Influence of Indian Medicine on Islamic Medicine: Translations, Citations, Healthcare and Trade

Abstract

The contribution of the Indian medical heritage to early Islamic medicine has come through at least four channels: translation, citation, direct medicine/medical service, and commercial. A large number of texts belonging to Indian medicine have been transferred to Arabic directly or indirectly and in the form of works or passages, especially since the early Abbasid period, as a result of the increasing interaction between Indian and Islamic civilizations. It is understood that in this period, when the efforts to bring Indian medical experience and knowledge to Arabic increased, many Indian physicians, pharmacists and attars came to Baghdad and some of them were invited to the Abbasid palaces. As a result, many works/texts from medicine, toxicology, veterinary medicine and other disciplines were translated into Arabic and Indian medical knowledge was better known. Apart from Ātreya-Punarvasu (Atra), whose history is controversial, at the head of the authors whose texts, whole or part of medical corpus are translated or quoted into Arabic, are physicians such as Suśruta (Susrud), Caraka (Sarak al-Hindi), Vāgbhata, Nāgārjuna, Ravigupta and Mādhava. Many authors who benefited from their works or texts, directly or by interpreting them, brought them to the Islamic medical literature. In addition, many terms of Indian flora and fauna have entered the Islamic medical literature through quotations.