Reaching the End of the World: An Anthropological Reading of Early Buddhist Medicine and Ascetic Practices

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the ideas of health and illness in ancient Buddhism, making use of the theoretical tools of medical anthropology and historical–philological inquiry. As a contribution to the conceptual history of medicine in Buddhism, I intend to focus the present investigation on the ascetic problem of the “end of the world” as a means of achieving complete healing. The asceticism of early Buddhism reconciles the goal of transcendence with that of healing, carrying out a complex reflection on awareness and presence.

Keywords

• Buddhist medicine
• medical anthropology
• meditation and medicine
• anthropology of consciousness
• Ernesto De Martino