Cultures of Body and Mind in the Compendium of Caraka

Abstract

Apart from the empirical nature of the etiology, in the Sanskrit Medical Encyclopaedias we find the first evidence of the controversy between medicine and morality, primarily through the concept of karma, and in different contexts like embryology or epidemiology. We see one of the first efforts to define medical knowledge, against the interference of philosophical or anthropological doctrines of Brahmanical ideology. The article analyzes the diverse conceptions of mental and physical culture in the context of the oldest and most influential encyclopaedia of the Sanskrit medical tradition, the Caraka-samhitā (Compendium of Caraka), dealing also with some of the social aspects of medical practices, like the education and selection of doctors and their dialectical training for participation in regular medical assemblies.