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Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 8.1 (2025): 196–251; https://dx.doi.org/10.15239/hijbs.08.01.06
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asia-European Exchanges Mediated through Buddhism, Buddhism and Medicine: New Perspectives)
The Dawn of the Physician: A Buddhist Approach to the History of Medicine
Federico DIVINO
University of Antwerp
federico.divino@gmail.com
Abstract: Today, various Buddhist traditions in East and Southeast Asia are renowned for also conveying specific medical practices, from Tibetan Buddhist medicine to Japan’s Buddhist healers, and from the medico-Buddhist traditions of Thailand to those of China. The Buddhist world has always been intertwined with medicine; however, if we aim to trace the origins of this idea and the reasons for this association, for instance in the Pāli Canon, we find a remarkably clear and profound perspective on the roles of the Buddhist ascetic and the physician as two distinct figures addressing a common problem. Consequently, their methodological and theoretical engagements can be considered to intersect in a fascinating manner. This contribution specifically aims to analyse these differences and intersections, laying the groundwork for an archaeology of Buddhist medical thought beginning with the Pāli Canon.
Keywords: Buddhism and medicine, medical conception in Buddhism, early Buddhism and illness, archaeology of medical thought, semantic history of medicine
About the Author: Federico Divino is a researcher at the University of Antwerp. His research focuses on Buddhist medicine, particularly within the broader context of the history of medical thought. His approach is deeply rooted in medical anthropology and the semantic history of the concept of illness. He has served as a professor at the Master’s program in Death Studies at the University of Padua. He has contributed to the field through articles in medical history and religious studies journals, exploring early Buddhist medical thought. Most of his work has been published in AM. Rivista della Societa Italiana di Antropologia medica [Journal of the Italian Society of Medical Anthropology]. Furthermore, he examines modernity through an ethnographic lens, focusing on contemplative practice in clinical settings, which was the subject of a monograph published in 2021. Additionally, he investigates the relationship between contemplative practice and states of consciousness, an area of inquiry that formed the basis of his dual Ph.D. in Transcultural Studies and Social Sciences.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
