Tibetan Medicine: Wealth for All Mankind

ZHU GUOXIAN, NAMGYAI & LI JINGHUA

Tibetan Medicine

Tibetan medicine has a history of more than 2,000 years, drawing on traditional Chinese medicine and ancient Indian and Arabic medicine. It boasts good theoretical theory and sound clinical experience. "The outside world does not know that Tibetan medicine revealed the mystery of human embryology as early as the 12th century," said Qamba Chilai, a noted Tibetan medicine expert. According to Renwang, Deputy Director of the Beijing Tibetan Medicine Hospital and a noted expert in heart and blood diseases, the medicine is made from medicinal herbs grown in areas at high elevation, with wide variations in daily temperature and strong sunlight. "It is good for digestive, heart and blood diseases, and problem in the immune system," he said. In the highly frigid area above 3,800 meters, there are more than 2,000 kinds of plants, 159 kinds of animals, and some 80 kinds of minerals, which can be used to make Tibetan medicine. In Tibet there are 24 pharmaceutical companies that specialize in the production of Tibetan medicine, and a dozen more in Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan. The output value of Tibetan medicine totals 400-500 million Yuan a year.

A tangka painting scroll, created hundreds of years ago and now stored in the Library of the Tibet Tibetan Medicine Hospital, proved a magnet for the Chinese and foreign medical experts attending the International Tibetan Medicine Meeting in Lhasa. It depicts embryology, describing the process of becoming pregnant, gestational reaction and embryo development, which the Tibetans believe moves "from the fish stage, through the tortoise and pig stages." "It is incredible to see a 12th century work like this," exclaimed an Indian scholar. "It is rarely seen in the world." The Four-Volume Medical Code has 156 chapters systematically explaining the theory of Tibetan medicine, structure of the human body, pathology, diagnosis, clinical treatment, types of available drugs and their dosage, diet and sanitation. What was on view in the Library of the Tibet Tibetan Medicine Hospital is one of the 80 color paintings created from the 12th century onwards from the Medical Code of the 8th century, according to Director Zhamdui of the Tibet Tibetan Medicine Hospital. "It appeared some 1,000 years earlier than Darwinism." From the 12th to the 17th centuries, Tibetan medical experts created a total of 80 such scrolls to detail the contents of the Code. The 36th painting describes apparatus used in surgical operations. It shows Tibet was developed in treating cuts, burns and bone fractures.

MODERN DEVELOPMENT. Though Tibetan medicine is efficacious for many diseases and, in many cases, better than other kinds of medicine, the application method was very simple. For thousands of years, Tibetan medicine was confined within monasteries. No division of work! And experience only was relied for diagnosis. There were no records of the sick, and all the Tibetan medicines were made manually. Today, however, doctors of Tibetan medicine rely on modern tools, such as stethoscope, blood pressure meters, super sonic B devices, and CT for diagnosis. And the integration of the modern and old means that the system works better! Modern means help with diagnosis and facilitate the diagnosis of illness. For instance, Tibetans favor bleeding as a kind of clinical treatment, but outsiders doubted its efficacy. In 1994, famous doctors of Tibetan medicine, acupuncture and moxibustion and dissection, joined hands to study 77 of the bleeding points in the human body to find the most efficacious, and added 24 new points. Departments concerned also organized studies of the name, subject, medicinal content and dosage of over 1,000 kinds of medicinal herbs available in Tibet. This has paved the way for modernized, standardized and scientific development of Tibetan medicine. In China as a whole, there are 57 Tibetan medicine hospitals; some 20 kinds of Tibetan medicine have made their way into the Medical Code of the Peoples Republic of China; 336 kinds of Tibetan medicine have been taken into the Medical Code at the level of the Ministry of Health; and over 300 kinds of Tibetan medicine are adopted by hospitals of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine.

LAMA-TURNED EXPERT. One of the participants in the Lhasa Meeting was a 71-year-old man who is blind but widely acknowledged as an expert in Tibetan medicine. When it was his turn to deliver his treatise, he was supported onto the stage, where he explained the latest fruits of research into the Four-Volume Medical Code. Actually, he was the first to speak and the organizing committee made the arrangement out of respect for him. His explanation was repeatedly interrupted by warm applause. He is Qamba Chilai, now Honorary Director of the Tibetan Medicine Hospital in Tibet, and an expert in study of the Four-Volume Medical Code created by Yutog Yundain Gongbu, a founder of Tibetan medicine. He was born into a family long involved in Tibetan medicine, his grandfather and father both being masters of it. He was tonsured to the Zhaibung Monastery at the age of 13, and studied Tibetan medicine from Qenrab Norbu, private medical doctor to the 13th Dalai Lama. Qamba Chilai got up very early to pray, recite sutras, listen to lectures and discuss with others the Buddhist doctrines. In nine years, he completed a study of Tibetan medicine, astronomy, calendaring, Tibetan phonetics and other subjects compulsory for studying Tibetan medicine. He is able to recite the Medical Code, which runs to hundreds of thousands of words. Given the fact that there was no division of work for Tibetan medicine, Qamba Chilai challenged traditional practice. Learning scientific aspects of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, he created teaching materials in 11 subjects including basic theory, special illnesses, diagnosis, and eight other subjects, totaling 40,000 words. Though now old and blind, he is still working on a 4-million-word book entitled Detailed Explanation of the Chart of the Four-Volume Medical Code. In addition, he teaches graduate students and goes to work in the Tibet Tibetan Medicine Hospital.

MONK DOCTOR. Coru Cenam, an eminent monk, is Director of the Tibetan Medicine Hospital in Tibet. Prior to the Democratic Reform in 1959, he was abbot of the Coru Monastery. In the last few decades, he has written more than 170 academic works, including Annotation to the Four-Volume Medical Code, Concise History of the Nyingma Sect and Concise History of the Gagyu Sect. Given his accomplishments in Tibetan medicine, he is also the Executive Vice-President of the China Society for Ethnic Medicines and Council Member of the Buddhist Association of China. On many occasions he has been invited to lecture in Japan, Hungry and Nepal. When the Lhasa Meeting was held he was its Chairman. As a matter of fact, many lamas in kasaya are Tibetan medicine practitioners. Dainzin Wangzha is known to all in Ngari. As an eminent monk of the Bon religion, he has created a work entitled the Source of the Bon Religion in Tibet, which runs to more than 400,000 words. Out of the spirit of "saving all" and "curing the sick," he worked in the Ngari pastures, and used his own money to set up the first Tibetan medicine hospital in the area.

FEMALE DOCTORS. For thousands of years, Tibetan women and dogs were not allowed to get close to a Tibetan medicine workshop. During the Lhasa Meeting, however, there were female delegates donned in Tibetan robes, who spoke on the development of Tibetan medicine. One of these is Degyi Zholgar, 52, who is of the first generation of female Tibetan medicine doctors. Now an associate executive surgeon of the Tibetan Medicine Hospital in Tibet, she is specialized in treating tumors, heart and blood troubles with Tibetan medicine. Degyi, born into a house slaves family, lived in dire poverty in the old society. In 1963, she was enrolled by the Lhasa Tibetan Medicine Hospital and graduated in 1966. She has since been working to treat the sick. Degyis husband and daughter are both hospital doctors. Though the couple work in the field of Tibetan medicine, their daughter specializes in Western medicine. "In the old society, we women enjoyed no human rights at all," recalled Degyi. "However, female doctors and nurses make up half of the 500-odd doctors and nurses in the Tibetan Medicine Hospital of Tibet." Degyi and her counterparts are good at treating troubles resulting from brain illness by integrating Tibetan and Western medicines, with a cure rate of 85 percent.

SUCCESSORS. The Tibetan Medicine Hospital in Tibet has cultivated some 650 college graduates, hailing mostly from Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan. Most of them now work in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and some other inland cities. In addition, the hospital has recruited two batches of graduate students. Yanggar is one of the first group of 4 graduate students. Now 34, he was born into a herders family in north Tibet. He studied and later taught in the Tibetan Medicine Department of Tibet University and the Tibetan Medicine College in Tibet. Now he is working for his MA under Qamba Chilai. "Tibetan medicine has become glorious only after dozens of generations of efforts," said Yanggar, adding that the young have a bounden duty to carry it forward. The Tibetan Medicine College in Tibet is the largest and most authoritative one of its kind in China. Students and teachers are all Tibetan. College level study lasts five years, and a graduate program was introduced in 1998. Now, the college has 10 student working for their MA in Tibetan medicine. Beginning in 1990, the Swiss Red Cross Society and some other foreigners have rendered aid to Tibet for the development of Tibetan medicine. Some Tibetan medicine schools, set up with their aid in Xigaze, Shannan and some other places, have trained some 300 Tibetan medicine talents. During our visit, we noticed the fact that there are two to three young people steeped in Han Chinese and Tibetan were recording the knowledge narrated by Qamba Chilai, Coru Cenam and some other medical experts. "The purpose is to make it possible for them to leave behind their knowledge," they explained.