SCIENCE IN ANCIENT INDIA 81 There is no room for doubt regarding the exact position tafcen by the ancient practitioners of medicine, although the extant texts incorpor* ate several homilies which the exponents of the counter-ideology (that is, the anti-science stance) mouth rather loudly and forcefully. For instance, in the Caraka Samhita is recorded an emphatic view on the question: what brings about cure? The intrinsic efficacy of the drug administered to the patient or the "unseen hangovers of actions performed in past lives" {adrishta^ as it is called)? The text says that ^the action of a substance is determined exclusively by the substance itself and it is not influenced by anything else" {Karma na anyat apekshate) (p 154). The emphasis would be uncalled for if the text was not controverting some other widely held view regarding the issue and that view could only be in favour of supernatural causation. It is very clear that the empirical and the rational are defended in no uncertain terms. But because of the necessity to placate the inquisitorial supernaiuralists, the texts often "accept the view of svabhava along with certain other views that go flaily against it, like accidentalism" (p 179). The repeated stress on the importance of the knowledge of the law of causation leaves us in no doubt that the ancient physicians were quite severe in their demands on the scientists' methodology and practice. The Caraka Samhita unequivocally declares that chance successes do not enhance the prestige of medicine when it says that "any success attained without reasoning is as good as sheer accidental success" (vina tarkena ya siddhih yadriccha siddhireua sa) (p 201). The Physician in the Caste Structure The adepts in methodology that ancient India produced among the physicians were not also oblivious of the great call of humanism. Their vocation, they knew, offered the best solace and comfort to the ailing and the needy. Hoarding knowledge was not their speciality as it was of the spiritualists. Yaska in his Nirukta mentions that knowledge approached the brahmin and asked him to conceal it because it was his protector{vidya ha vai brahmanam^ijagamagopaya mam shevadhishte hamasmi). This attitude would be totally alien to the ancient Indian physicians who were dedicated to bringing succour to all, irrespective of caste distinctions. The priestly class could not put up with this broad-mindedness, perhaps. Moreover, it found no nobility in work, as all work was the special duty of the downgraded people. After all, did not Herodotus also observe that "the noble are those who have escaped the yoke of manual labour"? (p 110). In any case, no brahmin could be allowed to stoop to such a mean level as to become a physician. The Upanishads which claim to teach "higher knowledge" {para vidya) as opposed to "lower knowledge" (or mundane knowledge; apara vidya) do not so much as condescend to mention even one physician; so contemptible are the physicians. The lawgivers, acting as the ideologues of/the ruling class.,