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Ancient Science of Life, Vol No. XIII Nos. 1 & 2, July-October 1993, Pages 2 - 10

TWO FRENCH PIONEER HISTORIANS OF INDIAN MEDICINE

ARION ROSU

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France

Received: 11 February, 1991 Accepted: 13 July,1992 ABSTRACT: This text constitutes a summary of the author’s recent book on Gustave Lietard (1833 – 1904) and Palmyr Cordier (1871 – 1914),the first historians of Ayurveda in France. In this book, their writings are reprinted and analysed in a long introduction of Ayurvedic historiography.

A series of coincidences led the present of on the history of Indian science bequeathed which justify a re-publication of to the Societe Asiatique by Jean Filliozat contributions made by two French pioneers (1906 – 1982). It was great surprise to find in the history of Indian medicine : Gustave among these books Ayurvedic texts from the Lietard (1833 – 1904), a hydropathic private library of Corider, which Jean physician at Plombieres-les-Bains, in Filliozat had purchased from a Parisian Lorrainem and Palmyr Cordier (1871 – bookseller some time before 1940. There 1914), a medical doctor pracitising in are apporimately sixty-five such texts, to French colonies in the East (Chandernagore, which may be added the twenty-five Pondicherry and Indochina). volumes of Tibetology previously owned by Cordier and now in the Bacot collection of The first discovery was that of the Lietard Societe Asiatique. A large number of the Collection in the Library of the Wellcome Ayurvedic texts contain Cordier’s Institute for the History of Medicine in annotations, the accuracy of which greatly London. This collection consists of printed enhances the value of this collection held by documents and manuscripts (notes, papers the Societe Asiatique. Jean Filliozat and letters) concerning the history of devoted a life of scholarship to the study of medicine, particularly that of Ayurvedic these Sanskrit sources, which he himself medicine. Lietard’s voluminous annotated in turn. The Sanskrit manuscripts correspondence with fellow scholars in the of Palmyr Cordier collection, acquired in fields of Indology and the history of 1932 by the Bibliotheque Nationale through medicine includes the many letters he the good offices Sylvain Levi, were the received from his close collaborator, Palmyr materials on which were based Filliozat’s Cordier. Theirs was more than merely a earliest Indological studies; and the works scholarly relationship; it was a deep Jean Filliozat considered to be the most friendship, a sort of father-son relationship precious among those bequeathed were the (especially as Lietard met Cordier for the Ayurvedic editions annotated by Cordier. first time shortly after the death of his son, a yound man of Cordier’s generation). The documents found by the present writer in London and Paris constitutes a rich source The second discovery was that of the of information concerning fifty years of ayurvedic material found among the works Ayurvedic studies in France. In view of

Pages 2 - 10 their interests for an analysis of the scholarly Western medicine: anatomy and production of Lietard and Cordier, it was physiology, surgery and obstetrics, deemed worthwhile to republish the material medica and therapeutics. The historical works of these two physicians. author focuses the attention of the This field study in France which was French medical world on Ayurveda, inaugurated by Lietard and carried forward neglected till then, and points out that it by his “Protégé” Cordier, has progressed is wrong to look for antiquity only in during the last fifty years thanks to the Rome and Athens (see p.9 below). research and teaching activities of Jean Filliozat in Paris and also in Pondicherry, 2. Historical letters on Indian medicine where he founded the French Institute in (1862 – 1863). In five Letters, Lietard 1955. The publication in French of his expands his thesis and develops the doctoral thesis on the Classical doctrine of following points: medicine and Indo Indian Medicine (1949), which appeared European comparative mythology, the some fifty years after J. Jolly’s monograph origin and development of Ayurveda, its Indian Medicine (1901), was also an teaching and practice, an outline of important date in the history Ayurvedic Sanskrit medical literature, the medical studies. system of Ayurveda and its relations with Samkhya philosophy, as well as In the introduction to the present volume, humoral pathology (tridosa). which is the survey of Ayurvedic historiography from ancient times to present 3. Susruta (1883). In the Dictionnaire day, an effort has been made to give a encyclopedique des sciences medicales, critical evaluation of the contributions of Lietard contributes nearly twenty-five Lietard and Cordier to the study of Indian articles on Ayurvedic topics including medicine. Susruta. The latter remains a complete and thorough study of this classic of The following is an annoted list of the works Indian medicine (forty closely printed of Lietard and Cordieron the history of pages). Ayurvedic medicine, which has been reprinted in the present volume. 4. Fragments of history and bibliography (1883 – 1884). The first article in this I. Works by Gustave Lietard : series describes the spread of Ayurveda in the Middle East and Indochina in the 1. Essay on the history of Indian medicine ninth century. The second deals with (doctoral thesis at the University of hygiene and health institutions in Strasbourg, 1858). First dissertation on ancient India according to medical and Ayurveda in France, based primarily on non-medical texts (Laws of Manu, F. Hessler’s Latin version of the epics, inscriptions). Being a non- Susrutasamhita (1844 – 1850). sanskrit scholar, Lietard was highly Beginning with an outline of the early interested in a reliable translation of developments of Indian medicine, the Susruta in the light of ancient work describes the teaching and practice commentaries. In the third article, he of Ayurveda according to Susruta. reviews a new but incomplete English Secondly, Lietard analyses Susruta’s version of Susruta’s work by U.C. Dutt text under categories appropriate to (Calcutta 1883 – 1891), which appeared

Pages 2 - 10 after that of A.M. Kunte (Bombay the Rgveda, as was suggested by some 1877). scholars. In fact, the first allusion to tridosha in Sanskrit literature goes back 5. Note of Indian anatomical knowledge to the grammarian Katyayana of the (1884) : Anatomical and physiological fourth century B.C., which proves data based as usual on Susruta. beyond doubt the Indian origin of this pathological doctrine. 6. Indian medical literature (1896). An outline of classical as well as 10. Review of P. Cordier’s “Some new data postclassical Ayurvedic literature : concerning Sanskrit medical treatises Caraka, Susruta, the Bower Manuscript, prior to the thirteenth century” (1899). Vaghbata, Cakrapani, Vangasena, Sarngadhara, Bhavamisra and medical 11. The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim I-tsing glossaries (nighantu). and the medicine of seventh-century India. (1902). 7. Caraka, the physician. The Hippocratic Oath and the Oath of the Indian 12. Review of J. Jolly’s “Indian physicians (1897). After repeatedly medicine”(1903). These last dealing with the relations between publications (10,11,12) of the French Ayurveda and Greek medicine, Lietard scholar on medical history are three studies the question of medical ethics, reviews, the first regarding a pamphlet drawing a parallel between the of Cordier (1899) and the other two of Hippocratic Oath and other Greek texts the following works of the German on the one hand, and deontological rules Indologist J. Jolly, with whom Lietard laid down by Caraka and Susruta on the had excellent relations: 1. Indian other. medicine (1901), translated from German by C.G. Kashikar (1951; 2nd ed. 8. A survey of the history of Indian 1977); 2. Note on the medical data in I- medicine (1897). Lietard gives a tsing’s record (ZDMG 1902). In his general view of Ayurveda in this brief correspondence with Lietard, Jolly study of the history of Oriental expresses his gratitude to the former and medicine, published in the Grande pays tribute to the French contributions encyclopedie, vol XXIII. to the history of Indian medicine.

9. The Indian humoral doctrine and the Gustave Lietard, physician and scholar, is Rgveda (1898). Regarding the the real pioneer of Ayurvedic studies in interchange of ideas between ancient France. He spread his knowledge in this India and the Mediterranean world, field among Orientalists and medical men, Lietard was prone to consider that in Paris as well as in his province of Greece made a greater contribution than Lorraine. He continued his historical India. However Jean Filliozat did not research for almost half a century, accept this kind of conjecture any more sometimes in difficult circumstances. He than the hypothesis of the Greek origin also encouraged and gave his guidance to of the tridosha theory. In this article, the young doctor Palmyr Cordier, who Lietard is more cautious about the carried forward the work of his forerunner. humoral theory which is not found in

Pages 2 - 10 almost a legendary figure, to whom are II. Work by Palmyr Cordier : attributed Buddhist works as well as a number of technical texts on a variety of 1. A study of Indian medicine : Vedic and topics such as medicine, alchemy and heroic times (doctoral thesis at the even magic. Nagarjuna is also supposed University of Bordeaux, 1894). Cordier to have revised the Susrutasamhita began his studies in Sanskirt and Pali (Dalhana) and to have added to it the when he was very young prior to Uttratantra (a preface to the embarking on the risky career of a Vaidyakasabdasindhu). colonial physician. He then prepared the second French thesis on Ayurveda, 4. Some new data concerning Sanskrit which is characterized by a wide use of medical treatises prior to the thirteenth non-medical Sanskrit texts, Vedic, epic century (1899). Among the subjects and juridical. He even used Nagari treated in this private publication are characters in quoting certain Indian Caraka as the physician of King Kaniska technical terms. (1st century A.D.), the anteriority of Astangasamgraha in relation to 2. Vagbhata and the Astangahrdaya Astangahrdaya and the importance of (1896). This first pamphlet published the Madhavanidana. Cordier identifies after his thesis marks the beginning of Nagarjuna with the reviser philological studies on Vagbhata, who, (pratisamskartr) of Susruta and also with alchemist Nagarjuna, came to be a discusses the earliest references to favourite subject of Cordier’s researches. mercury in Ayurvedic literature. On the basis of printed and manuscript Cordier’s work on Nagarjuna and sources, medical as well as non-medical, alchemy were pioneering studies on the author attempts to determine the data Rasasastra, studies which appeared of Vagbhata and describes the while P.C. Ray was preparing his Astangahrdaya and two of its History of Hindu Chemistry (2 vols, commentaries. What data he could 1902 – 1909), written at the instigation gather led him to confuse Vagbhata and of the French savant Marcelin Berthelot. Nityanatha Siddha on the one hand and the Rasaratnasamuccaya and the 5. Physicians and medicine in Bengal Rasaratnakara on the other. He points (1899). In this article, written on the out the conversion of Vaghbata to advice of Lietard, Cordier gives a vivid Buddhism and already deals with the description of the living medical Tibetan version of the Astangahrdaya tradition which he observed during his and its commentaries, anticipating the stay in Chandernagore (1898 – 1900). Indo-Tibetan philology of medical texts. At the same time he wrote about the subject in greater detail in Lietard, who 3. Nagarjuna and the Uttaratantra of the was keenly interested in contemporary Susrutasamhita (1896). The identity of Ayurvedic practice. Cordier emphasized this ancient Buddhist author or of some the fact that the kavirajas are considered other writer who bore the same name is in Bengal to be more capable than the subject of a controversy which is Western physicians in the treatment and nearly one hundred years old. cure of chronic diseases, whereas the According to Indian tradition, he is Westerners were considered to be

Pages 2 - 10 superior to Ayurvedic practitioners in places in both the Samgraha and the treating acute cases. Cordier totally Hrdaya. agreed with this view, and adduced in support the inability of Western Cordier again takes up the problem of medicine to treat malarial consumption the relation between the Samgraha, the (cachexie palustre), which was endemic older work, and the Hrdaya, the latter to Lower Bengal. and the better known. Here, he points out the common origin of both works 6. Bibliographical note on J. Jolly’s and, in support of his view on their “Vagbhata” (1901). In this review textual evolution, he refers to an article Cordier confirms the Buddhist intermediary recension convictions of Vagbhata and the (Madhyavagabhata), refuted by some anteriority of Samgraha in relation to the Indologists (W. Kirfel and C. Vogel). Hrdaya with arguments which led to a He also underlines the Buddhist features prolonged debate in the West (W. Kirfel, of Vagbhata’s works, which are J. Filliozat, C. Vogel, G.J. Meulenbeld, interspersed with Mahayanist and Hindu in chronological order). Based on a elements. These latter elements are study of manuscripts, Cordier now gives more pronounced in the Hrdaya due to a definite data on two commentators of the hypothetical Brahmanization of the text Astangahrdaya, namely Arunadatta and in relation to the older work, the Candranandana. He attributes to the Samgraha, whose Buddhist character is later the Gananighantu, as manuscript of contested by other scholars such as J. which is found in the Cordier Collection Filliozat and C. Vogel. of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. 8. Indian medicine : sitala “smallpox” 7. Vagbhata : a historical and religious (1901). Partial translation of the chapter study (1901). This is the major on masurika in the Bhavaprakasa, contribution of Cordier to the knowledge describing a form of smallpox caused by of Vagbhata. His copy of the Sitala along with its treatment, which Astangahrdaya (2nd ed. by A. M. Kunte, consists of a hymn of praise to this Bombay 1891), now preserved in the goddess and other pious acts. library of the Societe Asiatique, bears ample testimony to the pains taken by 9. Origins, evolution and decline of Indian Cordier to study this classical vaidyai medicine (1901). Subsequent to the from the philological point of view. early version of the classical samhitas, The volume is full of Sanskrit and free from any Greek influence, Cordier Tibetan annotations, relating to a traces to the 1st millennium of the comparative study of the Hrdayai with Christian era a period of development of the Samgraha as well as with the Ayurveda (literature, teaching, hospitals) Tibetan version of the former in the linked to the spread of Buddhism. On Tanjur. Cordier rightly hesitates to the other hand, the decline of Indian attribute to Vagbhata the medicine after the 10th century A.D. is Rasaratnasamuccaya, based essentially attributed to the persecution of on mercurial therapeutics, whereas Buddhism and to Muslim invasions. metallic formulae occur at only six The importance attached by Cordier to Buddhism led him to identify – not too

Pages 2 - 10 convincingly – Aterya Punarvasu, the medical glossary. This task was teacher of Agnivesa, whose tantra was accomplished only in 1979, and then by revised by Caraka, with the Atreya J.Filliozat. presented in the Buddhist sources as the famous physician of Taxila. Some In the field of Tibetology, Cordier scholars identified Atreya with a great published, before the admirable Index of physician of the same name mentioned Tanjur (1909 – 1915), a course of in the Tibetan Tanjur, although this is classical Tibetan (Hanoi 1907 – 1908) not supported by the Chinese Buddhist with the view of later preparing a Canon. However, in view of the fact that Manual, which unfortunately did not see there were several great medical the light of day. practitioners with the name of Atreya, one has to be cautious in identifying the 12. Recent discoveries of Sanskrit medical Ayurvedic teacher Atreya Punarvasu manuscripts of India (1903). Based on a with the Atreya of the Pali Jatakas. thorough knowledge of several Oriental languages, especially those of ancient 10. Medical training in ancient India : Vedic and modern India, Cordier closely linked and Brahmanic times (1902). Cordier his philological work to the systematic was one of the first Indologists to use, in effort of collecting as many Sanskrit addition to the Ayurvedic literature, non- manuscripts as possible, mainly in the medical sources such as Pali texts and fields of Ayurveda and Rasasastra Sanskrit juridical sources, to trace the (almost 200 titles). The entire history of the teaching of Indian manuscript Collection of Cordier, now medicine. preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, comprises 330 items in 11. Introduction to the study of Sanskrit Sanskrit, Bengali and Tibetan. At the medical treatises incorporated in the Congress of Orientalists in Hanoi Tibetan Tanjur (1903). Cordier (1902), Cordier presented a paper on the appreciated the wealth of Buddhist most important medical texts of his sources, among which the Tibetan texts collection which had been acquired were for him the most useful and mostly between 1898 and 1902. accessible. He soon acquired a knowledge of that language before In the investigations he made in India, proceedings to a provisional analysis of Cordier gave precedence to the study of medical works in the Tanjur. He had the source material, especially manuscripts, intention of completing that analysis as considering as he did that the he progressed in his research. This first cataloguing of manuscripts was a basic work of Cordier already contributed to component of his historical research. To the advance of knowledge regarding the attain this aim, he traversed the Indian parallels between Sanskrit and Tibetan subcontinent from North to South. In medical terminologies. In fact this the autumn of 1898, he was in the comparative study remains a priority in Gangetic valley, in Punjab and Kashmir. research even today. Cordier judiciously Thus he visited the Raghunatha Temple foresaw the necessity of editing the Library in Jammu. In September 1899, Yogasataka in Sanskrit and in Tibetan Cordier went to Bikaner, where he with a French translation and a trilingual compiled a detailed handlist of 312

Pages 2 - 10 medical manuscripts comprising over student and his work will produce many 400 different works, instead of the 81 more of them” (see. P. 571 below). manuscripts noted by R. Mitra in his catalogue (1880), which is incomplete 14. A history of Indian Medicine : and not without inaccuracies. In pulmonary tuberculosis (1912). The last Rajasthan, he also visited the Public contribution of Cordier to Ayurveda Library in Jaipur. deals with a disease called (rajayaksma(n) or (kingly) consumption. In June 1900, he was in Tanjore working Here he gives an elegant and faithful in the Sarasvati Mahal, whose translation of a chapter on therapeutics manuscripts had been catalogued twenty in Caraka’s work (Cikitsa 8), followed years earlier by A.C. Burnell. There he by the French formulae of mineral described nineteen major Ayurvedic treatment prescribed for this disease in manuscripts, adding details of the palm- Ayurveda (Bhela, Vrnda, Cakrapani) and leaf documents, not found in Burnell’s Rasasastra (Rasendramangala, catalogue. In April 1902, Cordier Rasaratnasamuccaya, prepared in Madras descriptions of about Rasendrasarasamgraha). 30 Sanskrit manuscripts in the Government Oriental Manuscript One year after this last contribution to Library. Indian medical history, Cordier published three other papers on tropical The entire work of Cordier on the medicine. In August 1914 he was cataloguing of manuscripts is found in mobilized and laid down his life for two handwritten notebooks, which France at the beginning of the first contain short notices in tabular form or World War. Thus death prematurely detailed descriptions. These note books snatched away this distinguished are now housed in the library of the Oriental scholar at a time when his long Societe Asiatique as part of the Filliozat and patient research, pursued in trying bequest. This work of Cordier is all the circumstances both climatic and more valuable as some of the professional, was already promising manuscripts have since been lost or remarkable results in the fields of deteriorated, while Cordier’s Oriental studies in which Cordier descriptions, while Cordier’s excelled : descriptions bearing the impress of his scholarship survive and are still useful to 1. Ayurvedic philology, to which he gave a Indologists. new impetus through his search for manuscripts and his research of them in 13. Obituary : Dr. Alexandre Lietard the field of Indian medicine and (1904). This notice emphasizes the alchemy; dedication of the physician of Plombieres as well as the merits of the 2. Tibetology, in which Cordier will remain scholar, the first French historian of a pioneer due to his comparative Indo- Indian medicine to whom Cordier Tibetan research, which enriched the discreetly expresses his gratitude : “he knowledge of Sanskrit and Tibetan guided with his advice many a hesitant medical terminologies. These two student and his advice many a hesitant French physicians from Eastern France –

Pages 2 - 10 Gustave Lietard and Palmyr Cordier – their native provinces – Lorraine and were the forerunners in a special field of Franche – Cosmte. The study of interest not only to Indologists but also traditional Indian medicine, to which to historians of medicine. The aim of Gustave Lietard and Palmyr Cordier the present writer is to pay homage to devoted their lives in the nineteenth these pioneering scholars who were century, has since given rise to an brought together by their common enlightened interest in the subject in interest in Ayurveda. Their France and has remained a constant them collaboration developed into a great of French Indology. friendship aided by the proximity of

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