Jivaka’s Test: Bring Me a Plant That Is Not Medicine, and Charaka Samhita 26.12 on Yukti

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ें: जीवक की परीक्षा: ‘ऐसा पौधा लाओ जो औषधि न हो’ और चरक संहिता 26.12

📖 19 min read · Vinaya Pitaka, Mahavagga VIII.1.3-15 (Rhys Davids and Oldenberg, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 17, 1882; Pali from SuttaCentral); Charaka Samhita, Sutrasthana 1 and 26; Sushruta Samhita, Sutrasthana 1

Jivaka’s Test: The Child From the Dust-Heap Who Became the King’s Physician

Our reel opens with one line: a baby thrown on a rubbish heap, and the same child grew up to look after a king. Both halves come from one chapter of an old Buddhist book, the Mahavagga of the Vinaya Pitaka.

The book does not make him a lost prince. It says plainly that his mother had him thrown away, and the prince who found him never learnt who she was. What made Jivaka was an art, studied for seven years, and a test he passed by coming back empty-handed. His teacher asked for one thing that was not medicine. Jivaka searched the country round the city with a spade and found none, and that was the right answer.

A Sanskrit book of Ayurveda, the Charaka Samhita, says almost the same thing, with one condition attached. We come to it after the story, retold in order from the English of T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 17) and checked against the Pali, with no dialogue, motive or event the text does not have.

One plain line first: neither the story nor the verse is an invitation to pick and use wild plants. Many are poisonous; see a qualified practitioner before using any herb.

Sankarakuta: The Winnowing Basket and the Dust-Heap (Mahavagga VIII.1.3-4)

The chapter opens at Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha. A merchant who had seen a famous courtesan make the town of Vesali prosper asked King Seniya Bimbisara to let Rajagaha install one too (VIII.1.1-2). The girl chosen was Salavati, and she soon became skilled in dancing, singing and music.

Then Salavati became pregnant, and the text gives her reasoning in her own words: Men do not like a pregnant woman. If it became known, my whole position will be lost. So she let it be said that she was sick, and let no man in (VIII.1.3). When the child was born, a boy, she gave her maid-servant this order:

Go, my girl, put this boy into an old winnowing basket, take him away, and throw him away on a dust-heap. (VIII.1.4)

handa, je, imaṁ dārakaṁ kattarasuppe pakkhipitvā nīharitvā saṅkārakūṭe chaḍḍehī (Pali, Kd 8, 1.4.3)

Two Pali words carry the scene: kattarasuppe, “in an old winnowing basket”, the flat tray used to toss grain clear of its husk; and saṅkārakūṭe, “on the heap (kuta) of sweepings (sankara)”, which the modern SuttaCentral translation calls the trash heap. The maid answered Yes, Madam and did as she was told. The text adds nothing: no grief, no second thoughts.

An old winnowing basket on a heap of sweepings: the text’s dust-heap (VIII.1.4).

Jivati, “He Is Alive”: How Jivaka Got His Name (VIII.1.4)

At that time, the text goes on, a royal prince, Abhaya by name, went betimes to attend upon the king, and saw that boy, around whom crows were gathering. “Betimes” means early; the Pali says kālasseva. Then comes the shortest conversation in the story:

What is that, my good Sirs, around which the crows are gathering?
It is a boy, Your Highness.
Is he alive, Sirs?
He is alive, Your Highness.

Abhaya told them to bring the boy to his palace and give him to the nurses to nourish him. Then the text explains the name in one sentence: Because (the people had said about this boy to Abhaya), ‘He is alive’ (jivati), they gave him the name of Jivaka.

The Pali makes the link plainer still. The prince asks jīvati, bhaṇe, “is he alive?”; the people answer jīvati, devā, “he is alive, sir” (1.4.8-9); and tassa jīvatīti “jīvako”ti nāmaṁ akaṁsu, “because he lives, they named him Jivaka” (1.4.13). The SuttaCentral translation gives the name as Survivor.

The same passage gives him a second name, Komarabhacca, because he had been caused to be nourished by the royal prince (kumarena posapito). The translators of 1882 thought it meant something else, and we come back to it below.

Sippa: “Who Is My Mother?” and the Decision to Learn an Art (VIII.1.5)

And ere long Jivaka Komarabhacca came to the years of discretion. He went to Abhaya with a question, and the answer is all the book ever says about his family:

Who is my mother, Your Highness, and who is my father?
I do not know your mother, my good Jivaka, but I am your father, for I have had you nourished.

Abhaya does not claim to be his father by birth. He is his father because he had him raised: the Pali is mayāsi posāpito, “you were brought up by me”. The text moves straight to his next thought:

In these royal families it is not easy to find one’s livelihood without knowing an art. What if I were to learn an art.

The word for “art” is sippa, a craft or trade (shilpa in Sanskrit); the SuttaCentral translation says profession. The verb for making a living, upajīvituṁ, comes from the root of his own name, jiv, “to live”. The boy named because he lived is now looking for a way to live.

Takkasila: Seven Years With a World-Renowned Physician (VIII.1.6)

The text goes on: At that time there lived at Takkasila (Τάξιλα) a world-renowned physician. The Greek in brackets is the translators’ note, Taxila. The Pali calls him disāpāmokkho vejjo, a physician foremost in every direction, and never gives his name.

Jivaka left without asking leave of the royal prince Abhaya and, when he arrived, said to the physician: I wish to learn your art, doctor. The answer was short: Well, friend Jivaka, learn it. The book praises him in a phrase it uses three times over: he learnt much, learnt easily, understood well and did not forget. After seven years he put his question to the teacher:

I have studied now seven years, and I do not see the end of this art. When shall I see the end of this art?

The “end” is anto in the Pali: nayimassa sippassa anto paññāyati, “no end of this art is in sight” (1.6.7). The teacher does not answer it with a date.

A teacher’s room in still life. The text never names Jivaka’s teacher.

Abhesajja: The Test of the Spade and the Yojana (VIII.1.7)

The teacher answered with a task:

Very well, my dear Jivaka, take this spade, and seek round about Takkasila a yojana on every side, and whatever (plant) you see which is not medicinal, bring it to me.

tena hi, bhaṇe jīvaka, khaṇittiṁ ādāya takkasilāya samantā yojanaṁ āhiṇḍitvā yaṁ kiñci abhesajjaṁ passeyyāsi taṁ āharā (1.7.4)

Read the order phrase by phrase:

• khaṇittiṁ ādāya: taking a spade (khanitti, a digging tool). The spade suggests digging, not only looking.
• samantā yojanaṁ: a yojana on every side. A yojana is an old measure of distance; the SuttaCentral translation gives it as 13 kilometers.
• yaṁ kiñci abhesajjaṁ: whatever is not medicine. Bhesajja is medicine (bheshaja in Sanskrit), and the a- in front makes it “not medicine”.
• taṁ āharā: bring that here.

Notice the brackets in the English. “Plant” is the translators’ word; the Pali says only “whatever is not medicine”. With a spade in hand plants come first to mind, but the teacher’s word is wider, and so is Charaka’s line below.

Our reel stops here to ask you: what would you have brought back? Jivaka took the spade and walked the yojana on every side. The text gives the result in one line: he did not see anything that was not medicinal. The Pali uses a double negative, na kiñci abhesajjaṁ addasa, “not anything that was not medicine did he see” (1.7.5). He went back and told his teacher so.

Wild plants dug up whole. The Pali asks for anything not medicine, not only plants.

The teacher’s reply is the turn of the whole story:

You have done your learning, my good Jivaka; this will do for acquiring your livelihood.

susikkhitosi, bhaṇe jīvaka. alaṁ te ettakaṁ jīvikāyā (1.7.8-9). The SuttaCentral translation: You’re well-trained, Jīvaka. It’s enough for you to live on.

Why was finding nothing a pass? The text does not explain; it reports only the verdict. Our reading: a student who can look at whatever grows within a yojana of the city and see a use in it has learnt what the art is for. He had asked to see its end (anto), and he was given something else, alaṁ, “enough”. The word for livelihood, jīvikā, is once more from the root of his name: the boy called Jivaka because he lived is sent home with enough to live on.

The teacher also gave him a little (money) for his journey (home). Here the translations differ: the Pali has parittaṁ pātheyyaṁ, a small store of provisions, as the SuttaCentral translation renders it.

The First Fee at Saketa (VIII.1.8-13)

On the road home the provisions ran out at Saketa, and Jivaka looked for work. A merchant’s wife there had suffered for seven years from a disease in the head, and famous physicians had failed her. Jivaka asked for nothing in advance. He took one pasata of ghee, a handful, boiled it with various drugs and gave it to her through the nose (Pali natthuto), once, and she was restored to health. Her family gave him sixteen thousand coins, two servants and a coach with horses. Jivaka took it all to Rajagaha and offered it to the prince who had raised him: may Your Highness accept this as payment for my bringing up. Abhaya told him to keep it and to make his home in the prince’s own residence (VIII.1.13).

Ghee, cotton, a lamp: at Saketa the used ghee was saved for feet or lamps.

King Bimbisara and the Punja, the Heap of Ornaments (VIII.1.14-15)

Then the story turns to the palace. At that time the Magadha king Seniya Bimbisara suffered from a fistula; his garments were stained with blood. The queens laughed at him, and The king was annoyed at that. He asked Abhaya to find him a physician, and Abhaya answered: This excellent young physician of ours, Sire, Jivaka.

Jivaka took some medicament in his nail (Pali nakhena bhesajjaṁ ādāya) and went to the king. The word bhesajja, medicine, is back: the student who could find nothing that was not bhesajja now carries a little of it on a fingernail. He said, Let us see your disease, Your Majesty. In the text’s words, the king was made well by one anointing (ekeneva ālepena: an ālepa is a paste applied to the skin, the Hindi lep).

The scene the story is remembered for comes next: Then the Magadha king Seniya Bimbisara, having been restored to health, ordered his five hundred wives to put on all their ornaments; then he ordered them to take their ornaments off and to make a heap of them. The Pali word for the heap is puñja (puñjaṁ kārāpetvā, “having had a heap made”). Then the king spoke, and Jivaka answered:

All these ornaments, my dear Jivaka, of my five hundred wives shall be thine.
Nay, Sire, may Your Majesty remember my office.

In Pali the answer is alaṁ, deva, adhikāraṁ me devo saratū. Alaṁ again, his teacher’s word, here in its other sense, “no need”. Adhikāra is his office or duty; the SuttaCentral translation reads Please just remember my act of service.

A heap of gold ornaments: the punja Jivaka turned down (VIII.1.15).

The king’s reply settles the rest of Jivaka’s life: Very well, my dear Jivaka, you can wait upon me and my seraglio and the fraternity of Bhikkhus with the Buddha at its head (VIII.1.15).

tena hi, bhaṇe jīvaka, maṁ upaṭṭhaha, itthāgārañca, buddhappamukhañca bhikkhusaṅghan (1.15.9). The “seraglio” is the women’s quarters of the palace (itthāgāra), and the fraternity is the Sangha, buddhappamukha, “with the Buddha at its head”. The boy from the dust-heap is now physician to the king, the palace and the Buddha’s own order. The child found on a heap of sweepings turned down a heap of gold, and both heaps are the text’s own (VIII.1.4 and VIII.1.15).

What Ayurveda Learns From It: Charaka Samhita Sutrasthana 26.12 and Its One Condition

Here is the part the reel promised. Jivaka’s teacher asked for something that is not medicine, and there was none. The Charaka Samhita says the same thing in one sentence, in chapter 26 of its Sutrasthana, the Atreya-bhadrakapyiya chapter. Charaka says:

अनेनोपदेशेन नानौषधिभूतं जगति किञ्चिद्द्रव्यमुपलभ्यते ।
तां तां युक्तिमर्थं च तं तमभिप्रेत्य ॥१२॥

anenopadeśena nānauṣadhibhūtaṁ jagati kiñciddravyam upalabhyate / tāṁ tāṁ yuktim arthaṁ ca taṁ tam abhipretya (Sutrasthana 26.12)

Word by word:

• anena upadeśena: by this teaching. Charaka has just said (26.10-11) that every substance is made of the five elements and acts through its qualities; this line draws the conclusion.
• nānauṣadhibhūtaṁ: na, “not”, joined to an-aushadhi-bhuta, “a non-medicine”. A double negative, like the Pali na kiñci abhesajjaṁ.
• jagati: in the world.
• kiñcid dravyam: any substance whatever. Dravya is any material substance: from a plant, an animal or the earth.
• upalabhyate: is found.
• tāṁ tāṁ yuktim: this or that yukti, the right method of using it.
• arthaṁ ca taṁ tam: and this or that artha, the purpose it is used for.
• abhipretya: having in view.

Put together: by this teaching, no substance in the world is found that is not a medicine, when its own method (yukti) and its own purpose (artha) are kept in view. In the English of Charaka Samhita: Handbook on Ayurveda (Vol. I, p. 542): There is no substance in the universe which can not be used as a drug on the condition that they are used rationally and with a definite objective.

That is the condition. The first half of the verse is Jivaka’s test. The second half is what the test leaves unsaid.

How the commentary reads the condition

Chakrapani, whose commentary (the Ayurveda Dipika) is printed with the Charaka Samhita on Sanskrit Wikisource, explains it in plain words:

तच्च पार्थिवादि द्रव्यं न सर्वथा न च सर्वस्मिन् व्याधौ भेषजमित्याह

“A substance, earthy or of the other elements, is not medicine (bheshaja) in every way, nor for every illness”: that, he says, is why Charaka adds “this or that method”. Then he glosses the key words:

युक्तिम् इति उपायम् अर्थमिति प्रयोजनम् अभिप्रेत्येति अधिकृत्य तेन केनचिदुपायेन क्वचित् प्रयोजने किंचिद् द्रव्यमौषधं भवति न सर्वत्र

“Yukti means the means (upaya); artha means the purpose (prayojana); abhipretya means ‘with reference to’. So a substance becomes a medicine (aushadha) by some means, for some purpose: not everywhere (na sarvatra).”

A balance and dried roots: Charaka’s condition is the right method and a definite purpose.

Knowing a plant’s name is not knowing its use (Sutrasthana 1.120-123)

Charaka makes the same point from the other side in his first chapter, in four verses on who really knows the plants:

न नामज्ञानमात्रेण रूपज्ञानेन वा पुनः ।
ओषधीनां परां प्राप्तिं कश्चिद्वेदितुमर्हति ॥१२१॥

• 1.120: goat-herds (ajapa), shepherds (avipa), cowherds (gopa) and other forest-dwellers know the plants by name and form (nama, rupa).
• 1.121: in the handbook’s English, Nobody can comprehend fully about the plants only by knowing their names or forms.
• 1.122: the one who knows their use (yoga) is called a knower of their truth (tattvavid), even without knowing their form, and how much more the physician who knows them in every way. The carakasamhitaonline.com English follows the Sanskrit, though not acquainted with their forms; the handbook reads it as knowing the use after the name and form.
• 1.123: the best physician (bhishak-uttama) knows their use as fitted to place (desha) and time (kala), looking at each person in turn.

योगमासां तु यो विद्याद्देशकालोपपादितम् ।
पुरुषं पुरुषं वीक्ष्य स ज्ञेयो भिषगुत्तमः ॥१२३॥

yogam āsāṁ tu yo vidyād deśakālopapāditam / puruṣaṁ puruṣaṁ vīkṣya sa jñeyo bhiṣaguttamaḥ. The doubled puruṣaṁ puruṣaṁ means “person after person”.

Read through these verses, the test looks different. Herders could have named every plant Jivaka passed; naming was never the test. If we may read the Vinaya through Charaka (it does not mention him), the teacher was asking whether Jivaka could see a use in each plant, which is where Charaka says real knowledge begins, and even then the use depends on the place, the time and the person.

Medicine: What Charaka’s Condition Means, and What It Does Not Mean

What it means. In Charaka’s sentence, medicine (aushadha) is not a kind of plant. It is a part that a substance plays, and any dravya can play it, given the right method and a definite purpose. Chakrapani’s na sarvatra, “not everywhere”, is the other edge of the same sentence: what is medicine in one use, for one purpose, is not medicine in another. That is the sense in which Jivaka found nothing that was not medicine.

What it does not mean. It does not mean that any plant is safe to take, or that anything growing by the road can be used as it is found. Charaka says so himself, in the verse right after the herders (Sutrasthana 1.124):

यथा विषं यथा शस्त्रं यथाऽग्निरशनिर्यथा ।
तथौषधमविज्ञातं विज्ञातममृतं यथा ॥१२४॥

In the handbook’s English (Vol. I, p. 296, Sutrasthana 1.124-125): A drug, if unknown, is fatal like poison, weapon, fire and thunderbolt while, if known, is vitalizer like nectar. The unknown medicine (auṣadham avijñātaṁ) is the danger; the known one is like amrita. We read these verses more closely beside another story, Takshaka and Kashyapa.

Nor is the story a promise: this page does not suggest that any condition named in it can be managed with ghee, an ointment or anything else, and nothing here is health advice.

Jivaka and Komarabhacca: Two Names, Two Readings (Kaumarabhritya in Sushruta Samhita Sutrasthana 1)

The book gives both names in one breath (VIII.1.4). Jivaka is plain: the people said jīvati, “he is alive”. Komarabhacca the text explains too: because he had been caused to be nourished by the royal prince (kumarena posapito). On this reading it means “brought up by the prince”; the SuttaCentral translation says Prince-reared.

The translators of 1882 did not accept this. In a footnote they say the redactors linked the name to Abhaya, but The true meaning of the name, however, appears to have been different, because in Sanskrit kumarabhritya and kaumarabhritya are technical terms for the part of the medical science that deals with infants. We believe, therefore, they conclude, that the surname really means, ‘Master of the kaumarabhritya science.’

Kaumarabhritya is one of the eight branches (ashtanga) of Ayurveda, which the Sushruta Samhita lists in its first chapter (Sutrasthana 1.7):

शल्यं शालाक्यं कायचिकित्सा भूतविद्या कौमारभृत्यम् अगदतन्त्रं रसायनतन्त्रं वाजीकरणतन्त्रमिति

That is: shalya (surgery), shalakya (the eyes, ears, nose and mouth), kaya-chikitsa (general medicine), bhuta-vidya, kaumarabhritya (the care of children), agada tantra (poisons), rasayana and vajikarana. In K. L. Bhishagratna’s English (1907), the Kaumara-Bhritya branch deals with the nursing and healthy bringing up of infants. Sushruta’s own definition, a few lines later, begins:

कौमारभृत्यं नाम कुमारभरणधात्रीक्षीरदोषसंशोधनार्थं

“Kaumarabhritya is for the bringing up of children (kumara-bharana) and for cleansing faults in the nurse’s milk (dhātrī-kshira).”

There is an echo here that neither book points out. Abhaya gave the baby to the nurses, dhātīnaṁ in the Pali, to be nourished; Sushruta’s branch for children begins with the nurse’s milk, dhātrī in Sanskrit, the same word. Both readings of the name are about a child being nourished. The Vinaya gives the first, the translators argue for the second, and we leave it there.

Where This Story Comes From: Vinaya Pitaka, Mahavagga VIII (Civarakkhandhaka)

The book. The Vinaya Pitaka is the part of the Pali Canon that sets out the rules of the Buddhist order of monks. The eighth khandhaka of its Mahavagga, the Civarakkhandhaka, is about the monks’ robes (civara); the 1882 translation calls it “The Dress of the Bhikkhus”. Jivaka’s story stands at its head, and its first section ends with him (VIII.1.34-35). He tells the Buddha that he and the monks wear only pamsukula robes, which the translators explain as robes made of rags taken from a dust heap or a cemetery, and offers him a suit of fine cloth; the Buddha accepts it and says, I allow you, O Bhikkhus, to wear lay robes. The child once left on a dust-heap brings the monks robes that never lay on one; that echo is ours, not the text’s.

The translation. Vinaya Texts, Part II, by T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, volume 17 of the Sacred Books of the East (Oxford, 1882), is in the public domain; this story is Mahavagga VIII.1.1-15, printed pages 171 to 181. It spells the names in the old style of its series (Gîvaka Komârabhakka, Takkasilâ, yogana); in our quotes they are written Jivaka, Komarabhacca, Takkasila and yojana. From section 16 the chapter goes on with more of Jivaka’s cases, and there it already calls him the royal physician.

The Pali. We checked every turn of the story against the Pali of the Mahasangiti edition on SuttaCentral (Kd 8, segments 1.3.1 to 1.15.10) and the modern English translation published with it; every Pali phrase on this page is copied from there.

Read it yourself. Free scans of the 1882 book are online (search “Vinaya Texts Part II, Sacred Books of the East 17”), and SuttaCentral has the Pali with English (Kd 8). The Charaka verses are on Sanskrit Wikisource and carakasamhitaonline.com, and in Charaka Samhita: Handbook on Ayurveda, Vol. I (pp. 296 and 542); the Sushruta passage is on Sanskrit Wikisource and in K. L. Bhishagratna’s English, Vol. I (1907), pp. 2-4.

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