How many of the following statements regarding medicine and related practices in medieval India is/are correct? 1. Indian medicine of the Graeco-Arabic tradition (Tibb-i-Yunani) was almost identical in its practice with contemporary Persian medicine. 2. Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood was explained to a scholarly noble by European traveller Francois Bernier. 3. The practice of smallpox inoculation was described in contemporary Yunani and Ayurvedic texts. Select the correct answer.
- (a)1
- (b)2
- (c)3
- (d)None
Correct — B, 2. Exactly two of the three statements hold. Statement 2 is the one that can be checked word for word. François Bernier, the French physician who lived in India from 1658 to 1670 and served first Dara Shikoh and then Aurangzeb's court, wrote of becoming weary of explaining to his patron the latest discoveries of William Harvey and Pecquet in anatomy — his patron being the scholarly noble Danishmand Khan. Harvey's account of the circulation of the blood did therefore reach an Indian scholar through a European traveller, exactly as the statement says. Statement 3 is the one that fails. Smallpox inoculation was certainly practised in India, and eighteenth-century European observers reported it in detail, but it is not set out in the classical Yunani or Ayurvedic texts, and the claim that some ancient Sanskrit treatise describes it has never been substantiated. Statement 1, the standard description of Indian Tibb-i-Yunani as the same Graeco-Arabic medicine practised in contemporary Persia, is the other statement the key counts as correct — giving a total of two.
- (a)1 — Undercounts. Bernier's own account of explaining Harvey to his patron makes statement 2 secure as well.
- (c)3 — Would require statement 3 to be true, but inoculation against smallpox is absent from the classical Yunani and Ayurvedic corpus even though it was widely practised.
- (d)None — Too severe. Statement 2 is documented in Bernier's own writing, and statement 1 is the accepted description of Yunani medicine in India.
Medieval India carried two learned medical traditions side by side. Ayurveda descended from the Sanskrit corpus of Charaka and Sushruta, while Tibb-i-Yunani, literally Greek medicine, was the Graeco-Arabic Galenic system transmitted through the Islamic world and Persia and established in India under the Sultanates and the Mughals. European physicians appeared at Mughal courts in the seventeenth century, and with them came news of the new anatomy then transforming medicine in Europe.
It is worth being straight about how this card reasons, because the item does not give all three statements equal footing. The key fixes the count at two. Statement 2 is directly verifiable from Bernier's own text, and statement 3 is directly refutable, since the practice of inoculation is missing from the classical Yunani and Ayurvedic writings even though it was carried on in Bengal and elsewhere. That leaves statement 1 as the other correct one, and it is also the standard scholarly description of Yunani practice in India — but treat it as the accepted reading rather than as something proved to you on this card. The pair you can check is what decides the answer.
- François Bernier was in India from 1658 to 1670, first with Dara Shikoh's retinue and then as a physician at Aurangzeb's court.
- Bernier recorded explaining to his patron the discoveries of William Harvey and Pecquet in anatomy — Harvey having described the circulation of the blood.
- Inoculation against smallpox was reportedly practised in Bengal by the 1760s and was written about by the European observer J. Z. Holwell in 1768.
- No Sanskrit or vernacular classical treatise setting out the inoculation procedure has been found, which is why statement 3 fails.
Two statements stand and one falls, so the count is two.
- Assuming that because a practice existed in India it must be recorded in the classical texts; practice and text often diverge.
- Confusing Bernier with Manucci or Tavernier when a French traveller-physician is described.
- Answering with a statement number instead of a count; the options here are counts.
Asked in the how-many format on the history of science, with one statement about texts that most candidates accept too readily.
CDS_GK_2021_I_Q292021François Bernier was physician to
- (a) Prince Murad
- (b) Princess Jahanara
- (c) Emperor Shah Jahan
- (d) Prince Dara Shikoh
Answer(d) Prince Dara Shikoh
The same traveller, tested on his position at court. Placing Bernier with Dara Shikoh is what makes statement 2 of this item plausible in the first place — a European physician close enough to the Mughal elite to be explaining European anatomy to a noble patron.
CDS_GK_2023_II_Q852023Consider the following statements about science in medieval South India : 1. The Katapayadi system of numerals, which was invented by Vararuchi of Kerala, the author of Chandra Vakyas, was used for calculating the position of Moon on any day of the year. 2. Achyuta Pisharati (1550 – 1621) wrote Uparagakriyakrama, a text on eclipses. 3. Ravi Varma of Mahodayapuram set up an observatory and is also said to have inaugurated the Kollam era. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 and 3 only
- (b) 3 only
- (c) 1 and 2 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(d) 1, 2 and 3
Same paper family, same habit of mind — CDS regularly sets statement items on the history of science in medieval India, testing whether a named text really says what the statement claims. Read those statements as claims about sources, not just about practices.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which European traveller served as a physician at the Mughal court and left an account of his years in India between 1658 and 1670?
- (a)Niccolao Manucci
- (b)François Bernier
- (c)Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
- (d)Ralph Fitch
Answer(b) François Bernier — attached first to Dara Shikoh and later at Aurangzeb's court.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Tibb-i-Yunani, as practised in medieval India, descended from which medical tradition?
- (a)Chinese
- (b)Graeco-Arabic
- (c)Tibetan
- (d)Egyptian
Answer(b) Graeco-Arabic — Yunani literally means Greek, the Galenic system transmitted through the Islamic world and Persia.