TEXTUAL SCHOLARSHIP, MEDICAL TRADITION, AND MAHĀYĀNA BUDDHIST IDEALS IN TIBET

Like the medieval physicians of Italy responsible for introducing Greco-Arab medical scholarship to Europe, Sangye Gyatso held medical education to be intimately bound with these arts and sciences. [...]the present essay also touches on his more thematic remarks about the nature of medical learning, and suggests in the conclusion that his efforts in medical scholarship must be seen as2 The Fifth Dalai Lamas activities in this area were largely restricted to patronizing court physicians and their work in editing and printing important medical works and composing new commentaries upon these works. According to Sangye Gyatso, Palden Tshojes Elucidation of Topics (Shes bya rab gsal) in fact forms the basis for most medical historiography between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries.11Sangye Gyatsos survey of the medical tradition is a complex work, integrating medical history, a schematic presentation of the Buddhist teachings, a long prescriptive survey of the qualities of the ideal physician, and several autobiographical passages. Nangso Dargyay felt that this Dratang print was an authoritative witness ideal for reproduction. [...]according to Sangye Gyatso at least, he made no effort to use other textual witnesses for his new print.In 1670 Sangye Gyatso began to look at various recensions of the Four Tantras himself, and decided that the Dratang print was not as reliable as his elders believed. If the bodhisattva has not studied the five arts, there is no way he will attain the omniscient wisdom of complete enlightenment. [...]in order to attain unexcelled enlightenment, one must study the five arts.41If the study of medicine is an integral part of the way of the bodhisattva, the other four arts are also essential to the study of medicine.