd) ; Ethiopian
cummin (Ptychotis copticum, D.C., P. ajowan is given in
India as this kind of cummin) ; so Egyptian salt, alum,
earth, oil, and ointment, are all mentioned, as also a salt of
Thebes.

Among the strictly Indian products, we have the two kinds
of Pepper (long and round), Cardamoms and Ginger ? (as
this is probably what is called IvSikov (pap/juxxov, v. Spreng.
Hist. Rei.Herb.l. p.37) ; Cinnamon, Cassia, and Olibanum.
Ebony is also mentioned, but this, and Olibanum, may like-
wise have been procured with Myrrh from Africa. Amomum
not having yet been ascertained, need only be mentioned.
The Dolichos, mentioned by Hippocrates and Theophrastus,
as well as by later authors, is considered to be Pkaseolus vul-
garis, and to have been introduced from India in the time
of Alexander. It is not found in the plains of that country,
but is cultivated in Cashmere, whence I obtained seeds
which vegetated in the Saharunpore Botanic Garden.
Nardos, prescribed with Cinnamon and Myrrh, is probably
the same substance as that described by Dioscorides, and
therefore Nardostachys Jatamansi (v. p. 33) ; so Cyperus,
Schaenus (ex olw s)i an< l Calamus (xaXae/xos), are also enu-
merated with myrrh. The first may be the Indian variety
of Cyperus, as we have shown, p. 37, that it is still used
there as a perfume. Sjcoivo;, (Hippocr. ed. Faes. sect. v.
p. 574), mentioned also as o-xoivou av9of, sect. v. p. 665, and
exoivof cvospo;, p. 673, with aromatics, is translated Juncus
odoratus : this is considered by Sprengel to be Andropogm
Nardus, but probably, more correctly by Dierbach Andro-

113

pogon Schcenanthus. The Ka^a/io; enumerated with the
above, sect. v. p. 574, mentioned as xatetfjio; nvpt-^Mos a t
p. 651, and translated Calamus aromaticus, is thought by
Sprengel to be Acorus Calamus, v. p. 82, but is more likely
to be Andropogon Calamus Aromaticus nob., v. p. 33, or
some nearly allied species, as in later authors.

Among the saline, earthy, and metallic substances, we
likewise find a number, which we have already noticed,
as forming parts of Indian Materia Medica ; but these
it is sufficient merely to mention. Sulphur and bitu-
men, several earths and salts, as the loadstone, lime,
nitre, and red nitre, with alum of different kinds, may
have been obtained from Egypt and other parts of the
world ; together with lead, litharge, and cerusse, as
well as copper, and its oxide in the form of scales.
Iron with its oxides was also employed, as well as misy,
v. p. 102 ; together with sulphuret of arsenic, both in the
form of orpiment and of realgar.

Great as was the genius of Hippocrates, and admirably as
it was suited, from the conjunction of powers of observation
with those of generalisation, for investigating and advancing
so complicated a science as medicine ; there is no doubt
that the full development of his mental faculties was
owing in some measure to the impulse which had been
given to philosophy and science during the preceding
century, or from the time of Thales and Pythagoras.
Previous to them, medicine is described by its historians
(v. Le Clerc) as having been only an empirical art.
But after reasoning had been introduced by these philo-
sophers into the investigations respecting the phenomena
of life, the powers and functions of the human body,
and the causes and nature of disease; medicine began to
assume the semblance of a science. These philosophers appear
themselves only to have participated in the intellectual excite-

Q

114

ment which in those times pervaded all the civilized nations
of the East. For the Persian Zoroaster is thought to
have been born in the sixth century before the Christian
era, and to have flourished in the reign of Darius Hystaspes.
Confucius flourished in China in the same age, having
been born, according to the best authorities, 550 B.C.
While Buddhism, briefly characterised by Mr. Brian
Hodgson as " monastic asceticism in morals, philosophical
scepticism in religion," arose from the midst of Brahmanism
in the plains of N.W. India (B C. 635), " in an age and
country celebrated for its literature,'" where its doctrine
and discipline became fixed by means of Sanscrit, one of
the most perfect languages in the world, (Hodgson.
J.R.A.S. 2. p. 288), about the period when Nechao
and the Pharaoh Hophra of Scripture reigned in
Egypt. This was half a century previous to the very
flourishing period of the Egyptian annals; or the reign of
Ainasis, who favoured the Greeks and allowed their traders
to settle at Naucratis. It was during his reign, and about
a century anterior to Herodotus, that Pythagoras is consi-
dered to have visited Egypt : but both were perhaps 1,000
years posterior to the most brilliant era of the rule
of the Pharaohs. Subsequent to the time of Amasif,
Grecian mercenaries were employed in the civil wars of
Egypt : these afterwards settling in the country, it neces-
sarily became inundated with Greeks.

Medicine is stated, by some authors, to have originated
with the useful arts in Assyria, and by others in Egypt.
In the latter, it appears to have been carried to the greater
perfection, as may be inferred from its different branches
having been practised by separate individuals, as well as
from practitioners having been obliged to adhere to a
written code. That the Greeks were originally indebted to
this country is well known ; but on this subject I prefer

115

quoting the words of Dr. Bostock, who says, " It is gene-
rally admitted, that though Greece cultivated the arts and
sciences with so much success, yet, in the first instance,
she borrowed them from the neighbouring nations; princi-
pally, as it would appear, from Egypt, and, in some
cases, from Phoenicia. To certain individuals, who mi-
grated from these countries, the Greeks themselves were
in the habit of referring the introduction of many of the
most useful inventions ; and during a considerable space of
time, all those who were desirous of acquiring a larger share
of knowledge, either theoretical or practical, than was
possessed by their countrymen, visited Egypt, as the
great storehouse of science and learning;*" " so that in
medicine, in the Orus and Thoth of the Egyptians, we
may recognise the prototypes of the Apollo and Hermes of
the Greeks. 1 *

Thales and Pythagoras are the Grecian philosophers
who first visited Egypt. The latter, indeed, is described
from his thirst for information to have travelled for a period
of twenty-two years in Egypt, probably also Chaldaea,
and some parts of Eastern Asia. Democritus is stated
to have expended his patrimony in travelling, and to
have been attached to medicine, as well as to other sciences.
It is said, he visited Egypt, Persia, Babylonia, and India,
where, according to Le Clerc, he had " des entretiens avec
les philosophes, les geometres, les medecins, les sacri-
ficateurs, les magiciens, et les gymno-sophistes." (Hist,
de Med. p. 97). He is further described as having written
on the nature of man ; on pestilential diseases ; on pro-
gnostics ; on diet ; on the causes of disease ; on seeds,
trees, fruits, and animals; and is mentioned by Pliny as
also writing on the magical properties of plants ; but
among these, is an account of the " herbaih a?schynomonen,
quoniam approprinquante manu folia contrahunt.'" This

116

is no doubt the sensitive plant, which he could only have
seen in southern latitudes.

Earlier than these times it is needless for our purpose to
trace the history of medicine ; but it presents a perfect
blank from the Peloponnesian war to that of Troy, or for
a period of about 700 years. It is interesting only to
observe, that Podalirius and Machaon were sprung from
^Esculapius, the god of physic, who is described as being
the son of Apollo: in him we recognise not only the Orus
of the Egyptians, but also the Surya of the Hindoos, as has
been long ago (v. p. 57), remarked by Professor Wilson.

That Egypt was a highly civilized country, where
philosophy and the sciences had, at an early period,
made some progress, we might safely assume from its
having been frequented by the Greeks for the purposes
of study and information. That Lower Egypt was at a
still earlier date a populous and flourishing kingdom; we
know from the notice of it in Scripture, when visited
by Abraham, about 1920 years before the Christian era.
Memphis had at this time acquired great importance.
The " hundred gated Thebes'" is the constant theme of
Homer's praise, and must have been founded centuries
before his time (8 or 900 B.C.). Even this must be long
posterior to the peopling and civilisation of Nubia, whence
the tide of civilisation is concluded, on good grounds, to
have descended along the banks of the Nile. For." Ethi-
opia's blameless race,'" who founded the ancient Meroe,
and constructed the monuments of Nubia ; . must have
flourished at a long anterior period. Because their temples,
though similar to, are simpler than those, which, as the
result of descending and improving ages, are, and ever
have been, the wonder of ages. They were ancient also in
the times, of what we now call those of ancient history.
To have raised so many and such extensive structures,

117

Egypt must have been for many ages a thickly-peopled
country ; necessarily also, a richly-cultivated one. This
indeed we know from history, where we often find it called
" the granary of the world."

During much of this period, commercial intercourse,
no doubt, existed between India and Egypt. But it is diffi-
cult to prove this, to the satisfaction of those, who do not
allow the existence of eastern products in western markets
to be sufficient evidence of the fact ; or who deny that the
substances mentioned in ancient writings, are identical
with those to which we now apply the same names. The
subject, however, has been so fully investigated and amply
proved in the pages of Robertson and Vincent, as well as in
those of the philosophical Heeren ; that we have only to
refer to their works, or make use of the materials which
they have collected; to be assured that many of the sub-
stances we have found described in the oldest works on Ma-
teria Medica, constituted objects of a still more ancient
commerce.

In examining the articles of this commerce, and the
routes by which they reached the nations most distant from
the countries where they were produced ; it is difficult to
determine where it is preferable to commence. But as some
portion of the Persian empire, is generally supposed to
have been the earliest peopled ; and as the Hindoos point
to the north as the direction whence they entered their
present country, it will be preferable to trace the connexion
between India and Persia, and between these and Babylon :
the city of which there is the earliest historical and com-
mercial record.

The early communications with India, as has been
clearly shown by Heeren, were, as in the present day, both
by land and by sea. The former is conceived to have

118

taken place by Attock. We may picture to ourselves,
caravans loaded with its natural and manufactured trea-
sures, as proceeding from N.W. India, crossing the Indus at
Attock, and proceeding along Caubul ; where they were joined
by the merchants from the mouths and from along the west-
ern bank of that river. From beyond Caubul, a branch
turned, as in the modern day, towards the flourishing
Bokhara, Samarcand, and Balkh, " the mother of cities."
The main route continued west, though sometimes
taking: a circuitous direction to avoid deserts, or for the
purpose of visiting flourishing districts; and passed near
the modern Candahar, Herat, and through the Caspian
Straits (Pylas Caspise) to Ecbatana, the modern Hamadan.
From this the caravans might either diverge southwards to
Susa ; or, crossing the long but direct communication,
between this the capital, and the distant Sardis in Asia
Minor, reach Babylon by continuing a nearly western
course.

Babylon, even in the earliest times of which we have
any notice, is mentioned as a populous and civilized city.
Heeren has shown how admirably its position, at the head
of the Persian Gulf, suited it, like so many other succeeding
cities, for benefiting by the Indian trade. Communicating
on the south by the Indian ocean with Arabia and India ;
and having the Euphrates extending to the north ; by
which it might hold intercourse with the nations between
the Black and Caspian Seas on the one hand ; and on
the other with those on the shores of the Mediterranean.
From Babylon, the merchant might thus proceed up the
Euphrates or along its banks, into Armenia, or only as
far as Circesium or Thapsacus ; diverging from the latter
into Syria; or from the former to the Phoenician colonies,
by Palmyra in the Desert and Balbec in Coclosyria.

119

These were cities said to have been founded by Solomon
for the encouragement of this very traffic, of which the
former extent is attested by their present ruins.

From Ccelosyria, the road led through Palestine into
Lower Egypt. But both Palestine and Lower Egypt were
probably more easily reached, by the caravans, led by
nomad Arabian and Syrian tribes, from Gerria (a colony of
Babylonians on the Persian Gulf) across the desert to the
ancientPetra. Or,by that, which departing from Hadramaut
and Saba, in Yemen, proceeded along the eastern coast of
the Red Sea through Old Mecca and Leucocome, to the
same Petra in Edom. This was one of the sites of commerce
in the time of Alexander, probably also long before ; its
lately visited magnificent ruins, attest its former riches and
flourishing state. To complete the course of the land
communication, it may be stated, according to Heeren, that
there was constant intercourse from Memphis to Thebes
in UpperEgypt, and from that toMeroe in Ethiopia. These
were all great marts and entrepots for ancient commerce,
and indebted to it alone, for their splendour and magnificence.
Meroe communicated on the east through Axum with Saba
and Adule on the western coast of the Arabian Gulf;
while through Thebes, the caravans passed much further to
the westward, as through Ammonium and Cyrene, even to
Carthage and the interior of Africa.

Though it might be thought difficult, to bring proofs of
all these routes, having been frequented in ancient times ;
nothing can be more satisfactory than the ingenuity with
which Heeren has adduced passages from ancient authors,
to explain the course of this commerce: which he
considers also as a reason for the founding of so many
flourishing cities in the midst of deserts. These we know
have gone to ruin, chiefly since the Indian trade has
taken flight from the Red Sea and Euphrates, to round

120

the Cape of Good Hope. One quotation will be suffi-
cient to prove that the products of the East reached
Egypt by land-carriage in very remote antiquity. " In
the 37th chapter of Genesis, it is related that the
brethren of Joseph, when about to leave him to perish,
saw a company of Ishmaelites, ' or Midianite merchants
approach, to whom they resolved to sell their brother as
a slave. Here Dr. Vincent well remarks : " upon opening
the oldest history in the world, we find the Ishmaelites
from Gilead conducting: a caravan of camels loaded with
the spices of India, the balsam and myrrh of Hadramaut,
and in the regular course of their traffic, proceeding
to Egypt for a market. The date of this transaction
is more than seventeen centuries prior to the Christian
era ; and notwithstanding its antiquity, it has all the
genuine features of a caravan crossing the desert at the
present hour. (Prelim. Disq. to Transl. of Arrian's Periplus
of the Erythraean Sea).

Some of the above routes terminating on the sea-coast,
and at places formerly considered to produce articles, which
we now know could only be obtained from India; clearly indi-
cate that they must themselves have had communication by
sea with that country. Of this, we have, unfortunately,
but few accounts in early times ; but how little do we know
even now of what is very extensive; that is, the commercial
relations of the Arabians with Africa and India. It has
been observed by Dr. Vincent, that though there was
extensive communication between Egypt and India, yet
that neither the Hindoos nor the Egyptians were navigators
enough to leave, though they made much use of, their own
■nagnificent rivers. The Chinese seem to have been confined
to their own seas and the East-India islands, and the
Malays to between these and the coasts of the Continent of
India; so that the carrying trade between India and Egypt

121

must have been in the hands either of the Arabians or
Phoenicians ; and, according to the testimony of authors,
appears to have been participated in by both. But it is
not improbable that the Indians of Sinde may also have
been among the early navigators, particularly as India not
only afforded timber for the construction of ships ; but its
most ancient laws indicate an increased rate of interest for
commercial adventures at sea.

The Phoenicians, however, are known to history as the
great navigators of antiquity; who spread their colonies
along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and carried their
trade even to the shores of England and the north of
Europe. Sidon is one of the most ancient cities of which
we have any record, and it is supposed may have been
founded as early as 2740 B.C. Sidon and Tyre were
leagued together in the time of Moses. Their most brilliant
period was from the time of David to that of Cyrus, or
from 1000 to 550 B.C. The Phoenicians, though they had
an establishment at Memphis, do not seem to have traded
directly by sea with Egypt until the time of Amasis, when
the ports were opened to strangers. But they were such
skilful seamen, that they were employed in the reign of
Necho in circumnavigating Africa. They were not freely
admitted to the Red Sea, for the ports there were in the
hands of the Edomites. But when the limits of Judea
were extended thus far by King David ; the Hebrews
engaged in a maritime commerce with the Phoenicians;
and their ships proceeded with those of Hiram, King
of Tyre, from Elath and Eziongaber, at the head of
the eastern gulf of the Red Sea, to Ophir and Tarshish.

As this participation in the Indian trade of the Red
Sea, could not be continued after the Edomites had recon-
quered Elath and Eziongaber ; the Phoenicians might be
supposed to have enjoyed its advantages by sea for a com-
paratively short time. But Heeren has clearly shown, that

long before the Persians had made themselves masters of
Babylon, that is, B.C. 561 ; the Phoenicians had establish-
ments for the pearl fishery and the Indian trade, on the isles
of Tylos and Aradus, the modern Bahrein in the Persian
gulf. The former existence of these is attested by the
remains of their temples, and the prevalence of so many
Phoenician names of places in the Persian gulf; as Aradus,
Sidodona, and Szur or Tur near Cape Macate, mentioned
by Nearchus as an entrepot for Indian produce. From
these Phoenician colonies, the Gerrians, (whose city is
described as rich and populous), probably obtained Indian
produce to despatch by caravans across the desert to Petra,
or by water to Babylon. The vessels of the Persian gulf
are considered by Heeren to have proceeded to Crocala,
now Curachee at the mouth of the Indus, and Barygaza,
now Baroach in the gulf of Cambay, and from thence even
to the coast of Malabar and the island of Ceylon. As the
Bahrein islands are supposed to be the Dedan of Scripture,
so the passages in Ezekiel, xxvii. 19, 24, and xxxviii. 13,
and of Isaiah, xxi. 13, 15, must be considered as applying
to these voyages, (v. Heeren, On the Commerce of the
Phoenicians and Babylonians).

But the Phoenicians did not enjoy the exclusive advan-
tages of the maritime trade with India. For the Arabs also
were great navigators; and always carried on an active com-
merce with the opposite coast of the Red Sea. Mr. Wilkinson
considers that Old Kosayar was built as early as B.C. 1686
for the trade with Arabia ; the other Egyptian ports along
the same coast, as the Old Berenice, Adule, and Saba, were
also frequented by the Arabs. The commerce between Meroe
in Ethiopia, and Hadramaut and Yemen, especially from
Adule to Aden, was, even, seven and eight centuries before
the Christian era, in the most flourishing state. The
communication from these to India, was much easier than
can be conceived by those, accustomed only to the storms

123

and uncertainties of northern seas ; for there the monsoons
blow with steadiness and regularity from autumn to spring
from India to Africa, and from spring to autumn from
Africa towards India. Thus wafted to its shores, there
would be no difficulty in sailing along the pepper-vielding
coast of Malabar, or to the cinnamon-producing Ceylon,
which we know was the centre of an extensive commerce
in later times. Even so early as the commencement of
the Christian era, Pliny relates that an embassy was sent
to the Emperor Claudius, who stated that the Cingalese
traded as far as Serica ; the Greeks had obtained very
accurate accounts respecting this island in the time of the
Seleucidas; and extensive ruins of Hindoo-built temples
remain in Java to attest its former connexion with India.

This active and extensive communication, both by land
and sea in ancient times, indicates a great demand for the
products of the country, which seems always to have
been its ultimate object. Eut these were not to be
obtained, without bringing materials for exchange, or gold
and silver for purchase: since these valuable metals, though
not wanting, were probably, at all times, more deficient
than other substances, within the limits of the Indian terri-
tory. Thus the caravans obtained, in exchange for the
products of India, those which were peculiar to the coun-
tries they visited; and which were of value, if not in India,
at least in some part of the widely-spread regions, through
which they passed. Thus, in Bactria and the Northern
India of Herodotus and Ctesias, the modern Tartary and
Tibet, they obtained gold and gold dust, probably also
copper, lead, cinnabar, and tincal ; still found in those
regions. Furs may have been obtained from Siberia.
Cattle appear to have been as numerous, and their wool as
valuable, in ancient as in modern times. The woollen
cloths, mentioned as so highly esteemed, were probably
shawls from the wool of the Tibetan goat. The climate,

124

though bleak, is abundantly supplied with grasses and
leguminous plants, in the seasons when alone the country
was visited by nomad tribes. The Silphium also is found
in these regions ; this may be either the Assafcetida plant,
or the Prangos of Mr. Moorcroft, both belonging to the
natural family of Umbelliferce, and both fed on by
cattle even in the present day. The country continues
to be celebrated for its large dogs, which were formerly
esteemed in Persia. Ctesias also mentions, that these
Indians possess an insect, which affords a red colour found
with electrum (resin ?) on trees. From this it would
appear, that the lac insect and resin were known, even in
those early times. But there seems to be some confusion
as to the country whence they were procured ; for we cannot
suppose that the same insect is found in the hottest parts of
India, and the cold arid table land of Tartary. This
mistake has perhaps arisen from their being, as we learn
from Lieut. Burnes's Travels, a species of cochineal, found
(like the scarlet-grain of Poland) on the roots of a plant,
which flourishes in the marshes of Herat.

Persia, taken in the most extended sense, is celebrated
both for salt deserts and fertile vales, hot plains and cool
mountains. Hence it is possessed of a variety of grains,
as well as of excellent fruits, with highly-valued gum-
resins. The vine is well suited to the climate, as is the
mulberry for the silk-worm, and the plains of Media for
the Medica herba (clover), found also in Caubul. It was
rich in metallic treasures, and still yields a great variety of
useful products. Thus, its horses have long been celebrated ;
its long-tailed sheep yield a wool useful for some of their
manufactures, as, for the carpets called Turkey, from
their place of export to Europe; the goats of Kerman also
yield a valuable wool. Copper is abundant in many parts
of Persia, as in Muzanderan and Kerman. There were also
mines of iron and of silver, which are now neglected. Still

125

further north the metals were and are abundant in Cau-
casus, whence silver used to be obtained, as well as some
gold. Maden, in the heart of Taurus, is celebrated for
its mines ; and is said to yield excellent copper, as well as
some iron, silver, and gold. Copper and iron were known
to the Masagetae in the time of Herodotus. Xenophon
mentions the numerous copper utensils among the Cadusii;
and the Chalybi were early celebrated for their iron and
steel. The saphire, found in Persia, is probably Lapis
lazuli, which, as well as the turquoise, we have seen (p. 103),
is abundant in Persia. The Vasa murrhina, said to have
been made in Caramania, are considered by Dr. Thomson
to have been formed of fluor spar.

Babylon, which, though long anterior to, may be consi-
dered as a portion of this empire ; it owed its riches chiefly
to its being an entrepot for this extensive commerce.
Without any trees but the cypress and the date, of which
the fruit afforded food and its sap might be fermented
into wine; the country was fertile only from the attention
paid to irrigation in this warm climate. Its soil afforded clay
for bricks, and calcareous concretions, as well as bitumen, for
mortar. Cotton was cultivated in the island of Tylos,
probably also in the neighbourhood of the capital ;
where it was no doubt weaved into cloth, and dyed of a
variety of colours, constituting, according to some, the
sindon of the ancients. Silk is likewise thought to have
been weaved into cloth, and dyed of different colours.
The Babylonians were likewise celebrated for the manufac-
ture of scents, carved ornaments, and seal stones. Tylos
furnished them also with timber and pearls.

The Phoenicians were indebted for their riches, to their
commerce, which consisted chiefly of exchanges, and but little
to the variety or extent of the products of their small terri-
tory. Manufacturing skill, however, enabled them to produce
some articles, which were in the highest estimation ; as the

126

cloth of Sidon, and the purple of Tyre: with this were
dyed both cotton, linen, and woollen cloths, as well as
those of silk, according to some authorities. In addition
to these, they manufactured glass, and made ornaments of
various kinds. From Syria and Palestine they drew their
corn, oil, and wine, as well as the wool of the desert.
Their colonies along the Mediterranean yielded them the
products of Africa, and of the south of Europe. Malta is
said, to have grown and manufactured cottons : Elba
afforded them iron. Spain contained their most distant, and
at the same time most valuable settlements ; itself yielding
almost every thing that was peculiar to the others. Its
warm climate in southern, and its cool in northern latitudes,
enabled it to grow the grains and fruits of both tropical
and European regions, and for these it has always been
celebrated ; also for its riches in oil and wine, r.nd like all
dry cool countries, for the fineness of its wool. Its mines
yielded both tin and lead, also some gold and especially
silver ; the mines of the latter in the Sierra Morena were
formerly rich and highly celebrated. The Phoenician com-
merce, however, extended beyond Spain : it reached even
the Scilly Isles for tin and also lead, as well as the coast
of Samland, in Prussia, for amber.

The foregoing enumeration, following only the course
of what may be called the northern route, it remains to
notice that, which embraced the more southern countries
of the ancient world. This includes Egypt and India, with
Arabia placed between them and forming a real entrepot,
both by position and by the Arabs having been the carriers
of the produce of the far-famed East : as their countrymen
in later times, served to transmit the sciences both of the
West and of the East from ancient to modern times. Their
country early acquired credit for abounding in spices,
aromatics, and the most fragrant essences. Though Arabia
possesses the horse, and the camel, emphatically called " the

127

ship of the desert," enabling the Arabs to form caravans
across their deserts; the country, examined by modern
naturalists, as Niebuhr and Forskal, yields few products
to justify the ancient commendations. Balsamodendron
gi/eadense, the Balsam of Gilead-tree, like the Date Palm,
was indigenous. Coffee was probably unknown, and Senna,
as far as we know, unnoticed. Olibanum (looban, near
Hadramaut. Niebuhr), Myrrh, and Aloes, may- have been
produced within its limits; but the largest quantities of both
are now imported, chiefly into Aden, from the opposite coast
of Africa. The Saumalees bringing down to the coast, from
Cape Gardafui to near Bab-al-Mandel, Gum, Olibanum,
and Myrrh, with other drugs, as well as Gold and Ivory,
like the Macrobians of old. (Heeren.) Among the culti-
vated and wild, useful and ornamental plants, in the lists
furnished by Forskal, we see no others which could have
called forth encomiums, or become articles of commerce.
Among them, we even find some American plants, as To-
bacco, the Papaya, Anona, and others. Many of the fruits
belonging to the family of Rosacece were probably intro-
duced from Persia ; and others, no doubt, from India, as the
Tamarind (tumr-hindee, Indian date), Orange and Lemon,
Mangoe (erroneously translated Mangostien in many works),
the Plantain, Cocoa-Betel-nut and Fan Palms. Among the
Odores, we have even Rue and Wormwood; with them also the
Eeura, which is, indeed, noted as affording one of the most
frao-rant essences. But this is the Pandanus odoratissimus, a
truly Indian plant, often alluded to by Hindoo poets,* and
havino- Indian names (Sans. Ketukee, Hind. Ketgi and
Keura), the evident originals of that by which alone it is

• Through the air,
The slowly rising hreezes spread around
The grateful fragrance of the Ketahi.

Wilson, Hindoo Theatre, II. p. 8>.

128

known. The Ginger, Zedoary? {Curcuma rotunda) Ricinus,
Sesamum, Cotton and Sugar-cane, are equally Indian. Sag*
Jbnoos, and Shishum, that is, Teak,* Ebony, and Sissoo
(Dalbergia Sissoo), are expressly mentioned as woods
brought from India, (v. Forskal. Flora yEgypto — Arab,
p. xcvi.) From identity in latitude, and similarity in climate,
with some parts of India, there is no doubt also a resem-
blance in the Botany of the coast of Arabia, in the families
of CucurbitacecB, Leguminosce, and Graminece, as also in
some others : but there is a total absence of a great pro-
portion of the substances, which were thought by the
ancients to be produced in Arabia.

Egypt is well known as having always been fruitful in
corn, and famous for its manufacture of linen cloth ; which
must have formed its principal articles of export to Arabia,
Phoenicia, and Abyssinia. It has also been famed for
its emeralds, sometimes confounded with simple fluor spar.
Gold was early extracted from its mines, as well as received,
with ebony and ivory, in tribute from Ethiopia. Silver
was less common. Recently both copper and iron mines
have been discovered in the hills between Egvpt and the
Red Sea, but lead only in the neighbourhood of Mount
Sinai. Tin has nowhere been found. Besides emeralds,
the topaz, amethyst, lapis-lazuli, and alabaster, as well as
sulphur and petroleum, have been found in Egypt or the
islands of the Red Sea.

Among the vegetable products of Egypt, we find variety
as well as abundance for the support of its numerous popu-
lation; with two annual crops, dependent on irrigation

* Some of the Persian authors consider Saj to he the Sal, Shorea robusta,
also a valuable and much-used timber-tree; but as the Teak is the best
known, and most highly valued timber-tree on the Malabar coast ; and as
the Saj is described, in the same Persian works translated from the Arabic,
as having large leaves like elephant's ears : it is evident to those acquainted
with both trees, that this can apply only to those of Tectona yrandis.

129

and on the overflowing of the Nile. The separate sub-
stances are almost all the same as those cultivated in
India; of Mr. Wilkinson's list, the Clover, Lupin, and
Dyer's Madder, are the only plants which are not so.
The roots and seeds of three kinds of Lotus {Nelum-
binm speciosum and two Nymphceas) also afforded them
food. The Vine extensively cultivated, yielded wine ; and
the Olive, oil ; the Date- Palm, both food and an article
of export to the Arabs and Africans. The Peach was
probably introduced from Persia. The plant called Persea,
has been supposed by different botanists to be either Bala-
nites cegyptiaca, or Cordia Myxa, both of which are
Indian plants; the former is also common in the deserts
of Egypt : but neither appears to me to agree with the
descriptions of the fruit of Persea. The Cotton, though
introduced in later, does not seem to have been known
in the early times of Egypt ; for it is never found in
their tombs, the cloths investing mummies having been
ascertained, by microscopic observation, to be invariably
linen. But among the substances the produce of Egypt,
as among those of Arabia, we do not find either spices or
aromatics, or even perfumes. The flowers of Egyptian
plants are, indeed, expressly mentioned as being without
scent. Neither do we find any of the substances which
they required for their sacrifices, or for the purposes of
embalming ; these, therefore, they must have procured by
commerce with a distant, though still the nearest country,
India and its pendent Ceylon.

From the absence, therefore, of such substances from
the soil of Egypt, and their presence in the arts and reli-
gious ceremonies of its inhabitants ; we might, independent
of other testimony, deduce a commercial connexion with
countries however distant, which were alone capable of
supplying such articles. Hence we should be led to infer

130

an intercourse between Ancient Egypt and the probably
equally Ancient India. This is authenticated by the
presence of Indian plants in the former : thus, the Cotton,
which is truly such, though absent in the earliest, was no
doubt known in later times, as some of the seeds have been
found by Rosselini in one of the tombs at Thebes. So also,
Nelumbium speciosum, the far-famed Lotus; though it has
now disappeared from, was formerly as highly esteemed in
Egypt, as it has ever been in its native country, India:
where still prevails the practice of sowing its seeds by
rolling them up in a ball of clay, as is described to have
been the usage in Egypt. Its roots, stalks, and seeds, as
well as those of species of Nymphcea, afford articles of diet
to the Hindoos of the present day, as they did to the
Egyptians of old. Other plants might be similarly adduced,
as well as the absence of those, of which the products appear
to have been in use in Egypt. " On reconna.it meme, a ce
que nous assure Denon, des bois de Y Inde dans les
sieges et autres meubles." Heeren vi. p. 158. Fr. ed. So
Rosselini informs us, that there is an Egyptian harp at
Florence, of which the wood is what is commonly called
East-Indian mahogany. (Athenaeum, 22d July, 1837).
This may be Cedrela Toona, or some of the woods men-
tioned at p. 128, as imported even in our own day from
India into Arabia.

It may, in addition, be useful, to note some other points
in which there is a similarity between the two nations.
Thus the arts practised by both, are very similar, not only
in nature, but also in many of the processes which they
adopt. Agriculture, with the modes of irrigation, is one
of these ; but being dependent in a great measure upon
climate, may appear less striking. Weaving, Embroi-
dering, Dyeing, Glass-making, and Working in Metals,
seem to have been commonly practised in both. Flax, or

131

linen was, no doubt, a very early manufacture in Egypt,
but the representations on their temples of the transparent
fabrics, emphatically called " woven air," forcibly recal to
mind the finest muslins of India. Dr. Thomson (Hist, of
Chemistry) has adduced the remarkable passage of
Pliny, lib. xxxv. c. 11, to show that the Egyptians were
acquainted with a process very similar to Calico-printing,
an art which the Hindoos have practised from time imme-
morial.

Architecture, however, is the art which has most gene-
rally been acknowledged, and naturally so, from its con-
spicuous nature, to be that in which the resemblance is
most striking. The peculiar style, and the colossal dimen-
sions of the cave-built temples of Upper Egypt, bear so
strong a resemblance to those of Elephanta, Salsette,
and Ellora, in Western and Peninsular India; as" to have
induced many authors to ascribe a common origin to
nations, which, in the earliest ages, and at such distances
from each other, produced such similar structures. The
very same mode of quarrying great blocks of stone by
means of fire, and apparently the same mode of polishing
the hardest rocks, was practised by the one, as it now is by
the other. So similar is some of the architecture of the two
countries, that the recent work on " Egyptian Antiquities, 1 '
has a special chapter on Indian temples. This similarity is
also seen in the peculiar mode of making arches, common to
the two countries,* and likewise in the varied design and

* In the observations on the old Temple of Vishvesliwur, in Prinsep's
Views of Benares, it is stated that the domes of Hindoo temples, built
after ancient models, are not formed on the principle of the arch, but by
successive protrusion of the courses of stone, and by cutting off the angles
laterally, so as to change the square into a polygon, and thence gradually
into a circle. The same may, I think, be seen in the ancient Hindoo temple
in the fort of Adjighur, as well as, I believe, in the fort of Kallinjer, where
gigantic sculpture and cave-built temples on a small scale are also conspicuous.
So " we find in Egypt, ancient arches of stone, constructed, not as ours,

with

ornaments of different pillars in the same colonnade.* The
resemblance, in the colossal sculpture and general appear-
ance of the deities in the two countries, has also been
frequently remarked. So striking was it to the Hindoo
soldiers, who accompanied the expedition from India,
that, scrupulous as they usually are, they did not hesitate
to perform their devotions in the temples of Egypt, on
recognising the characteristics of their own places of wor-
ship. (Heeren. vi. p. 186. French edit.) The Sphinx is also
found in India as in Egypt, (v. Eg. Antiq. 1. p. 125.)
So also, at Naga, in the desert of Upper Nubia, south of
Meroe, and to the east of the Nile : on one of the most
ancient monuments, the god Amnion is seen in one place
with the lion's head and ram's horns ; and in another,
with two heads and four arms ; which Heeren remarks,
is the only representation he is acquainted with in Egypt,
which reminds us of Indian combinations. (Heeren. v. 133.
Eg. Antiq. 1.171.)

If we have hitherto drawn an argument from the pre-
valence in these two countries of similar arts ; we may also
draw an inference from the absence in both of others,

with a key-stone, but by placing the stones in horizontal layers, in such
positions and proportions, that the parts which are over a gateway or
entrance, are in no danger of falling in ; the upper and irregular stones of
the doorway are then chiselled into a circular curve, which has all the
appearance of an arch without really being one." (Eg. Antiq. 1, p. 209.)
Crude brick arches were, however, in use in Egypt about 1540 B.C. (v. Wil-
kinson's Thebes, p. 510.) " But Strabo and Herodotus agree in saying, that
the Indian caverns or excavations were justly presumed to be more ancient
than the temples of Egypt." (Hoskings on Architecture. Encyc. Britt.
7th Ed.)

* These may be distinctly seen in the ancient Hindoo colonnade, near the
foot of the Kootub Minar, near Delhi. The Mahomedans, instead of
mutilating the columns, fortunately only concealed the numerous carved
figures and rich decorations, with plaster. This was carefully picked out
by Lieut.-Colonel Smith of the Bengal engineers, when employed by the
Indian Government in repairing the Kootub Minar.

133

especially that of coining money ; which seems to have been
unknown in Egypt, as it was in India until after the
reign of the Seleucidae. The earliest Egyptian money is
described as having been in rings, which were weighed
when used as instruments of exchange.

In addition to the arts, we may adduce some of the
sciences as equally cultivated both by the Egyptians and
by the Indians ; though the former are not supposed ever
to have attained the same degree of proficiency as the latter.
Thus, Geometry, in some degree Astronomy, which after-
wards degenerated into Astrology, Music, and Medicine,
were all cultivated by the Egyptians. Their medicine is
said by some to have consisted only in the practice of
magical arts ; notwithstanding that the Greeks adopted
many of their more efficient remedies. The degree of pro-
ficiency attained by them in each of the above sciences, is
not easy, if at all possible for us now to ascertain.

Besides the above arts and sciences, and perhaps still
better calculated to show the resemblance between the
ancient Egyptians and the present Hindoos; is the physiog-
nomy, dress, and the representation of the different arts
as practised by the former, and figured on their monu-
ments. So great, indeed, is this resemblance, that it is
hardly exaggeration to say, that they might be introduced
into a book of modern travels, as representations of Hindoo
artisans. As geologists from observation of recent phe-
nomena, infer what must have occurred in the primeval
ages of the world, so might we from investigating the
processes of the arts as at present practised by the Hindoos;
better understand the hints and descriptions in ancient
authors, as well as the representations on ancient monu-
ments, of those practised by the Egyptians. Their division,
moreover, into castes, especially into the military and priest-
hood, as well as the similarity in their divinities (v. Sir Wm.

134

Jones on the Gods of Italy, Greece, and India), their
religious belief, and that in the metempsychosis, are all
points of coincidence, which we cannot believe to be acci-
dental.

That it was not so, we know from the relations of ancient
historians; Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, as quoted by
Heeren, state that the Pharaohs were conquerors, as well
in Ethiopia as in Bactria and India. Xenophon, in the
Cyropasdia, mentions alliances between the people and
states, from the banks of the Nile to those of the Oxus,
Indus, and Ganges. The paintings on the monuments of
Thebes are considered to refer to wars in Assyria, Bactria,
and India : as, Indians, and also Asiatic Ethiopians, or at
least some southern Asiatic nation, are depicted on the palace
of Osymandyas and at Medinet-Abou. The great river or
sea, which is always introduced, is supposed to be the
Euphrates : it may be the Indus, or the gulf of Persia,
or perhaps some part of the Indian ocean, as Sesostris is
described as having conquered some Indian islands (v.
Heeren. vi. p. 235-317). That Indians were sometimes the
aggressors is apparent from a quotation made by Heeren
from Syncellus, p. 120. ed Venet. which he translates,
" iEthiopes, ab Indo fluvio profecti, supra jEgyptum
sedem sibi eligerunt," stating that as this was during the
most brilliant period of Thebes, in the reign of Amenophis
the Memnon of the 18th dynasty, B.C. 1430, they could
not have given origin to the people, nor to their civi-
lization. Sir Wm. Jones on the contrary mentions, that
he is " strongly inclined to believe that Egyptian priests
have actually come from the Nile to the Ganga and Yamuna
(Ganges and Jumna), which the Brahmans most assuredly
would never have left. They might, indeed, have come
either to be instructed or to instruct ; but it seems more
probable that they visited the Sarmans of India, as the

135

sages of Greece visited them, rather to acquire, than to
impart, knowledge : nor is it likely that the self-sufficient
Brahmans would have received them as their preceptors."
(' Jones On the Gods of Greece, India, &c.')

Considering, that the resemblance between the Indians
and Egyptians extends to so many points, it will be useful to
indicate a few dates in the history of the latter, for the
purpose of future comparison. The commercial intercourse
between the two countries is well known to have been
most active, subsequent to the reign of the Ptolemies ; espe-
cially after Alexandria had been founded expressly for its
encouragement. Previous to this, Egypt had been
conquered by the Persian Cambyses, B.C. 525, and by the
Kings of Meroe about 800 B.C. ; from which to about
700 B.C. is considered the most flourishing period of the
Ethiopian, but from the former to B.C. 1600, that of
the Egyptian kingdom. This was during the reign of
the 18th to the 23d dynasty of Diospolitans from Thebes,
or that of the Sesostridae, of whom Rameses the Great,
the Sesostris of Herodotus, was the most distinguished.
During this period the principal edifices are supposed
to have been erected, and the Israelites to have departed
from Egypt B.C. 1491, or 430 years after the arrival of
Abraham. The Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, who conquered
and held possession of Lower Egypt from about 1800 to
16*00 B.C., are supposed, by some authors, to have been
an Arabian, and by others a still more eastern Asiatic
(the Pali) race.

India seems, in the remotest antiquity, to have been famed
for the variety and richness of its peculiar products ; nothing,
indeed, can be so strong a proof of their value, or of the
great antiquity of the people, than finding even when the
position of the country was unknown, that its products were
familiar to, and desired by, all the most ancient and civi-

136

lized nations of antiquity. These must have sought for
them in their native countries; because we never hear of
Hindoos travelling, either for information or for commerce,
beyond the precincts of their own territory. There was
little indeed to tempt them beyond, having every thing
within their own limits; whether food, raiment, or the
means of cultivating the different arts ; with a fruitful soil
and favourable climate, for the development of the physical
and mental resources of a resident people.

The earliest known products of India have been so
frequently mentioned, that we need not again recur to
those which were known to the Greeks ; except to repeat
that their nature indicates the southern latitudes from
which they were brought. That these were the shores of
the Indian Peninsula, we may infer from their being the
nearest tropical country where such products could be
grown ; Africa being then, as now, equally inaccessible
both by land and by sea. India, therefore, independent
of all other evidence, was, most probably, the ultimate
object of the long journeys and voyages of antiquity. The
occurrence of these we might indeed consider proved, by
finding the products of the east and south, well known to
and esteemed in the west, even though we were unable to
trace the routes by which they reached their destination.

The fertility of the Indian soil, and the variety of its
products, afforded not only ease and abundance to its inha-
bitants, but also leisure for other pursuits than that of
procuring food. The north-western provinces, or those along
the banks of the Ganges, were early seats of the highest
civilization, and they enjoy particular advantages of climate.
From October to March they are able to cultivate wheat
and barley, with the pulses of Europe; and with equal
success, in the rainy season, or from the middle of June to
the end of September, rice, sorghum, and other tropical

137

grains and pulses. Even in the hottest season, or from
April to June, the Cucurbitacece, and some vegetables,
may be cultivated by means of irrigation. The great
variety of fruits also, as the plantain, jack, mangoe, with
the several fecula-yielding roots, would serve not only as
luxuries, but also as food.

The cotton, an indigenous and peculiar product, afforded
clothing for its inhabitants. Silk, there is reason to
suppose (v. Sir W. Jones), was early made use of. Several
species of silk-worms are indigenous in the eastern pro-
vinces of India, (v. J. Asiat. Soc. vi. p. 21). Wool, and its
valued manufacture, the shawl, were known at an early
period, as the Persian name is said to be derived from the
Sanscrit. The woods, minerals, and metals, afforded mate-
rials for numerous arts, as did the various vegetable colours
for dyeing ; witli ligneous fibre, gums, resins, oils, and
natural varnishes. But many of the above substances,
excepting, of course, the silk and cotton fabrics, being such
as are found, or substitutes for them, in other countries,
were not likely to have offered to distant nations, sufficient
inducements to visit India or its shores.

But India had abundance of products, both peculiar and
precious, and requiring only to be known to be highly
valued. Among these its aromatics, such as cinnamon and
cassia, were conspicuous. The spices probably included
pepper and cardamoms, perhaps also ginger ; while, among
its perfumes, we have the sweet calamus, onycha, nard,
and lign-aloe. The attr of roses we do not find distinctly
noticed in the earliest periods ; but pearls and precious
stones formed very early articles of commerce ; while
indigo seems to have been detected in the blue stripes of
some Egyptian mummy-cloths : — we know that, in later
times it is mentioned as an article of export from India to
Esjypt (v. Egypt. Antiq. ii. p. 190.). Ivory and ebony were

T

138

always abundant, and other woods may have been articles
of export in ancient, as they are even in modern times to
Arabia. The metals probably had their properties, as in
the case of steel, first investigated in India ; and were then
sought for, and found, in countries which first procured
them from a distance.*

The antiquity of the commerce of Indian products is,
however, incontestably proved from our finding, even in the
earliest records we possess, mention of the spices and
aromatics, the precious stones, and probably also the
cotton, wood, and metals of the East ; a term in which
India must be included, as the names of some of the
substances mentioned appear to be derived from eastern
sources, and often from the Sanscrit language.

Though in the earliest chapters of the books of Moses, we
read of the working in metals, this probably alludes to gold,
silver, and copper, all common in the ancient world, and
easily worked, as well as iron, when found in sand or in a
magnetic state. But silver, iron, tin, and lead, are described in

* The above view of the natural fertility, richness, and variety of the
products of India, may strike many as contradicted by the fact of these
being now chiefly noted for their inferiority, when they come into compe-
tition with those of other parts of the world, where similar products are
grown. " This, it strikes me, was owing to the early cultivation of the
mind, and the advancement of science among the Hindoos, which must
have greatly influenced agriculture, as well as all the other arts of life.
Since then, if India has not retrograded, she has certainly remained sta-
tionary, while the rest of the world has been advancing, and applying every
fresh acquisition in science to the improvement of the varied arts and
manufactures of civilized life." Conceiving it perfectly feasible, by the
application of principles to practice, and by the adoption of other means
suited to the end in view, to give an impulse to the improvement and
multiplication of the products, and consequently to the resources of India,
I was induced, in conjunction with the Right Hon. Holt Mackenzie, for-
merly Territorial Secretary to the Indian Government, and lately a member
of the Board of Control, to offer some suggestions, and write a paper on
this subject, which is printed in the Proceedings of the Royal Asiatic
Society, 19th March, 183G.

139

Ezekiel, xxvii. 12, as being imported from Tarshish ; and
this word is by some authors supposed to be a Sanscrit
compound, tar-desa, or silver country. Lead is thought
by Bohlen to derive its Greek name /noTwfc or poxuffio;,
from mulwa, one of the names of lead, from the Indian
province Malwa, whence it was procured. (Egypt. Antiq.
ii. p. 327.) Iron and steel are so ancient as Indian products,
that it is difficult to trace them to their highest antiquity.
Tin, we have shown, is abundant in the Malayan Penin-
sula. Antimony {cohal and surma) for painting the eyes, was
anciently so employed, but is not peculiarly an Indian
product. The word chasmal, translated amber, is thought
to be a metallic substance, of which the nature is not well
understood : " Out of the midst thereof as the colour of
amber, out of the midst of the fire'" (Ezek. 1. 4); is
supposed not likely to be the substance now so called, also
a product of India. It may, perhaps, be glass, as this
was known to the Egyptians and Phoenicians at an earlier
period. The word chushm, in the Arabic dictionary, is
applied only to the eye.

The various precious stones, though frequently mentioned,
being so difficult to identify, do not enable us to prove
that they were procured from India; but we may infer
from their abundance, that they were so, with the sub-
stances which could only have been brought from that
country.

The Nitre of Scripture (Heb. nether) is probably only
natron; and the soap (fiorith) thought by some to be
borax, is, perhaps, some alkaline plant used for washing,
and of which there are several on the coasts of the Red
Sea : Suceda (soda) monoica of Forskal, is usually quoted,
(v. Harris.) Sulphur (Heb. gophrkk) is kubreet in Arabic,
but gunduk in Hindee ; while pitch, naphtha, and petro-
leum, are not strictly Indian products. Copher is by some

140

thought to have reference to camphor, but this substance
does not seem to have been known even in later times. It is
probably more correctly translated the cyprus (xunpoi) of
the ancients, which is the henna or Laivsonia inermis,
extensively used by Asiatic women for staining their
fingers and feet of an orange colour; and by the men
their beards, previous to dyeing them black.

Some substances clearly indicate the trade carried on in
ancient times : thus, Galbanum (Hebr. chelbenah) was
probably obtained from Persia ; so, the Balsam-tree (Hebr.
baalshemeii) though cultivated in Judea, was no doubt
originally introduced from Arabia ; while Myrrh (mur)
must have been imported partly from Arabia, but also
from the opposite coast of Africa. Frankincense or Olibanum
(Hebr. lebonah, Arab, loobari), is found both in Africa
and India. The Fitches (ketsach), thought to be the
seed of Nigella sativa, continue, like the Cummin (Hebr.
common), with which they are mentioned, to be employed
as condiments in the East.

The Gopher Wood of Scripture is so differently trans-
lated by different commentators, that it is difficult to form
even a conjecture on the subject ; besides being used at so
early a time, and mentioned only once. It need not have
been alluded to, except that the Arabic version translates
it saj, which is the teak, and not likely to have been
the wood employed. The Ebony (hobnim) may have been
the Indian ab?wos, but it was also obtained from Ethiopia.

The Shittim-wood is generally supposed to be the black
Acacia, or one of those growing in Upper Egypt, which
attain considerable size ; as Acacia vera, nilotica, Seyal,
and tortilis. But the word (shittim) is remarkable for
its resemblance to the Sanscrit shishum, which is also
that of a dark-coloured and most valuable wood, imported
from India into Arabia even in the present day (v. p. 128).

141

The Algum or Almug-wood of Scripture may be the
African Thuya articulata; but we have no clue to its
identification, except that of its country, which is described
as being Ophir, whence it was brought in plenty, with
precious stones. (1 Kings, x. 11.) Thuya articulata, or the
Avar tree of Barbary, yielding Sandarach, attains consi-
derable size, and is much used, Dr. Lindley informs me, in
the construction of mosques.

If there be some uncertainty respecting the country of
some of the preceding articles, there can be none about
those which follow, as they are, and ever have been, the
produce of India. Among these we read frequently of
spices, certainly an indefinite term, but usually considered
as referring to the caravan trade, bringing the pepper of
India, with cardamoms, and perhaps ginger, all found in
abundance, and of excellent quality, on the Malabar coast.
Cinnamon (Hebr. kinnemon) there can be no doubt about,
as the name appears derived, like the Greek, from the
Malayan or Cingalese appellation (v. p. 84.), as it is stated
by Herodotus to be so called by the Phoenicians, and said
to grow in the country where Bacchus was educated.*
Cassia (Hebr. kiddah) is similarly Indian.

Spikenard (Hebr. nard) is most probably the perfume
which was called nardos by the Greeks, and which we
have seen, is Nardostachys Jatamansi, still employed in

* The author of the work, entitled " The Hindoos, &c." L. E. K., in
stating " that some writers have been led by the similarity in sound of the
names Bdghes and Bacchus, to assume the identity of the Hindoo and the
Greek deity so called, and have considered the present worship of Maha-
deva or Bdghes in these regions, as a. confirmation of the supposed expe-
dition of Bacchus into India," adds that " it should, however, be observed,
that the similarity of the names Bacchus and Bdghes is but accidental ; the
latter word is a modern vernacular corruption of the ancient Vyaghresa,
which is a compound of Vydghra, " a tiger," and isa, " a master or lord."
But is this not, rather a further confirmation, as Bacchus is represented as
drawn in his chariot by a tiger and a lion ; and that tigers, panthers, and
lynxes, are described as following him in his Indian journey.

U2

India in making a fragrant ointment, highly valued by the
natives of that country. In connexion with this, may be
mentioned the sweet Calamus, literally sweet cane or reed,
(Exod. xxx. 23) where it is mentioned as one of the ingre-
dients of the holy anointing oil ; and in " the Spikenard
and Saffron, Calamus and Cinnamon," Cantic. iv. 14 ; so,
in Ezekiel, xxvii. 19, " bright iron, cassia and calamus,
were in thy market ;" and " to what purpose cometh there
to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far
country," Jerem. vi. 20. In all these places, the word
employed in the Hebrew is kaneh-bosem, which is trans-
lated sweet cane or calamus, and commonly thought to be
equivalent to the Calamus aromaticus of the ancients.
This, the naba/to; and xaha/to; iuo<,i*% of the Greeks, is
often stated to be the Acorus Calamus of botanists, a plant
common in ditches and marshy parts of Europe, and in
moist situations on mountains in India. It has a warm and
aromatic taste, with some degree of aroma, but certainly
too little, to have ever been thought worthy of being an
article of commerce from distant countries ; particularly as
it might so much more easily have been found at home.
The author of the notes on Exod. xxx. 23. in the Pictorial
Bible, " apprehends that it was a species of Cyperus, since,
&c. we know that several members of that genus have
odoriferous roots, and are used as perfumes by the natives
of the regions where they grow." (v. p. 83.) This most
probably is much nearer it than the Acorus Calamus.

Having shown that the Calamus Aromaticus of Dios-
corides (p. 33) is a species of Andropogon (a conclusion
which had also been come to by Sprengel and Dierbach,
with respect to the xahapos zuoaxo; of Hippocrates) ; I am
of opinion that the Calamus of Scripture is the Andro-
pogon Calamus Aromaticus, which I have mentioned at
p. 33 and 1 13. This, for the delightful fragrance of its

U3

distilled oil, is more fully entitled to the commendations
the sweet cane has received, and to have been sought
for as an article of commerce from distant countries, than
any other substance with which I am acquainted, the attr
of roses hardly excepted. Of this any one may be con-
vinced, by examining the specimen of this essence, which
I have placed in the Museum of Materia Medica. I
know not whether it be an accidental circumstance that
the aromatic species of Andropogon, common in North-
western India, instead of having a simple name like most
other substances, is always designated by a compound
term, mirchia-gund and gund-bel ; so, in Hebrew, kaneh-
bosem; in Greek, xahafto; tvo^oi ; which I suppose to be
Andropogon Calamus Aromaticus, nob. That a grass
similar to the fragrant Andropogon, or at least one growing
in the same kind of soil and climate, was employed by the
ancients, we have the assurance, in the Phoenicians who
accompanied Alexander in his march across the arid country
of Gedrosia, having recognized and loaded their- cattle
with it, as one of the perfumes of commerce. It is in a
similar country, that is, the arid plains of Central India,
that the Andropogon Calamus Aromaticus, nob., is found,
and where the fragrant essential oil is distilled from its
leaves, culms, and roots. In consequence of Arrian using the
word nard, Mr. Hatchett, who also considers this oil to be
the precious ointment of Scripture, was led to suppose the
plant to be the nardos of the Greeks ; but it is not possible
that this, so fully described by Dioscorides, can grow in the
deserts of Kerman ; as all the species are found only on
the mountains of Europe, or on those of India, round which,
according to Dioscorides, the Ganges flows, (v. p. 33.)

The Lign-aloe (Hebr. ahalini) I bebeve to be the Agallo-
chum or Eagle-wood, mentioned at p. 88. Sir Wm. Jones
also supposes, that " the fragrant wood called AUuwwa

144

in Arabic, and Aguru in Sanscrit, must have been one of
the early articles of commerce to the Western world,"
Another perfume of the East, which seems to have been
early known, and is still employed, is the Onycha (Hebr.
shecheleth) mentioned with Galbanum and Frankincense.
This, by some commentators, is supposed to be Gum
Ladanum, from the Arabic version ; but it is much more
probably, as its name indicates, the article mentioned
at p. 95, as Unguis odoratus, and of which the Sanscrit
name nakhi, is literally the same as the Greek owf. This,
according to Rumphius, who describes ten kinds of the
odoriferous onyx, which serve as the basis the principal
perfumes in the Indian islands, (Herb. Amb. ii. c. 17) is
the operculum or lid of the shells of Purpura and Murex.
This being flat, and something like a nail, explains the origin
of its name : we may easily suppose it was brought with
the other Indian substances to Egypt, Palestine, and
Greece.

If the term skuktir, so frequently employed in Scripture,
translated strong drink, and always coupled with wine,
be, as Dr. Harris suggests, and as is probable, wine and
sugar, we have another Indian manufactured produce,
early known in the West, as was also indigo, both noticed
by Sir Wm. Jones as most ancient products.

The materials for clothing next require our attention.
Egypt was always famed for its cultivation of flax, and
manufacture of fine linen. Silk was probably known, as
the word serikoth is employed in Isaiah, xix. 9, and is
thought to be the origin of the Latin sericum, from Seres,
whence the Greeks and Romans first obtained their silk.

Cotton, though undoubtedly known at a very early
period in the West, has caused considerable debate. This
is owing to several different words being used in the
Hebrew text, which are all translated fine linen. The word

145

byssus, from Hebr. batss, has sometimes been supposed to
indicate cotton ; but as Herodotus uses the word byssine
sindon to indicate the mummy-cloth, and as sindon is
supposed to be derived from Sindus or Indus, it has been
inferred that this was cotton ; but microscopical obser-
vations in every case have shown, that linen alone was used
for mummy-cloth (v. Bauer, Ure, and nob. Illustr. p. 85),
notwithstanding that the contrary is stated by Rosselini.

But that cotton was known in Egypt at a very early
period, we have the proofs, in Herodotus describing a coat
of mail sent as a present by Amasis to the Samians, which
was made of tree-wool : even in the present day, Indians
wear cotton-padded coats, which are sword-proof. Nearchus,
who visited India about a century later than Herodotus, and
travelled in Egypt, has no one word to express the cotton
dress of the Indians : he says that it is made of flax from
trees (Mvoy tou ano tuv fcvtymv), (Egypt. Antiq. ii. p. 125.)
But Arrian, the author of the Periplus, uses a word
evidently derived from the Sanscrit karpasa ; Hindee,
kapas. The Latin Carbasus, used for sails by Virgil and
Cicero, fine clothes by Propertius, fine tent cloths by Pliny,
pointed out to me by my learned colleague, the Rev. Professor
Browne, seems also to be derived from this source. So, Car-
pas, employed in the book of Esther, i. 6, is evidently the
same word, which Scheuzhzer, in his " Physica Sacra, 11
conjectured was cloth of Asbestos or Amianthus;* but a

* The passage alluded to in Esther, is that of the description of the
Court of the garden of the King's palace, where were white, green, and
blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver
rings and pillars of marble. It has been remarked, that cloth of
amianthus could never have been got in sufficient quantities for these
hangings ; while, to Dr. Taylor's opinion of its being calico, it has been
objected, that it seems insufficient to answer the purpose of an awning,
from the thinness of its texture. To this it may be replied, that tents made
of it, of several folds, withstand all weathers. Hanging curtains made

with
U

146

note to this article by the editor of Harris's Dictionary,
fully explains the meaning—" karpasus occurs in the
Periplus of Arrian, and is rendered by Dr. Vincent fine
muslin. It is derived from the Sanscrit karpasi; from
which probably the Hebrew word is also derived.'" " Simi-
larity of name," Dr. Vincent has elsewhere said, " is a
corroborating circumstance, when we are sure of our
position ; but till the position be ascertained, it is only a
presumptive proof, and often fallacious."

Having indicated the several routes of ancient commerce,
as well as the substances which it embraced, we may conclude
the subject with a few words respecting the places whence
these several articles were brought into Egypt and Palestine.
The only ones specifically mentioned are, Ophir and
Tharshish. Both of these, according to Heeren, indicate
the rich countries of the south, such as the east coast of
Africa, and Ceylon with the Peninsula of India, rather
than any particular places ; though the ships are described
as returning every three years. This has been interpreted
as meaning every third year ; the voyage therefore may not
have occupied so much as two years of time ; and this is
not more than would be necessary in the infancy, and
during the practice, of coasting navigation ; in addition to
the time consumed in the dilatory modes of parting with
the old, and taking in a new cargo, as well as that often
required by the necessity of waiting for the monsoons.

with calico, usually in stripes of different colours, and padded with cotton,
called purdahs, are employed throughout India, as a substitute for doors.
They may be seen used for the very purposes mentioned in the text,
in the court of the King of Delhi's palace, where on a paved mosaic terrace,
rows of slender pillars, support a light roof, from which hang by rings
immense padded and striped curtains, rolled up or removable at pleasure.
These either increase light or ventilation, and form, in fact,a kind of moveable
wall to the structure, which is used as one of the halls of audience, and was
probably introduced by the Persian conquerors of India, and therefore explains
the object of the colonnade in front of the palace in the ruins of Persepolis.

147

From the passages in which the above places are mentioned,
we learn that " the King's (Solomon) ships went toTharshish
with the servants of Hiram : every three years once came
the ships of Tharshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory,
and apes and peacocks." (2 Chron. ix. 21.) In connexion
with this may be adduced the passage of Ezekiel (xxvii ,12):
"Tharshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of
all kinds of riches ; with silver, iron, tin and lead, they
traded in thy fairs.'''' From the mention of tin and lead as
merchandize procured from Tharshish, it has been concluded
that this must be Tartessus in Spain, though it is as
probable that the name was subsequently given to this, when
found to yield products previously obtained from the East ;
as no doubt some place in the West is intended (Jonah i. 4),
for which Joppa is the port of embarkation. But that another,
and therefore most likely the original Tharshish, was in the
East, is rendered at least probable by its being mentioned
with eastern ports, as in Ezek. xxxviii. 13 : " Sheba and
Dedan, and the merchants of Tharshish :" but of this there
can, I conceive, be no doubt, when we find that the ships
went to Tharshish from Eziongaber, in the eastern gulf of
the Red Sea. As in 2 Chron. xix. 36 : " And he, Jeho-
saphat, joined himself with him (Ahaziah, King of Israel),
to make ships to go to Tharshish — and the ships were
broken, that they were not able to go to Tharshish. 1 '' That
Ophirand Tharshish were in the same direction seems evident,
from reference to the same occurrence, in 1 Kings, xxii. 48 :
" Jehosaphat made ships of Tharshish to go to Ophir for
gold : but they went not ; for the ships were broken at
Eziongaber." From Ophir were obtained gold, algum or
almug trees, and precious stones. Dr. A. Clarke adduces the
Arabic version, as considering Ophir and Tharshish to refer
to India ; and my friend, Mr. C. Groves, has called my
attention to Seba and Havilah, being considered by the

148

Targum, as referring to Sinde and Hinde ; and Ophir
being explained, as the place whence gold, and Havilah
as that whence pearls were brought.

From these several products, especially ivory, apes, pea-
cocks, and pearls, it is evident that only southern countries,
whether Africa or India, could have been the object of
these voyages. But cinnamon and cassia, nard, calamus,
and onycha, having been shown to be peculiar Indian
products, known to ancient commerce ; there can, I
conceive, be no doubt that the west coast of India, and
probably also the island of Ceylon, were reached even in
those early times. This is the more probable, as the voyages
were commenced in the Red Sea, and occupied three years,
or returned every third year.

The above details may appear to have little reference to
Hindoo Medicine, or Materia Medica ; but Hindoo Chro-
nology has been justly doubted, and in consequence of
claiming too much, their antiquity as an early educated and
highly civilized nation has been entirely denied. It was
incumbent therefore to show, on undoubted and extrinsic
grounds, that they were well known to, and highly esti-
mated by, ancient contemporary nations; that the valued
natural products of their country were not more the objects
of constant research than were the highly-prized specimens
of their manufacturing skill.

Considering, therefore, these points as proved, we may
be the less disinclined to consider their claims to literary
and scientific originality ; without at all giving credit to
their own most extravagant dates, which may probably be
most correctly considered, as only multiplications of astro-
nomical periods. Since the testimony of those favourable to
their claims, though best acquainted with their literature ;
might be received with doubt, as being opinions formed
under the influence of a favourable bias : it will be

149

preferable to adduce the admission of one, whose " mania
for modernizing renders his testimony of the advanced
knowledge of the Hindoos in astronomy, at so remote a
period as the fifteenth century before Christ, the more
valuable. 11 My friend, Mr. Prinsep, moreover remarks in
his Indian Chronological Tables, p. 78, " that there is
great uncertainty and incongruity in many of Bentley 1 s
determinations of the dates of native princes and of books,
from the prejudices he exhibits. 11 This is evident, also,
from his having chosen that for the classic age of Hindoo
literature, (A.D. 1183, Heeren, vol. iii. p. 128,) which is
known to history as the unsettled period of the Mahomedan
invasion of India. Besides this, we have shown that the
Arabs translated their works in the eighth, and that the
Persians did so as early as the fifth century of our era. But
" he (Bentley) is entitled to every confidence in his ingenious
mode of calculating the period at which the various improve-
ments in astronomy were introduced, and the Siddhantas
written or revised ; by the time when the positions of the
planets, as assigned by their tables, accorded best with the
more accurate results of European astronomy. From the
minimum errors, and the precession of the equinoxes (first
applied to such a purpose by Sir Isaac Newton), we have
the following epochs substantially ascertained."

Invention of the Nacshatras or Hindu Lunar Mansions, B.C. 1425. Bentley.
The Solar Zodiac, formed by Parasara (under Yudhistira) B.C. 1180. do.
A Lunar Cycle, invented and precession discovered (Rama ?) B.C. 945. do.

" The situation of the equinoctial colure in the time of
the astronomer Parasara, who flourished under Yudhistira,
is fixed by Davis in 1391 B.C., by Sir Wm. Jones, Cole-
brooke, and Bentley, in 1180; which latter closely accords
with the epoch of the Cycle of Parasurama, used in the
Dakhan, and apparently unknown to these authors, B.C.
1176. 11 (Prinsep. I.e. p. 78.)

150

The two Sanscrit epic poems, called Ramayana and
Mahabharat, of the poets Valmiki and Vyasa, are believed
by some to have been revised and corrected by the Poet
Calidas, in the reign of Vikramaditiya, whose era commences
B.C. 57 (Prinsep). The poems therefore were probably
written some centuries before, but are supposed by Bentley
to have been composed, the first only in A.D. 291, and
the second in A.D. 600, though their much greater anti-
quity is proved by the sculptures in the temples of
Elephanta, &c. (Heeren, iii. p. 277.) The Puranas are
believed to have been composed as late as from the eighth
to the tenth centuries of our era.

But the above two poems, according to Heeren, form the
second, while the age of Vikramaditiya, makes the third
era of Hindoo literature. The Vedas are far more ancient
than all — sufficiently so to contain no notices of Buddhism,
nor of the different Indian sects ; the worship of Rama
and Krishna having succeeded to that of the Elements
and Planets (Colebrooke). The Vedas are thought by Sir
William Jones to be next in antiquity to the five books
of Moses. (Disc, ix.) This most probably is intended to
apply only to the three first, the fourth being always consi-
dered less ancient than the others. It is of this, or the
Atharva Veda (note, p. 56), that the Ayur Veda, or medical
writings of highest antiquity and authority are collectively
called, are considered to be a portion. The two most
ancient authors, Charaka and Susruta, are made contempo-
raries of Rama and of the heroes of the time of fable
(p. 57) ; while Aghastier, the translator into Tamul of
Sanscrit medical literature, is named in the Ramayana,
" the oldest work in the profane literature of the Hindoos, 1 '
and therefore prior, we may conclude, to the Christian era.
Sir W. Jones, in referring to this work, says, that the
" Ayur Veda, supposed to be the work of a celestial phy-

151

sician, is almost entirely lost :" " but I have myself met with
curious fragments of that primeval work ; and in the Veda
itself, I found, with astonishment, an entire Upanishad on
the internal parts of the human body ; with an enumeration
of the nerves, veins, and arteries ; a description of the
heart, spleen, and liver, and various disquisitions on the
formation and growth of the foetus. 11 (Jones, Disc, xi.)
" Physic appears in these regions to have been cultivated
from time immemorial," " as well as chemistry, on which
we may hope to find useful disquisitions in Sanscrit, since
the old Hindoos unquestionably applied themselves to that
enchanting study." (Jones, Disc, x.)

Besides the discussion of medical subjects in these very
ancient works, we may infer the antiquity of Medicine
among the Hindoos, from the high estimation in which
the profession has been always held there, as is evident
from " one of the fourteen Retnas, or precious things,
which their gods are believed to have produced by churning
the ocean with the mountain, Mandura was a learned
physician.'''' (Jones, Disc. 2) That medical substances were
equally prized, we learn from the Sanscrit account of the
Deluge, given in the first Purana, evidently from older
works or traditions, where, among other directions, we find,
" Then shalt thou take all medicinal herbs, all the va-
riety of seeds, and accompanied by seven saints, encircled
by pairs of all brute animals, thou shalt enter the spacious
ark, and continue in it secure from the flood, on one
immense ocean, without light, except the radiance of
thy holy companions. 11 (Jones on Gods of India, &c) " He
(Satyvrata), still meditating on the commands of Bhagavat,
saw the vessel advancing, and entered it with the chiefs of
Brali mans, having carried into it the medicinal creepers"
&c. (v. Jones, 1. c.)

Considering therefore the high probability, if it be

152

thought short of positive proof, that the works in which
the earliest medical writings of the Hindoos are contained,
are very ancient ; we can hardly deny to them the early
cultivation of medicine ; and this so early, as, from internal
evidence, to be second, apparently to none with whom we
are acquainted. This is further confirmed by the Arabs and
Persians early translating their works ; so also the Tamuls
and Cingalese in the south ; the Tibetans and Chinese in
the East; and likewise from our finding, even in the earliest
of the Greek writers, Indian drugs mentioned by corrupted
Sanscrit names. We trace them at still earlier periods in
Egypt, and find them alluded to even in the oldest chap-
ters of the Bible.

It has been remarked, that improvements in medicine
have usually kept pace with those in the other sciences and
arts of life. Medicine is not likely, therefore, to have attained
any great perfection in India, without some traces of cor-
responding literary and scientific eminence. Nor, indeed,
does India form any exception to the general observation,
for in the histories of the sciences, we find constant reference
to the East as having originated, or at least cultivated, and
made improvements in several. To investigate so extensive
a subject, or attempt to do justice to even one of its sub-
divisions, would require not only time and space, but that
which is still less at my command, namely, a thorough
knowledge of the history and progress of the sciences in
question in other parts of the world, as well as of the
language and early literary and scientific acquirements of
the Hindoos. But as this ignorance of Sanscrit has no
doubt deprived me of the power of tracing many words
and names of material substances to their original sources,
so it has given my opinions the advantage of being in a great
measure unbiassed ; because it was not from an acquaintance
with, or fondness for their literature, that I was led to

153

infer its originality; but, from studying the translations
in Persian and Latin of the works of the Arabs, I felt,
from the nature of the information, that much of it must
have been borrowed from the Indians ; and this was con-
firmed by their reference by name to the Hindoo Charaka,
(v. p. 37.)

In this investigation, we get little assistance from the
Hindoos themselves, in consequence of their extravagant
claims having deprived their chronology of credit, even on
the most moderate computations. But their stationary
nature affords a peculiar advantage in drawing inferences ;
for in the present day, we find them the same in manners
and in customs as in the time of Alexander^ though with
the addition in those early ages of a high character for
wisdom ; from which, like the modern Greeks, they have
certainly now degenerated. This very stationary nature,
however, appears to me a result of their early civilization ;
for frequently conquered as they have been, and ruled
over by ruder nations, they have usually made these in
some measure conform to their own higher notions of civi-
lization, instead of adopting, or being corrupted, by the
coarser manners of their earlier conquerors.

That " India early acquired a high character for the
wisdom of its philosophers,'" we are informed by history ;
whence we learn, that " it was visited by Pythagoras,
Anaxarchus, Pyrrho, and others, who afterwards became
eminent philosophers in Greece." (Brucker's Philosophy
by Enfield.) From Pliny we learn, " Certe Pythagoras,
Empedocles, Democritus, Plato, ad hanc discendam navi-
gare, exsiliis verius quam peregrinationibus susceptis.
(Plin. xxx. c. 2.) Thales, Crates, and Eudoxus, are others
who are stated to have travelled in the East ; but we are
unable to aseertain how far these travels extended, and
must therefore have recourse to other evidence, to per-

x

154

ceive if there be sufficient similarity either in sentiment
or science to prove the likelihood of an early communication
between the Greeks and Hindoos. There is, in the first
place, no doubt that the fame of Indian philosophers was
sufficiently great and extended, 300 years before the
Christian era, to induce the conqueror of Asia, and en-
lightened pupil of Aristotle, Alexander, to visit and hold
intercourse with some of the Indian Gymnosophists.

From the researches of our celebrated countrymen, Jones
Colebrooke, and Wilson, assisted by the labours of many
German and French Orientalists, we can now obtain, by
consulting a variety of works, as well as Transactions of
Societies, a general idea of Hindoo science and literature,
as treasured up in the ancient Sanscrit. To these sources,
therefore, and the abstracts made from them, I have been
indebted for the information which follows, and which I
have incorporated, that the argument may be viewed in its
integrity, instead of in isolated details.

The very perfection and " highly polished grammatical
structure,'''' of the language, with which so many others
are connected, and from which, or from some very ancient
common source, they must have been derived, prove the
great attention paid by the Hindoos to literature. Works
on grammar, lexicography, and metrics, form altogether
one of the main branches of Sanscrit literature, (v. " The
Hindoos," ascribed to the late Dr. Rosen.) The classified
dictionary, containing 10,000 words, called Amera Cosha,
has frequently been quoted.

The Vedas have been mentioned as the most ancient,
and also as the most important of the Hindoo works ;
forming the basis of their religion, as well as the foun-
dation of their social and political institutions. The four,
called the Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva Veda, have
their present arrangements attributed to the sage Vyasa.

155

Each Veda consists of two parts, denominated the Mantras,
or prayers, and the Brahmanas, or precepts. Indra, or the
firmament, fire, the sun, moon, water, air, the spirits, the
atmosphere, and the earth, are the objects most frequently
addressed. The language of a considerable portion is an
obsolete, and frequently very obscure dialect of Sanscrit.
From a passage, stating the position of the solstitial points,
which occurs in a sort of calendar appended to the Rig
Veda, Mr. Colebrooke, to whom we are chiefly indebted for
our knowledge of the Vedas, concludes that this calendar
must have been regulated in the fourteenth century B.C.

The Puranas, eighteen in number, though comparatively
modern, are next in importance to the Vedas: they have
been described as legendary poems, similar in some respects
to the Grecian theogonies. An abstract of the contents
of several has been given by Professor Wilson, in the
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. Each Purana
treats of five subjects: the creation of the universe; its
destruction, and the renovation of worlds ; the avataras, or
manifestations of the supreme deity ; the genealogy of
gods and heroes ; chronology, according to a fabulous
system ; and heroic history, containing the achievements
of demigods and heroes.

The poetry of the Hindoos may be mentioned after
these great works ; and the two great epic poems, the
Ramayana and Mahabharat, remarkable for their antiquity,
consist respectively of 24,000 and 100,000 stanzas. They
have other extensive poems, which have been classed under
the heads of narrative, didactic, lyric, and apologue.
Upon the invention of the latter, the Hindoos especially
pride themselves. Of their dramatic literature, a very
favourable opinion has been formed from Sir Win. Jones's
translation of Sakuntala, and more especially from Professor
Wilson's Hindoo Theatre, containing translations of six

156

Sanscrit dramas. The Indian origin of the Fables of
Pilpay lias been already mentioned ; but some even of the
tales of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments have been
traced to the voluminous Sanscrit collection of stories, called
Vrihatkafha.

Of the Hindoo systems of philosophy, Sir Wm. Jones
has said, " we now live among the professors of those
philosophical tenets, which the Ionic and Attic writers
illustrated with all the beauties of their melodious language.
In retired scenes, in groves, and in seminaries of learning,
we may perceive the Brahmans and the Sarmanes, men-
tioned by Clemens, disputing in the forms of logic, or
discoursing on the vanity of human enjoyments, on the
immortality of the soul, her emanation from the eternal
mind, her debasement, wanderings, and final union with
her source. The six philosophical schools, whose principles
are explained in the Dersana Sastra, comprise all the
metaphysics of the Old Academy, the Stoa, the Lyceum ;
nor is it possible to read the Vedanta, or the many fine
compositions in illustration of it, without believing that
Pythagoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from
the same fountain with the sages of India. 11 (3d Disc.)
" The little treatise, in four chapters, ascribed to Vyasa, is
the only philosophical Sastra, the original text of which
I have had leisure to peruse with a Brahmin of the Vedanti
school. 11 The commentary of Sancara on the Vedanta, " not
only elucidates every word of the text, but exhibits a
perspicuous account of all other Indian schools, from that
of Capila to those of the more modem heretics. It is not
possible, indeed, to speak with too much applause of so
excellent a work ; and I am confident in asserting, that,
until an accurate translation of it shall appear in some
European language, the general history of philosophy
must remain incomplete. (Jones. 11th Disc.) The autho

157

of " The Hindoos" has, from Mr. Colebrooke , s Essays,
briefly noticed the systems of philosophy which are
considered orthodox by the Hindoos, because consistent
with the theology of the Vedas ; as the two Mimansa
schools: others, incompatible with their sacred writings, are
deemed by them heretical ; such are the Nyaya and the
Vaiseshika system : others, again, are partly heterodox,
and partly conformable to the established Hindoo creed ;
such are the Sankhya and Yoga. " The Nyaya, of which
Gotama is the acknowledged author, furnishes a philoso-
phical arrangement, with strict rules of reasoning, not
unaptly compared to the dialectic of the Aristotelian
school." While Kanade, the reputed author of the Vaise-
shika, maintained, like Democritus, the doctrine of
Atoms. (The Hindoos, ii. p. 317-321.)

My friend, Sir Graves Haughton, in his exposition of
the Vedanta philosophy, has stated with respect to their
philosophy, that " the androgynous characteristic of male
and female principles, which is at the bottom of all Hindoo
metaphysical systems, as well as the tendency of the lan-
guage to personification and realism, has given a bias
to their philosophy, which could not be corrected even by
the wonderful power and acuteness of their metaphysicians.
But for the taint arising from these causes, the system
contained in Manu would be almost perfect : and if its
unfathomable antiquity be also considered, it must be
allowed to be the most extraordinary effort ever made by
the mind of man. It is the undoubted prototype of every
subsequent system, of which we have any knowledge,
whether we call them Hindoo, Chinese, Egyptian, Persian,
Chalda?an, or European, which are all but distorted and
mutilated copies of this one grand, simple, and original
conception, already given in one line. 1. God ; — 2. Mind ;
— 3. Consciousness ; — 4. Matras; — 5. Elements." "Matras

158

are the invisible types of the visible atoms which compose
the five elements — JEther, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth."

Sir Wm. Jones thinks, that by means of the Puranas,
we shall in time discover all the learning of the Egyptians,
without decyphering their hieroglyphics, and states having
no doubt, that their Osiris and Isis are the Iswara and Isi
of the Hindoos. They mean, he conceives, the powers of
Nature, considered as male and female; and that Isa,
like the other goddesses, represents the active power of
her lord; whose eight forms, under which he becomes
visible to man, were thus enumerated by Calidasa near
two thousand years ago. " Water was the first work of
the Creator ; and Eire receives the oblation of clarified
butter, as the law ordains : the sacrifice is performed with
solemnity ; the two lights of Heaven distinguish time ; the
subtle Ether, which is the vehicle of sound, pervades the
Universe; the Earth is the natural parent of all increase;
and by Air, all things breathing are animated. May Isa,
the power propitiously apparent in these eight forms,
bless and sustain you." (Jones, on the Gods, &c.)

In addition to what has been above-mentioned respecting
the syllogistic form of reasoning, as in use among the ancient
Hindoos, we may adduce the " tradition which prevailed,
according to the well-informed author of the Dabistan, in
the Punjab, and in several Persian provinces ; that ' among
other Indian curiosities, which Callisthenes transmitted to
his uncle, was a technical system of logic, which the
Brahmans had communicated to the inquisitive Greek, 1
and which the Mahomedan writer supposes to have been
the ground-work of the famous Aristotelean method."
(Jones. 11th Disc.)

Hindoo law has been a subject necessarily paid much
attention to, from the peculiar position of the English in
India ; and the translations and comments of Sir W. Jones,

159

Mr. Colebrooke, and Sir Graves Haughton, give us ample
information on this subject. The books of law are nume-
rous, and form an important branch of Sanscrit lite-
rature, consisting both of compilations and commentaries.
Among these, the Institutes of Menu are the most distin-
guished, and considered to have been written as early as
880 B.C. (Heeren). Some of their works contain maxims
or precepts put together into codes, which are attributed to
ancient sages, as their original and inspired authors ;
others consist either of comments on these traditional tracts,
or of systematic treatises, in which the several topics of
Hindoo jurisprudence are discussed according to logical
arrangement; and passages from the ancient law-givers
are adduced, in support of the doctrines advanced.
(Hindoos, ii. p. 311.)

If from their literature and philosophy we pass to the
science of the Hindoos, we shall find equal reason to con-
clude, that it was not only in vividness of imagination and
powers of philosophical abstraction that they excelled,
but that the exact sciences were equally cultivated, and
apparently with an original and successful result. The
essays and translations which we have on the subject of
Hindoo Mathematics, are from the pens of Messrs. Cole-
brooke, Reuben Barrow, Edward Strachey, Dr. Taylor, of
the Madras, and the late Mr. John Tytler, of the Bengal
Medical service. Also by M. Bailly in his Astron. Ind.,
and the celebrated Playfair in the Edinb. Phil. Trans. ; who
both support the high antiquity of Hindoo science. The
results of these essays have been ably abridged by Professor
Wallace in British India, (Vol. iii. p. 401.) and by others.

The Sanscrit writings from which a knowledge of Hindoo
mathematics has been obtained, are different astronomical
works, in which most of their mathematical treatises are
contained. In the admirable article on Arithmetic by Mr.

160

Peacock, in the Encyclopedia Metropolitans, the history
of this science has been treated in a manner to leave us
nothing to wish for. There, the claims of the Hindoos to
the discovery of the decimal numeration, are fully treated
of; though some circumstances in the construction of the
numerical language of Tibet, have induced him to suspect
that it may have originated in that country. But knowing
since the investigations of Csoma de Koros, how much the
Tibetans have copied from Sanscrit literature in the seventh
century, we require further evidence before we can ascribe
to them the invention of so perfect and commodious a system
of numeration. It is considered by the Hindoos to be of
divine origin, " the invention of nine figures, with device
of place being ascribed to the beneficent Creator of the
Universe.' 1 (Colebrooke, ex Bhascara, &c.) " If the inven-
tion is to be determined by the known antiquity of posses-
sion, we must certainly refer it to Hindostan, as from the
internal evidence of their numerical language, the Hindoos
must have possessed a very perfect system of arithmetic
from great antiquity.'" The Sanscrit names, moreover, of
the ten numerals have been adopted with slight variations,
not merely in all languages of the same class and origin,
but likewise in many others, which are radically different
from them. It is hardly necessary to notice the opinion of
the Arabian origin of the notation by nine digits and zero,
as their own testimony is decisive of the source whence they
derived it. " The first Arabian who wrote upon algebra,
and the Indian mode of computation, is stated, with the
common consent of Arabic authors, to have been Mahommed
ben Musa, the Khuwarezmite, who flourished about the
end of the ninth century ; an author who is celebrated as
having made known to his countrymen other parts of
Hindoo science." (Peacock. I.e. p. 413.)

The systems of astronomy referred to, contain treatises

161

on the subject of arithmetic (Lilavati), algebra (Vija
Ganita), geometry, and mensuration, by the astronomers
Bramagupta, Bhascara, and Aryabhatta. " The Lilavati
treats of arithmetic, and contains not only the common rules
of that science, — there reckoned, eight in number, — but the
application of these rules to various questions on interest,
barter, mixtures, combinations, permutations, the science of
progressions, indeterminate problems, and, lastly, of the
mensuration of surfaces and solids." " The rules are
found to be exact, and nearly as simple as in the present
state of analytical investigation. The numeral results are
readily deduced ; and if they be compared with the earliest
specimens of Greek calculation, the advantages of the
decimal notation are placed in a stinking light. 11 (Wallace.)
" It appears from the Hindoo treatises on algebra, that
they understood well the arithmetic of surd roots ; that
they knew the general resolution of equations of the second
degree, and had touched on those of higher denomination,
resolving them in the simplest cases ; that they had
attained a general solution of indeterminate problems of
the first degree, and a method of deriving a multitude of
answers to problems in the second degree, when one solution
was discovered by trials. This is as near an approach to a
general solution, as was made, until the time of Lagrange.
The Hindoos had also attempted equations of higher
orders : they not only applied algebra both to astronomy
and geometry, but conversely applied geometry to the de-
monstration of algebraic rules." Mr. Colebrooke has, by a
variety of arguments, shown that the astronomer and alge-
braist, Aryabhatta (the oldest of those they consider their
uninspired and merely human writers), wrote as far back as
the fifth century of the Christian era, and probably at a
much earlier period : he was therefore, even on this compu-
tation, almost as old as the Greek algebraist, Diophantus,

i m

who lived about the year 360. Mr. Colebrooke has further
instituted a comparison between the Greek and Hindoo
algebraists, and found reason to conclude that, in the
whole science, the former are very far behind the latter.
He says, the points in which the Hindoo algebra appears
distinguished from the Greek are, besides a better and more
convenient algorithm :

1st. " The management of equations of more than one
unknown quantity.

2d. " The resolution of equations of a higher order, in
which, if they achieved little, they had at least the merit
of the attempt.

3d. " General methods for the resolutions of indeter-
minate problems of the first and second degrees, in which
they went far indeed beyond Diophantus, and anticipated
discoveries of modern algebraists.

4th. " The application of algebra to astronomical inves-
tigations and geometrical demonstrations, in which they
also hit upon some matters which have been re-invented in
modern times."

Having determined the inferiority of the algebra of
Diophantus ; the degrees of improvement by which it ad-
vanced to its perfection, in the time of Aryabhatta, becomes
the next question — was it known long before, or was it then
only discovered. " The late Professor Playfair was of opinion,
that it was much older. He observes, that it is generally
acknowledged that Diophantus cannot, himself, have been
the inventor of all the rules and methods which he delivers ;
much less is Aryabhatta to be held the sole inventor of a
system that was still more perfect than that of Diophantus.
Indeed, before an author could think of embodying a
treatise of algebra in the heart of a system of astronomy,
and turning the researches of the one science to the purposes
of the other, both must be in such a state of advancement,

163

as the lapse of several ages, and many repeated efforts of
invention, were required to produce."

The treatises on geometry are pronounced to be inferior in
excellence to those on algebra ; but they contain the cele-
brated proposition, that the square on the hypothenuse of
a right-angled triangle, is equal to the squares on the sides
containing the right angle; and others which form part
of the system of modern geometry. Among these, that
which discovers the area of a triangle when its three
sides are known, is remarkable, as it does not appear to
have been known to the ancient Greeks.

The division of the circle among the Hindoos, and their
correspondence in this respect with the Greeks, is a subject
which has attracted attention ; and deservedly so, as it is
purely conventional, having no dependence on the nature
of the circle. Of this the circumference is divided by the
ancient Hindoos into 360 equal parts, each of which was
subdivided into sixty, and these into an equal number
of smaller parts, similar to our present division into
degrees, minutes, and seconds. The Hindoos, moreover,
express the radius of a circle in parts of the circumference,
and have but one measure (the minute of a degree) for
both. Of these, the circumference is said to contain 21,600,
and the radius 3438, which is pronounced by mathe-
maticians as great a degree of accuracy as can be obtained ;
without taking in smaller divisions than minutes, as it is true
to the nearest minute; and this is all the exactness aimed
at in their trigonometrical tables. The Bramins, however,
knew to greater exactness the ratio of the diameter to
the circumference, as they supposed it to be as 1 to
3.1416.

" The tables employed in their trigonometrical calcu-
lations are two, — one of sines, and the other of versed
sines : the sine of an arc they call cramajya or jyapind-a,

164

and the versed sine utcramajya. These terms seem to be
derived from the word jya, which signifies the chord of an
arc, from which the name of the radius, or sine of 90°,
vis. trijya, is also taken. This regularity in their trigo-
nometrical language, is not unworthy of remark ; but what
is of more consequence to be observed is the use of sines, as
it was unknown to the Greeks, who calculated by the help
of the chords, and this forms a striking difference between
theirs and the Indian trigonometry." The table of sines
exhibits them to every twenty-fourth part of the quadrant ;
the table of versed sines does the same : in each, the sine,
or versed sine, is expressed in minutes of the circumference,
neglecting fractions. Thus, the sine of 3° 45' is 225 ; the
sine of 7° 30' is 449 ; and so on. The rule for the compu-
tation of the sines is curious ; it indicates a method of
computing a table by means of their second differences, —
a considerable refinement in calculation, and first practised
by the English mathematician Briggs."* (Wallace.)

The Surya Siddhanta, continues the author of the
abridged essay on Hindoo Mathematics in British India,
ii. p. 463, does not give the demonstration of the truth of
the rule ; but the commentary gives direct geometrical
means for their calculation. In the progress of science,
the invention of trigonometry is a step of great importance,
and of considerable difficulty. He who first formed the
idea of exhibiting, in arithmetical tables, the ratio of the
sides and angles of all possible triangles, must have been a
man of profound thought, and of extensive knowledge.
However ancient, therefore, any book may be, in which
we meet with a system of trigonometry, we may be assured
that it was not written in the infancy of the science. We
may therefore conclude, that geometry must have been
known in India long before the writing of the Surya
Siddhanta. Professor Playfair, speaking of the Indian

t 165

rule for computing sines, which is certainly very ingenious,
says, " It has the appearance, like many other things in
the science of those eastern nations, of being drawn up by
one who was more deeply versed in the subject than may
be at first imagined, and who knew much more than he
thought it necessary to communicate. It is probably a
compendium formed by some ancient adept in geometry
for the use of others, who were merely practical calcu-
lators."

Though the majority of writers allow the Hindoos credit
for the originality and advanced state of their mathematics,
it is very different with their astronomy, which, though
equally supported by great names, such as those of Bailly
and Playfair, and acquiesced in by Sir David Brewster,
has been objected to as being neither ancient nor original;
their astronomical books on the subject being conceived
to be modern compilations, to which old names have been
attached : the matter having been borrowed from the Greeks
and Arabians. But equal fairness does not appear to me to
be observed in the statement of the argument : for, allowing
full force to the ingenuity and truth of the mode of reason-
ing, and induction from internal evidence, of the principal
Hindoo astronomical works, as the Brahma, Surya, and
Arya Siddhantas having been composed respectively in
the years 538, 1068, and 1322, of the Christian era; yet
the very same author proves by the same mode of induction,
that the astronomer Parasara lived as early as 1180 B.C.
The Hindoos must have paid attention to astronomy at
even earlier periods, for Mr. Bentley also admits, that the
Nacshatras, or Hindoo lunar mansions, were determined
as early as 1425 B.C. ; the solar zodiac not till 1180 B.C.
by the above-named Parasara; and the lunar cycle in 945B.C.

Sir David Brewster (Edinb. Encycl. Astronomy, p. 585),
in introducing this subject, says, " The astronomical tables

166

of the Indians are in our hands, and, with evidence almost
as irresistible as that which attends the principles of the
science, we can trace the remoteness of their origin, and
survey the advancement of the human mind in the earliest
ages of the world." He then mentions the three sets
of tables, those of Siam, of Narsapour, of Chrishna-
bouram, as well as the fourth set brought by M. Gentil
from Tirvalore, after being instructed by the Brahmans
in their methods of calculation. The celebrated Bailly,
in his " Traite de l'Astronomie Indienne et Orientale,"
found that the epoch of the Tirvalore tables coincides with
the year 3102 B.C. " These high pretensions to antiquity,
have been defended by Professor Playfair with an acute-
ness of reasoning, and a clearness of illustration, peculiar
to that eloquent writer." " La Place has endeavoured to
prove, though not with his usual success, that the epoch of
3102 was invented for the purpose of giving a common
origin in the zodiac to all the motions of the heavenly
bodies, and that the tables have either been constructed or
corrected in modern times ; but he at the same time allows,
that the remarkable accuracy of the mean motions assumed
in their construction could have arisen only from very
ancient observations." (Brewster. I.e.) Without supposing
that there could have been any great attention paid to
astronomy at this early period, it is singular " that we
learn from Persian works, that there were formerly four
bright stars, which pointed out the four cardinal points
of the heavens ; and it is a very remarkable coincidence, in
which chance could have no share, that, about 3000 years
before the Christian era, Aldebaran and Antares were
situated exactly in the two equinoctial points, while Begulus
and the Southern Fish were placed in the two solstices."
(Brewster. I.e. p. 584.)

As a trigonometry was necessary for the settlement of

167

many important points in astronomy, so we have it incor-
porated in their works on this science, and acknowledged
even by those adverse to the Hindoo claims, that in many
points it is original, and in all highly curious. The circle, we
have seen, was divided, for trigonometrical purposes, into
360 degrees, and each of these into sixty minutes ; so the
Hindoos divided time in a similar manner, that is, the
year into six seasons, each of these consisting of 60 dinas
(1 dina = 1 day and night) ; each dina = 60 dandas
(1 danda = 24 minutes English) ; each danda = 60 palas
(1 pala = 24 seconds) ; each pala = 60 vipalas (1 vipala
= 0. 4 seconds) ; and so on for five more subdivisions for
astronomical purposes. But the danda is also considered
equal to sixty vicalas, each of which is equal to six respi-
rations. From this coincidence in the division of the circle
and of time, it has been supposed that the circle was
divided into 360°, in consequence of the most ancient
Hindoos supposing it to be the number of days in the
year: this would even appear to be confirmed by their
division of the year into six seasons of sixty dinas each =
360 days. But the number seems rather to have been
adopted from the convenience of the sexagesimal division
in calculations, as we learn that their tables " are
founded on the supposition that the tropical year is
365 d 5 h 30' 40", a determination which differs only 1' 33"
from that which is employed in the new solar tables of
Delambre. (Brewster.)

Hindoo astronomy has been said to be confined to the
calculation of certain changes in the heavens, particularly
eclipses of the sun and moon, the places of the planets,
with the rules and tables by which these calculations must
be performed. They early distinguished the zodiac from
the rest of the celestial sphere, and divided it into twenty-
seven (Jones,) or twenty-eight (Colebrooke,) portions,

168

which they call nacshatras, or asterisms, marking the
moon's path in the heavens. The names of the Indian
months are taken from twelve of these lunar mansions,
or constellations of the solar zodiac, and this has been
particularly remarked upon by the illustrious Humboldt.
Time was besides divided into periods of seven days, " the
most ancient monument of astronomical knowledge" (La
Place) ; which has been supposed to have been formed from
being nearly a fourth of twenty-seven days and seven hours,
the time of a complete revolution of the moon through the
zodiac ; or perhaps from bearing the same proportion to
twenty-nine and a-half days, the time of her passing
through all her phases ; or as probably from the tradition
of the time in which the world was created. But it is
remarkable that the days of the Hindoo week are, like
those of the Egyptian and our own, named after the seven
heavenly bodies, but with this difference, that Friday is
the first day of their week. Thus, to take Wednesday as
an example, which is named from Woden of the Scandi-
navians, who is the Wud and Bud of the Pagan Arabs,
Buddha of the Hindoos, Buddas and Sarmancs of the
Greeks, probably from the Sanscrit Maha-sramana; in
which language he is also called Maya-devi-suta, or child
of Maya, the " Mercurius Mayae films'" of Horace. The
planet Mercury is in Sanscrit called Bouta, and the day of
Mercury, Boota varam, or Boodh-var. ; Hindee, Boodh ;
" Mercurii dies," or Wednesday, (v. Prinsep. I.e. 14 and 87.)
Whatever else may be denied, this at least must be admitted,
that the concurrence of the Hindoos and Egyptians, in
similarly naming the days of the week, must have had a
common origin ; and that both were anterior to the Greeks.
" Besides their lunar zodiac, the Hindoos had another
divided into twelve signs of 30° each. This was purely
mathematical, and served for the purposes of calculation.

169

The divisions of this, their solar zodiac, were distinguished
by names and emblems ; and what is truly remarkable, they
are the same as those which are connected with the signs
of our own zodiac." It has been supposed that the Hindoos
borrowed this from the Arabs; but Mr. Colebrooke has
observed, " we know that the Hindoos have preserved the
memory of a former situation of the colures compared to
constellations, which make divisions of the zodiac in their
astronomy ; but no similar trace remains of the use of the
lunar mansions, as divisions of the zodiac, among the
Arabs in so very remote times.'"

The above perfect identity of the Hindoo zodiac with
ours, will appear from the names of their signs. Mesha,
the ram ; Vrisha, the bull ; Milhuna, the pair ; Carcata,
the crab ; Sinha, the lion ; Canga, the virgin ; Tula, the
balance ; Vrishahica, the scorpion ; Dhanus, the bow ;
Macaru, the sea-monster ; Cumbha, the ewer ; Mina, the
fish. The zodiac itself they call sodi-mandalam. The
coincidences here must have had a common source : not
onlv do the signs nearly correspond with those of the Egyp-
tian zodiac of the temple of Denderah, but also with those
known to the Chaldeans.

The chief object of ancient astronomy for many ages
was the proper settlement of time ; this the Hindoos
attained very successfully and without the assistance of
other nations; though the Chinese, who claim great anti-
quity of observation, required that of the Arabs in A.D.
1290, and of the Jesuits in 1664. " There are a great
variety of eras in use in different parts of India, but all
may be classified under four general heads, according to
the mode of expressing, or of subdividing the year;
namely, first, those which are founded on the sidereal
division of the months ; secondly, those which follow the
intricate and peculiar luni-solar computations; thirdly,

170

those reckoned by cycles, and in which the years ai - e
distinguished by names, a system which spread from
India into Tibet, and was long before used in China and
Japan ; and, fourthly, those derived essentially from the
Muhammedan era, 1 ' Prinsep. I.e. p. 17; from Col. Warren's
Kala Sankalita, which, he says, " should be in the
hands of every one desirous of obtaining a thorough
knowledge of the subject."

The Hindoo solar year, as it is improperly called, is
strictly sidereal. The solar zodiac was formed from the
lunar one, about the year 1180 B.C., according to Bentley;
the names of the months being taken from those of the
lunar mansions, in which the moon happened to be full, in
the year of its invention. The adoption of the fixed
sidereal zodiac of twelve signs is ascribed by the same
author to about A.D. 538, to which time the use of the
solar zodiac lasted. This subject it is impossible to enter
into : it may suffice to remark, that " the effect, on civil
reckoning, is to produce differences in the relative lengths
of the months, of one or even two days more, or one day
less, and to bring about a bissextile year of 366 days, as
nearly as possible once in four years. 11 (Prinsep.)

" The circumstances of the Indian luni-solar year differ
from every other mode of dividing and recording time, that
has been employed in ancient or modern times. Some simi-
larity had been observed in the secular omission of a month
in the Chaldean system, and at a particular period the
common intercalations concurred with those of the lunar
cycle of Meton, which led the learned to imagine them
derived from the same source ; but Col. Warren has proved,
from a minute analysis of the Hindoo Chandra Mana,
that it has no further similitude to other systems than its
dependence on the moon's motions must naturally indicate. 11
Of years numbered by cycles, that called the era of

171

Parasurama derives its name from a prince, who is supposed
to have reigned 1176 B.C., the epoch being 7th August,
3537 Jul. Per., or 1925 Kal-yug. This era is reckoned in
cycles of 1000 years. The commencement of the 977th
year of the 3d cycle concurs with the 14th Sept. A.D. 1800.

The cycle of Jupiter is supposed by many to be one of
the most ancient modes of reckoning time, not only in India,
but in Asia generally : in the former, it is comparatively of
modern introduction (A.D. 965-6,) v. Prinsep. I.e. p. 29 ;
but it has been known in China from time immemorial,
where it partakes of the same peculiarity as on the continent
of India, of having separate names for each year of the
cycle.

From the difficulty of ascertaining the extent to which
the more modern of the Hindoo astronomers were indebted
to their more ancient predecessors, it is impossible at
present to determine how many of the doctrines which
their works contain are entirely original. This will be
easier, when we possess more translations, and are able to
trace opinions to earlier sources, even from hints in works
on other subjects. In the mean time it may be stated that
the Hindoos were early acquainted with the spherical
figure of the earth, and that they conceived it to be
self-balanced in space. And though, like the Greeks, they
had their epicycles and eccentrics, and there are coincidences
in their system of calculating the inequalities of the sun,
moon, and planets, they yet seem to have been ignorant of
the modifications made in those hypotheses by Ptolemy.
They knew that the moon revolves once a month on her
axis; and that she was distant from the earth 220,184
geographical miles, which is 20,000 less than has been
determined by European astronomers. To find the latitude
of a place, they observed the length of the shadow of a
perpendicular gnomon, when the sun is in the equator : and

172

computed by their geometry the angle which the gnomon
makes with the line drawn from its top to the extremity
of the shadow. The longitude is directed to be found by
observations of lunar eclipses, calculated for the meridian
of Lanca, which passes through Oujein, one of their most
ancient cities. The obliquity of the ecliptic they consi-
dered equal to 24° (the Chinese also state it to be 24°, but
from their dividing the circle into 365£°, this is only equal
to 23° 39'.) The precession of the equinoxes they reckoned
equal to fifty-four seconds in a year, but it is actually
four seconds less than they supposed.

Though it is difficult to prove, whether or not, the Indians
were indebted to the Greeks for any of their principal
determinations, Mr. Davis and Delambre, both opposed to
the great antiquity of the Hindoo astronomy, think their
methods of calculation essentially different from the Grecian,
and that those for eclipses, though tedious, are curious,
and bear the appearance of originality. One of the most
striking instances of this, is the method given in the tables
of Chrisnabouram, for finding the time of the sun's conti-
nuance above the horizon, or what is called the diurnal
arc for any given day. From the rule given not being
rigorously true, and the differences between the supposition
of the Brahmins and the exact formula, being very appre-
ciable in high, but inconsiderable in tropical latitudes ;
it is evident that the rule which they adopt must have
had its origin in a tropical country ; and in all probability
in the Indian Peninsula where it is found. (Playfair.)

Among the objections made to Hindoo astronomy, there
is one which I think susceptible of explanation ; and
that is, their want of instruments, or modes of making
observations. To this it may be replied, that in the Vishnu
Dhermotter, it is directed that the planets be observed
with an instrument : and in their method for determining

173

the length of the solar year, the amplitudes, or rather
their differences, are directed to be determined by marking
the sun's position at rising, on a horizontal circle of consi-
derable magnitude. Besides which, the astronomical build-
ings at Benares, Delhi, and Jyepoor, though all probably
only a few centuries old, indicate the purposes for which
they were required ; and these purposes we have seen are
not of very recent date among the Hindoos. The present
buildings therefore may be of modern origin, but we cannot
expect them to be ancient in a country, where, from the
perishable nature of the materials employed in architecture,
cities have succeeded cities, leaving scarcely any traces
of their sites. These structures may, however, and most
probably have, only succeeded others of a similar kind, but
of much older date. That of Benares has been described
by Sir R. Baker in the Philosophical Transactions for 1775 ;
those of Jyepore and Delhi I have not seen described, but
at the latter place, the large and lofty circular roofless
building, or rather wall, pierced with horizontal rows of
openings like windows, would seem as if intended to be
employed for the purposes of a horizontal circle.

Mr. J. Bentley, in bis papers in the Asiatic Researches,
vols. vi. and viii., has inferred from the minimum errors in
the Surya Siddhanta, that it was composed about A.D.
1067, and this is confirmed by other circumstances (v. Prin-
sep. Tables, p. 29) : he also concludes that Varaha-mihira
was the author of this work. But by reasoning entirely
analogous to that with respect to the Surya Siddhanta, he
was led to conclude that the system of astronomy, composed
by Brahma-gupta, may be referred to A.D. 536; and this
date nearly agrees with that assigned to the Brahma-
Siddhanta by the Hindoos themselves. Now Mr. Colebrooke
has observed, that Brahma-gupta, in a work of acknowledged
authenticity, quotes by name Varaha, who flourished

174

in A.D. 499 according to other authorities, (v. Prinsep. I.e.
p. 79.) " Indeed it appears that Brahma-gupta was pre-
ceded by other astronomers, and particularly by one named
Aryabhatta, deserving of notice here, as having advocated
the doctrine of the earth's diurnal revolution on its axis,
and who fixed the length of the sidereal year at 365 days
C hours 12' and 30". These doctrines of Aryabhatta (called
Arjebahar by the Arabs) render it a very interesting point
to determine his age, that we may ascertain whether he
borrowed this philosophical idea from the sages of Greece,
or whether Pythagoras, who was undoubtedly well versed
in the learning of the East, borrowed it himself from the
Indians. But at present we have not sufficient data to
decide this question, which is worthy of all the attention of
Sanscrit scholars.'" v. from Asiat. Res. xii. p. 221 and 227 ;
History of Astronomy. L. U. K. p. 11 and 12; where the
arguments for and the objections against the antiquity of
Indian astronomy are fairly adduced.

Sir W. Jones has affirmed it as improbable, that the
Brahmins should have borrowed from other nations, espe-
cially the Greeks, whom they despised in particular; quoting
a proverb, which he says they have, that no base creature
can be lower than a Yavan ; which is their term for an
Ionian or Greek. But in his third Discourse, he states
that " the philosopher whose works are said to include a
system of the universe, founded on the principle of attrac-
tion and the central position of the sun, is named Yavan
Acharya, because he had travelled, we are told, into Ionia.
If this be true, he might have been one of those who
conversed with Pythagoras. This at least is undeniable,
that a work on astronomy in Sanscrit, bears the title of
Yavan Jatica, which may signify the Ionic sect." This
work I do not find elsewhere mentioned, but Mr. Colebrooke
quotes a very curious passage from Varaha-mihira, where

175

he says, that " the Yavans are barbarians ; but this science
is well established among them, and they are revered like
holy sages." (As. lies. xii. p. 245.) This no doubt proves,
what however does not require proof, that the Hindoos
were acquainted with the Greeks. We know, indeed, that they
made use of some of their inventions, as that of coinage
(v. p. 72), prior even to the above age of Varaha-mihira.
But the fact also proves that the Hindoos must themselves
have previously paid attention to astronomy, to be able
to appreciate the advances made by the Greeks.

If this admission by Hindoo astronomers of the time of
Varaha, of an acquaintance with the cultivation of astro-
nomy by the Greeks, be thought valuable, how much
more so, for the purpose of ascertaining priority of scientific
cultivation, is the constant reference, by the earliest Grecian
writers, to the East, as the source of literature and of
science, as well as the object of their travels in pursuit of
knowledge, at much earlier periods than those of Varaha :
the value of whose testimony, however, must necessarily be
diminished, if his antiquity be reduced.

Before quitting the subject, it is proper to allude to the
similarity which exists in the ancient astronomy of many
Eastern nations. For though we may satisfy some minds by
saying, that the Hindoos borrowed from the Arabs, these
from the Greeks, — and therefore the coincidences between
the first and the last ; this will not account for the many
points of agreement which exist between the Chinese and
the Hindoos, as also between these and the Egyptians.
Neither will it explain how the latter, as well as the Chal-
deans, are reported as having been able to predict eclipses ;
and that methods for doing so, essentially different from
the Grecian, exist in the oldest of the Hindoo astronomical
works.

If the points of coincidence, from the prevalence of similar

176

doctrines among the Greeks and Hindoos, appear remarkable,
the absence among both, of the same sciences, is not less so.
Thus, though the Hindoos, like the Egyptians, must have
been acquainted with many mechanical powers, they do
not seem to have cultivated mechanics as a science ; nor
hydrostatics, though, like the Chinese, they employed
clepsydrae for the measurement of time. Neither though
they knew that air was the vehicle of sound, do they seem
to have studied its other properties ; nor, though they had
mirrors, and acquainted as they were with the fact of the
angle of incidence being equal to the angle of reflection,
do they seem to have made any further advance in optics.
But neither was any great progress made in these sciences
among the Greeks until later ages, as those of Archimedes
and Ptolemy.* If the Hindoos, therefore, borrowed from
the Greeks, they must have done so previous to these times,
of 200 B.C. and 150 A.D. In the same way we have
inferred, that if they borrowed medicine, they must have
done so before the time of Galen ; and therefore about the
period when the peripatetic sages of Greece themselves

* This may be seen by consulting the valuable work of Mr. Whewell, on
the History of the Inductive Sciences, which having appeared since the
Lecture, of which this is a continuation, was delivered, and the greater
portion of the foregoing pages printed, I have not been able to make the
use of that I could have wished. I am pleased to find that, though inclined to
the opinion of the early efforts in physical speculations, and their philosophy
on such subjects, being the native growth of the Greek mind, and owing
" nothing to the supposed lore of Egypt and the East ; an opinion which
has been adopted with regard to the Greek philosophy in general by the
most competent judges, on a full survey of the evidence,"— he yet makes an
exception, "perhaps of the Indians, as the only one of the African or Asiatic
nations, who ever felt the importunate curiosity with regard to the definite
application of the idea of cause and effect to visible phcenomena." p. 32.
But that the Greeks received their first impulse in some of these studies
from without, is shown in a subsequent page, (161,) where a quotation is
made from Plato ; where, after speaking of the Egyptians and Syrians as
the original cultivators of astronomical studies, he adds, " Whatever we
Greeks receive from the barbarians, we improve and perfect."

177

travelled in quest of knowledge throughout eastern regions.
Hence, if we deny originality to the Hindoos, we cannot but
allow them antiquity of application to scientific pursuits.

Tlie sciences more particularly cultivated by the Hindoos,
we have already noticed, and proved or at least shown the
extreme probability, of the Arabs having been indebted to
them for their first knowledge of Chemistry, as well as of
some portion of their Medicine. The Hindoo Materia
Medica being extensive, and comprising substances from
the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, would indi-
cate their having turned their attention, at least, to these
departments of nature. But from the imperfect knowledge
we possess of their books, it is impossible to say whether
they contain any attempts at a scientific classification ; or
if they ever advanced from the observation of facts to genera-
lisations of principles. That their arrangements sometimes
proceeded beyond a merely alphabetical one, we see even
in their dictionary, the Amera Cosha, which is arranged in
a great measure according to subjects. The mineral kingdom
they must necessarily have obtained some knowledge of,
from their cultivation of chemistry. The vegetable articles
of the Materia Medica, we have already seen, are grouped
according to a system, adopted in even our latest and best
books, as those of Martius and Guibourt ; that is, according
to the part of the plant employed, or the nature of the pro-
duct collected (v. p. 54). From the familiarity with which
Indian gardeners talk of male and female plants, it would
appear that the Hindoos had obtained some knowledge of
the sexes of plants. So also the rules which are given for
the collection of medicines, and the pi'operties of plants as
connected with the climate and soil in which they grow ;
indicate that they generalised as well as observed. For
not only is the kind of climate and soil mentioned, but also
the characteristics of the inhabitants, their prevailing

9, A

178

diseases, with the peculiarities of the vegetation, and the
nature of the products it affords. The soil and climate
where salutary or unwholesome plants grow, or those
abounding in juices, or such as yield resins or oil, are
likewise indicated ; so the particular seasons are specified,
when the different parts of officinal plants should be
collected. Whether their knowledge of animals extended
beyond mere acquaintance with their external forms, and
the names by which they were known, I have no means
of determining : but it is remarkable that the incarnations
of their god Vishnu, should be in conformity to the modern
views respecting the gradation of animal forms, as displayed
in ascending from the less to the more highly developed ;
so the incarnations proceed from the fish to the tortoise,
thence to the pachydermatous boar, the carnivorous lion,
dwarf, Rama, &c.

From their Sciences we may proceed to the Fine Arts. Of
these, the early cultivation of Poetry among the Hindoos
has been already noticed ; as well as their earliest Archi-
tecture for its resemblance to the Egyptian. Their later
and more ornate style, is rich, beautiful, and peculiar ; it
may be seen in some still very ancient temples, and is repre-
sented in a few works, as Prinsep's Views of Benares,
and the Treatise on Hindoo Architecture, by Ram Raz.
Sculpture also early attracted the attention of the Hindoos ;
but though they never attained any great eminence in this
department, their older are more perfect than their
modern performances ; for even in the ancient, nearly sea-
covered, city of Mahabalipuram, some of the sculptures
are stated by Bishop Heber to be very beautifully executed.
Their Painting, known of course only in its modern state,
does not proceed beyond indifferent likenesses, and faithfully
copying what is put before them. But Music must be very
ancient among the Hindoos, as it is treated of in one

179

of the Upavedas, with Medicine, Warfare, and Mechanics.
The Hindoos relate many marvellous stories respecting the
effects of their ancient music, while they confess its decline in
modern times. Sir Wm. Jones believed " that the Hindoo
system of music has been formed on truer principles than
our own ; all the skill of the native composers is directed to
the great object of their art, the natural expression of strong
passions, to which indeed melody is often sacrificed ; though
some of their tunes are pleasing even to a European ear.
Nearly the same may be truly asserted of the Arabian or
Persian system ; and by a correct explanation of the best
books on that subject, much of the old Greek theory may
probably be recovered." (Jones. 2d Disc.)

From this slight view of the Fine, the transition is easy
to the Useful Arts of India ; but this is a subject, which
even more than the other has been neglected by Orientalists,
though the results of inquiry might not only be practically
useful, but would be extremely interesting. As many
probably remain unchanged, we might be enabled to explain
various processes of ancient times, by comparing old descrip-
tions with modern practice ; and also obtain some ideas
respecting their attainments in science, from the applications
made of it to practice. In previous pages (p. 98, 130, and
137), the success of the Hindoos in many mechanical and
chemical arts has been mentioned. That commerce early
attracted their attention, we have the assurance in the first
of their sacred law tracts, (supposed to have been revealed
by Menu, it is thought about 800 or 900 years before the
Christian era), containing " a curious passage on the legal
interest of money, and the limited rate of it in different
cases, with an exception in regard to adventures at sea;
an exception which the sense of mankind approves, and
which commerce absolutely requires ; though it was not

180

before the reign of Charles I., that our jurisprudence
fully admitted it in respect to maritime contracjts.'" (Jones,
3d Disc.)

Among the useful arts, Agriculture, Weaving^ Em-
broidering, Dyeing, Calico-printing, Working in Metals,
and Pottery, the manufactory of Sugar and Indigo, were
probably most conspicuous. That other useful arts have
long been very numerous among the Hindoos is evi-
dent, for Sir Wm. Jones says, " that Europeans enume-
rate more than two hundred and fifty mechanical arts,
by which the productions of nature may be variously
prepared for the convenience and ornament of life ; and
though the Silpi Sastra (or Sanscrit Collection of Treatises
on Arts and Manufactures,) reduces them to sixty-four, yet
Abul Fazl had been assured that the Hindoos reckoned
three hundred arts and sciences : now their sciences being
comparatively few, we may conclude that they anciently
practised at least as many useful arts as ourselves." (Jones,
10th Disc.) With respect to their skill in many of these
arts, we may adduce the unexceptionable evidence of the
late excellent, widely and universally esteemed Bishop
Heber, " To say that the Hindoos or Musulmans are defi-
cient in any essential feature of a civilized people, is an
assertion which I can scarcely suppose to be made by any
who have lived with them. Their manners are at least as
pleasing and courteous, as those, of the corresponding-
stations of life among ourselves ; their houses are larger,
and, according to their wants and climate, to the full as
convenient as ours ; their architecture is at least as elegant.
Nor is it true, that in the mechanic arts they are inferior
to the general run of European nations. Where they fall
short of us (which is chiefly in agricultural implements,
and the mechanics of common life), they are not, so far

181

as I have understood of Italy and the south of France,
surpassed in any great degree by the people of those
countries."

Before concluding this view of the progress made by the
ancient Hindoos in science and the arts, it would be
extremely interesting to compare, what is contained in
Sanscrit books on these several subjects, with what was known
to the Greeks at the earliest period of their philosophical
and scientific history. By this means we might in some
measure ascertain the times, at which the communication
chiefly occurred between the sages of the West, and those
of the East ; as undoubtedly the numerous coincidences
which exist between the two cannot be accidental. Since the
progress of scientific discoveries in those ages, must neces-
sarily have been even more gradual than it has been since;
we might consider them a series of epochs ; which, correctly
registered as they are among the Greeks, would give us dates
for ascertaining when the Hindoos borrowed from them,
by the absence in Sanscrit works of the later advances of
science in the West. But if the preponderance of evidence
should induce us to determine that the course of discovery,
like the transit of tropical products, was from south to
north, and from east to west: we might, in like manner,
ascertain the times when the Hindoo discoveries (as, that
of decimal notation) were made. Since these when less
ancient would be unknown to the earlier Greeks, who
appear to have been acquainted, with whatever constituted
the early stock of Oriental knowledge, whencesoever derived.

I regret that this task has not been undertaken by some
one competent to the task, though it may be difficult to
find many such ; for it requires not only a knowledge of the
lancuao-e in which much of the information is still clothed ;
but also of the classical works in which alone the scientific
discoveries of the ancients are detailed. To this must be

182

added an acquaintance with the several sciences, their his-
tory and principles ; because hints or expressions of a general
nature, which are perfectly intelligible to those acquainted
with a science, are usually passed without observation
by those, who look at an author only in a literary point of
view. It is not because I have myself been addicted to
the study of natural history, that I consider a knowledge
of it equally requisite, for investigating this subject and
determining the question of priority. But because only those,
acquainted with the almost immutable laws, which control
the distribution of vegetable and animal forms, perceive and
feel the full force of the inferences to be deduced ; from the
presence of the products of plants in particular places,
which could not be those of their growth. A Naturalist
would at the same time, be more likely to discover, from
the peculiarities of animal and vegetable physiology ; whether
opinions were not rather formed in other climates, than in
those in which they are promulgated.

In prosecuting this subject, some assistance will, even-
tually, no doubt, be afforded by the Hindoos, who are
now so zealously employed in studying the English language
and European science. Some of them will probably conjoin
with these a study of their own ancient language, and
trace in it some of the earliest indications of sciences, which
have been fully developed only in the countries of the West.
Much aid will also be obtained from the prosecution of
the translations which are now making from the Sanscrit,
into Latin and several European languages. But the
assistance here is less than might be expected, from the
translations as yet chiefly consisting of works of a lite-
rary nature. But even these, when read by those versed
in the several sciences, will often indicate the knowledge
which had been attained on scientific subjects in the countries
where they were written; and will, therefore, be available

183

for the above purpose, until more of the treatises on the
sciences, and some of those on the arts, are translated.

In entering upon this investigation, it is unnecessary to
prove, that there was communication between the Hindoos
and Greeks, because this we have seen, was both direct,
and by means as well of Egypt as of Persia. But
it cannot fail to strike one as remarkable, that, accustomed
as the Greeks were to call all other nations, barbarians,
they yet speak with respect of the Gymnosophists, or
naked sages of India, called " Sapientes Indi" by Pliny.
Also that we so constantly read in the early history of
Greece, of Grecian sages travelling in Eastern regions,
not for the purposes of communicating, but for acquiring
information. We also learn, that many, on their return,
established schools of instruction, from which emanated
many important discoveries. These are not more remark-
able for their value, than for precisely coinciding with
those we now find recorded in Sanscrit works. At the same
time, we hear nothing of the sages of the East visiting
the certainly younger civilization of the West ; and yet
if we suppose them enlightened enough to borrow, we
might expect that they had zeal enough to travel, in
quest of the information, which in any case they evidently
knew how to appreciate.

The first point worthy of observation, is the simi-
larity of the subjects, upon which some of the earliest of
the ancient Greeks wrote, and those which we now find
contained in Sanscrit books. The coincidence between
the philosophical systems of the Hindoos, and those of
Plato and Pythagoras, who both travelled in the East, has
been already mentioned. So also the immense mass of
information collected by Theophrastus, and his general
observations respecting Plants, and their distribution in
different countries and soils, resemble in some measure the

184

Hindoo observations on similar subjects, and their attention
to such subjects may, perhaps, account for the knowledge by
the Greeks of Indian plants. In like manner, some of the
views of Aristotle on the generation of animals, more espe-
cially that denominated equivocal, do not seem to differ
from such as are found among the Hindoos. The early poet
and physician Nicander wrote on poisons and their anti-
dotes ; so we have seen that this was one of the subjects
early treated of by the Hindoos ; and even that the Hindoo
Manka translated a treatise on poisons from Sanscrit into
Persian at the Court of Harun-al-Rashid. (v. p. 64.)

For these reasons, the several subjects on which Demo-
critus wrote, have been mentioned at p. 115. That he
travelled in southern regions, we have the proof in his
having described the sensitive plant — his coincidence in
opinion with the Hindoo Kanade respecting atoms, has
already been stated — and it is curious that he should
be cited as one of the earliest writers on chemistry
(v. Enc. Metrop. Chemistry, p. 590), when it was not sus-
pected that chemistry had ever been cultivated in the East,
in the days when he travelled. Thus, likewise Eudoxus,
who lived 370 years before the Christian era, and is said to
have studied thirteen years in Egypt, is stated by Seneca
to have introduced from thence into Greece, the theory of
the five planets. " Eudoxus quinque syderum cursus in
Graeciam ab iEgypto transtulit. 11 (Quasst. Nat. vii. 3.) He
composed also a description of the sphere, which is supposed
to have been copied from one long anterior to his own time,
in consequence of his asserting that there is a certain star in
the celestial sphere, corresponding to the pole of the equator.
" Now this could not have been the polar star of our times,
which was then, owing to the precession of the equinoxes,
far from the pole ; and upon examining this part of the
heavens, there seems to be no other star that could be

185

alluded to, except « Draconis. About 1326 B.C. this
star was within four degrees of the pole, which was
sufficiently near to make it appear immoveable to such
observers. But from the discordant positions of the stars
assigned by Eudoxus, it is inferred that little dependance
can be placed on him ; and if Eudoxus copied any very
ancient sphere, it must have been one of Oriental origin."
Hist, of Astron. p. 20.

In the same manner Pythagoras, who we have seen
travelled in Egypt and the East, likewise resembles the
Hindoos in his metaphysical doctrines. It is remarkable also,
that he should be thought to have discovered the celebrated
properties of the right-angled triangle, as these have long
been known to the Hindoos, and which it is proper to add,
they " demonstrate in a very singular way, which partakes
more of the nature of algebraic reasoning than of pure
geometry. 11 The properties of numbers, always a favourite
speculation with the Brahmans, was also entered into by
Pythagoras ; and as he likewise treated of music, so we
find it one of the subjects included in the ancient Vedas.
In like manner, the revolution of the earth upon its
axis, promulgated by Pythagoras, wa*s also entertained
by Aryabhatta, one of the ancient Hindoo astronomers.
The Pythagorean doctrines respecting comets being as
ancient as the universe ; revolving round the sun ; and
visible only in a certain part of their orbit ; is exactly simi-
lar, as related by Seneca, to that entertained by the Chal-
deans, according to Apollonius Myndius, who professed to
have studied under them. (Hist. Astr. p. 14).

Thales is the last of the philosophers necessary to
mention, as the earliest (B.C. 600) reported to have travelled
in the East ; also because he is considered the founder
of astronomy among the Greeks. Many of his doctrines,
however, like those of some of his successors, resemble

186

those of the Hindoos, as he, like them and Pythagoras,
considered the earth to revolve upon its axis. To him also
is ascribed " the invention of the zodiac, the discovery of
the obliquity of the ecliptic, of the tropical revolution of
the sun, and the principal circles of the celestial sphere."
But it has already, as appears to me, been justly observed,
that " many things seem to prove that the science of
Thales was of Eastern origin, and that what have been
called his discoveries, were doctrines borrowed from
Chaldea or Egypt." This is sufficiently evident from the
Grecian zodiac being the same as the Egyptian, Chal-
dean, and Indian ; the last remarkable, as having its twelve
signs taken from among the twenty-seven lunar mansions.
To his followers is also ascribed the fixing of the obliquity
of the ecliptic, like the Hindoos, at 24°; so also the
invention of the gnomon, which Herodotus, however, says,
was borrowed from the Babylonians. But Thales having,
after his travels, been able to predict an eclipse of the
sun, (referred by Mr. Bailly to the year 610 B.C.,) appears
quite decisive of the subject, as of the fact there can
hardly be a doubt. He could not have done so without a
long series of observations ; and these had been made by
the nations among whom he travelled, and who had long
been able to foretell eclipses. He is reported, indeed, to
have learnt the mode from the Egyptians, and to have
taught them how to ascertain the height of the pyramids
by the length of their shadows.

In addition to this may be mentioned the mode, according
to Apuleius, which Thales adopted for determining the
apparent diameter of the sun, as this is conformable to the
Hindoo practice of expressing the radius in parts of the
circumference (v p. 163); for Thales, according to Apuleius,
determined the magnitude of the sun, in parts of its own
orbit : " now ? i 5 part (which it was stated to be by another

187

author) of a great circle, is 30' : the real diameter of the
sun may be taken at a mean, not far from 32'; so that
we see the measure of Thales was a good approximation for
those early times." (Hist, of Astr. p. 19.)

Considering therefore the sudden introduction of so
much new information, and by those who avowedly travelled
in quest of it; also that many circumstances concur in
proving, that the Orientalists did possess similar information
on the same subjects, we can hardly avoid admitting, that
much of it was learnt in the regions where these early
philosophers travelled. But with our present knowledge
we should find it impossible to apportion their respective
shares of discovery to each of the nations from whom it
may have been learned, as Egyptians, Chaldeans, Baby-
lonians, Persians, Indiana, or Chinese. We only know
that the Hindoos do possess much of the above information,
in their early cultivated and classical language, and that
ancient writers give them credit, as well as the Egyptians
and Chaldeans, for having cultivated some of the sciences,
and made advances in philosophy.

Conformably to the method adopted with some other
nations, it will be proper to conclude this account of the
Hindoos with such notice respecting their chronology as
may enable us to appreciate the probability of their having
been a literary and scientific people, at the early periods
required to establish their claims to originality. The quo-
tations by Arabian writers, from Hindoo works, and the
mention by name of Hindoos, is sufficient to establish the
priority of the latter. In Greek and Latin authors of the
period of the commencement of the Christian era, the nume-
rous notices of Indian products, indicate, according to the
view we have taken, the existence of a resident and observant
people. This, however, was the case at much earlier periods,
as we know from the embassy of Megasthenes and Onesi-

188

critus to the Court of Chandragupta at Patna, B.C. 315.
So, Alexander the Great encountered on the frontiers of
India powerful nations and civilized people, whose sages
had even then acquired a character for wisdom ; their books
were sought for, and, if there be any truth in the tradition,
(v. p. 158), sent by Callisthenes to Aristotle. In the time
of Theophrastus, or 300 B.C., the knowledge of India was
more accurate than even in later times ; while even in
Hippocrates, or 150 years earlier, we find notices of many
Indian drugs. Ctesias, who was a contemporary, had ob-
tained some knowledge of India by his residence at the
Persian Court ; through which channel, or by that of
Egypt, and with both we have shown that the Greeks held
constant communication, a knowledge of Indian products
might have been communicated to the West.

The above period, or that of Ctesias and Hippocrates,
is only a century posterior to the times when there seems
to have been considerable mental activity, with cultivation
of literature, among all the nations of the East. Then
Buddhism rose in the plains of India ; Pharaoh Nechao
reigned in Egypt, and is thought to have circumnavigated
Africa by means of the Phoenicians ; while Zoroaster
flourished in Persia, and Confucius in China. But we
have no means of ascertaining when Sanscrit literature
first became known to the Chinese, though we know that
there was considerable intercourse between India and
China previous to the Christian era.

Hence, there would appear little difficulty in admitting,
even if we were without positive testimony, that the
Indians might, like other Oriental nations, even at that
time have made some advances in the literature and the
science which we find treasured up in their sacred language.
This would, moreover, account for the perseverance with
which Grecian sages travelled in Eastern regions, even

189

from the early time of Thales, or 600 years before the
Christian era.

But from our cursory view of ancient commerce, we
have seen that from the earliest times it embraced the
products of India, which are mentioned by Herodotus, and
•were sought for by the Phoenicians, whose most flourishing
period was from 1000 to 556 B.C. They were used by
the Israelites in large quantities in the time of Solomon,
or 1000 years B.C. ; but they are mentioned at still earlier
periods. We have, moreover, seen that the Egyptians, who
existed as a powerful and civilized nation under the Sesos-
tridae, from B.C. 1600 to 800, and were ruled over by the
Hyksos from 1800 to the former period, seem in very
early ages to have been acquainted with the products of
India. There is also a most remarkable resemblance
between them and the Hindoos, unaccountable, if we do
not admit that these were contemporaries ; and therefore
if the latter did not originate, must have borrowed the
practices which form the points of resemblance, neces-
sarily at times quite incompatible with their also copying
from the comparatively modern Arabs, or even from their
chief masters, the more ancient Greeks. The only diffi-
culty, therefore, which I feel, is in disbelieving that the
Hindoos were an early civilized people; as in this way
only can be explained the numerous facts alluded to in the
previous parts of this discourse.

Seeing, therefore, that Buddhism, called a reform of
the abuses of Brahmanism, arose in the plains of India,
at least in the sixth century before Christ, it proves the
long anterior existence of the religion of the Brahmans, as
well as of the Vedas, in which its doctrines are explained,
and which contain no traces of Buddhism, or of the worship
of Rama and Chrishna, as these succeeded that of the
Elements. But even the Vedas, or at least the fourth, (which

190

is however acknowledged to be posterior to the others,) con-
tains notices of some of the sciences, and among others of
that of medicine. As it is admitted also, that the Hindoos
must have paid attention to astronomy as early as 945, 1180,
and 1425 B.C. (v. p. 149) it is evident that they must then
have been a resident and settled people. So far, therefore,
from its being improbable, that the activity of mind which
had been displayed in the cultivation of one science, should
be similarly exerted in prosecuting others, it is almost a
necessary consequence of the investigation of one set of
phenomena, that the reflective mind should be similarly
directed to that of others Hence supposing the correct-
ness of the opinion of this early cultivation of astronomy
and philosophy, as displayed in the Vedas ; we should have
much greater difficulty in explaining the anomaly which
would present itself in the apparent glimmerings of one
science, in the midst of so much mental darkness respecting
others. Instead of this, we have a full and continued
sti'eam of light, which shows that the ancient Hindoos,
with great acuteness and philosophical discernment, turned
their attention successfully to almost every department of
human knowledge, as Language and Literature, Science, and
both the Fine and Useful arts. Our great difficulty consists
in assigning to their authors, the dates at which they wrote ;
from their having themselves neglected the important
subject of chronology, or from this having been mystified
by their short-sighted followers.

Hence it really appears more probable, that the dates
assigned to the principal works by the majority of Orien-
talists, are nearer the correct ones, than the modernised
eras which have been conjectured on such apparently
insufficient gi-ounds.. The age of Vikramaditya, which is
remarkable for the cultivation and patronage of both
literature and science, may therefore be considered as

191

correctly determined in having preceded the Christian era
by fifty-seven years. The two great poems, the Ramayana
and Mahabharat, having been then revised and rearranged,
must necessarily have been composed a few centuries pre-
viously. Of these, the former is interesting, as containing
a notice of Aghastier, the first translator into Tamul of
Sanscrit medical literature. The Vedas have undoubtedly a
long anterior date, and are supposed to have been com-
posed near fifteen centuries B.C. ; and though the fourth is
subsequent to the others, it must also be very ancient ;
and is interesting to us, as containing the Ayur Veda, or
the earliest of the medical writings of the Hindoos. For
cultivating the sciences, and the production of the above
works, there is sufficient time, if we take Hindoo history
after the settlement in India, even on the moderate com-
putations which have been determined by the several
authors who have investigated the subject. These, omitting
the long list of sovereigns of the fabulous ages of Hindoos-
than, yet find that the two solar dynasties must have been
settled in Oude and Tirhoot, at least from 1500 to 2000
years before the Christian era ; while the lunar race, who
reigned in Benares, and afterwards in Behar and Delhi,
must be equally ancient. Some authors, however, consider
both much, or 1000 years, more ancient than the higher
of the above dates ; and Sir Wm. Jones concludes,
that the second or silver age of the Hindoos was subse-
quent to the dispersion from Babel ; and that we have
only a dark interval of about a thousand years, which
were employed in the settlement of nations, the foun-
dation of empires, and the cultivation of civil society.

192

* Having taken a view of the objects of a course of
Lectures on Materia Medica and Therapeutics, as well as
a cursory survey of their History, I come now to the
third division of my subject, that is, the best mode of
studying, as well as of teaching them. Though this is a
subject I shall afterwards have to detail, you cannot but
allow, considering only the multitudinous details to be
collected and arranged, that, the task which I have under-
taken is one, at least, of considerable labour. Knowing,
however, that difficulties were never yet surmounted by
those who had not the courage to encounter them, so I
have not attempted to conceal from you, or from myself,
the extent of the field to be traversed, though called upon
to describe its varied riches and multiplied uses, before
there has been scarcely time enough to take a survey of
its boundaries. I hope, nevertheless, by attention to
method, and by determined industry, to be able to bring
together sufficient of what is necessary, with enough of
what is new, to ensure that your time may not be mis-spent.
Hearing me dilate upon the extent and difficulties of the
subject, it will perhaps have occurred to you to have heard
Materia Medica and Therapeutics stated as the most
easily treated department of the Medical curriculum. I
know not whether this be from the limited view that is
taken of the subjects which they embrace, or from the
high qualifications of the present members of the profession ;
but I feel my own burden much increased by the way in
which these subjects are now taught by my friends, Drs.
Thomson and Christison, Mr. Pereira, and others.

The multitude of subjects necessarily embraced will be
obvious to any one consulting any of the standard works on
Materia Medica and Therapeutics, as our Pharmacopoeias
and Dispensatories, both English and American, with our

* Here the Lecture is resumed as originally delivered.

193

several authors, only from the time of Cullen ; or such
works, as those of Cottereau, Guibourt, Fee, Richard, Merat
and De Lens, with Bayle, Barbier, Trousseau and Pidoux,
Martius, Esenbeck and Ebermeier, Geiger, Gobel and
Kunze, Brandt and Ratzeburge.

The difficulties of treating the subject are, however,
I conceive, considerably increased by the position at present
occupied by Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the
prescribed course of Medical Education. Considering that
these presuppose some knowledge of Natural History and
Chemistry, as well as of Physiology and Pathology,
that we may understand the meaning of terms employed
in description, as well as the Natural classifications in
which the different substances are arranged ; besides their
mode of action on the living system, as well as their appli-
cation as medicines in the treatment of disease ; one would
not expect to find Materia Medica and Therapeutics placed
in the first year of the prescribed course of Medical Edu-
cation ; though, perhaps, it is at present unavoidable, from
the short time allotted to medical study. The above
opinion has been already expressed by others, and there-
fore I myself venture to bring it forward, particularly
as it has the sanction of a name as high as any in English
annals, when we consider his triple claim on Literature,
on Science, and on Medicine. I mean that of the late
Dr. Young, who, in laying down, in his " Medical Lite-
rature, 11 what he considered to be the most judicious course
of Education, defers attendance on a course of Materia
Medica until the third year of study. The only mode,
at present practicable, of avoiding the inconveniences of
bringing forward at once so many points, in connexion
with each particular subject, is to divide the course into
two portions ; in the first of which, the several substances
may be treated of as objects of Natural History ; and in

2 c

194

reference to their Physical characters and Chemical compo-
sition, with only brief notices of their Physiological action.
Thus, after noticing the nature, the physical and sensible
properties of the substances constituting medicines; the
elements of Pharmacy may be treated of,' describing first
the Mechanical, and afterwards the Chemical operations of
that department of our subject, with the different forms in
which medicines are administered, as well as the surfaces
to which they are applied. That the terms may be intel-
ligible, which, even in this mode of treating the subject,
are necessarily employed in describing each article ; it will
be necessary to follow the above, with a few lectures on the
different modes in which medicines act; as well as the
classes in which they are arranged, when considering them
only with respect to their Therapeutical uses. We shall then
be prepared to enter on the substantive part of the course,
and may commence with the Inorganic, and proceed to the
Organic kingdom of Nature, or from the Mineral to the
Vegetable and Animal kingdoms; introducing under each
substance the several Pharmaceutical Preparations, of
which it forms the principal ingredient, or from which
they derive their names.

In the second portion of the course, the Physiological
action of Medicines may be more fully entered upon, in
conjunction with their Therapeutical uses ; when the several
substances which had been treated of according to Natural
History classifications, will be arranged with reference to
their properties as agents for the cure of disease. This part
of the course may be fitly preceded by general observa-
tions on the important subjects of Climate, Regimen,
Diet, and concluded with others on the Theory and Art
of Prescribing.

Having alluded to difficulties, it would ill become me,
however, to be alive only to these, sensible as I am of

195

the several advantages of my position. Among these, I
would particularly mention the easy accessibility to col-
leagues, willing and able to aid with their advice and assist-
ance ; as well as to varied and increasing Libraries and
Museums, Collections of Diagrams and Drawings, and also
to a Laboratory and Herbarium ; to these, I hope, my
own Herbarium and Collection of Materia Medica will be no
useless addition for the purposes of illustration. But, as
first in value, and sufficiently so to be ranked by itself,
I would mention the munificent donation of a Museum of
Materia Medica, which I understand is to be a counterpart
of their own, by the Society of Apothecaries.* Words are
inadequate for expressing the value to us of such a gift :
but as a Botanist, I cannot but feel pleased that it should
have come from a Body, who have for two centuries
patronised my favourite study. As Member of an Insti-
tution, called into existence by the exigencies of modern
times, I hardly know how sufficiently to appreciate the
patronage of those, who have so long and so successfully
laboured for the improvement of the general members of
the profession, on the only sure basis, that of extended
and efficient education. I trust we may take this as an
omen of King's College being so considered, because it
offers to youth of every calling, opportunities of laying
deep the foundations of Literature in conjunction with
Religion, and on a basement of Mathematical and Physical
Science, raising a Professional superstructure, which will
be as creditable to themselves as beneficial to the public.
In conclusion, I have to request your attention to a

* This collection has been received since this Lecture was delivered,
and is deposited, with a set for the use of Students, in one Museum, with
the Collections of Botany, Mineralogy, and Geology. The other Museum
alluded to, contains the Collections of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy,
in connexion with those of Human and Morbid Anatomy.

196

remark, though relating only to myself; and this is to
remind you, that the difficulties of a first course on any
subject are materially increased, if they co-exist, as they do
in my own person, with the first time of lecturing at all.
That facility of communicating information, usually only
the result of experience, will therefore, I fear, be wanting ;
but labouring to avoid prolixity, I shall endeavour to be
full ; and I trust I may escape being superficial, when I
wish to be brief. The almost necessary failings which,
with the best endeavours to avoid, will still exist, require
that consideration, which, on a first course, it is usual
and becoming to bestow. More than that it would be unbe-
coming in me to ask, and injustice, both to yourselves
and the Institution to which I have the honour to belong,
for you to grant.

*»* While these last pages have been passing through the press, some
observations bymyfriend, Mr. Prinsep, Secretary of the Asiatic Society, have
arrived, " on the very great similarity between the old Sanscrit and the
Greek character, more palpable the farther we retire into antiquity, the
older the monuments we have to decipher ; so that we might almost advance,
that the oldest Greek (that written like the Phoenician from right to left)
was nothing more than Sanscrit turned topsy turvy."

The connexion of the Greek with the Phoenician and Samaritan alpha-
bets has been admitted as a strong evidence, that " the use of letters travelled
progressively from Chaldea to Phoenicia, and thence along the coasts ot the
Mediterranean ;" ( Pantographia, p. 107.) The Greek language has besides
been now indisputably proved to be but a branch of the Sanscrit stem.

As Mr. Prinsep's arguments are solely those of graphic similitude and
ocular evidence, he has printed the letters of the two alphabets in parallel
columns. Of the Greek vowels the majority, and in the consonants every
one of the letters, "excepting those of after- invention, are represented
with considerable exactness," by the several corresponding letters of the
oldest Sanscrit alphabet, " although there is hardly a shadow of resemblance
between any two in their modern forms." " Whether the priority is to be
conceded to the Greeks, the Pelasgians, or the Hindoos, is a question
requiring great research, and not less impartiality, to determine." Journal
Asiat. Soc. of Bengal, May 1837, p. 391. -e^. t<_

Date Due

1

Demco 293-5

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