From: "vrnparker" <vrnparker@yahoo.

com>
Mailing-List: list vediculture@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 06:19:05 -0000
Subject: [world-vedic] ACUPUNCTURE ORIGINATE IN SRI LANKA?

DID ACUPUNCTURE REALLY ORIGINATE IN SRI LANKA?

http://www.alternative-doctor.com/home_page_articles/SLacupuncture.htm

Wife Vivien and I, in pursuit of historical evidence

The popular and accepted view that acupuncture originated in China is

now up for serious review. It is a cogent and viable theory of my
friend and colleague Professor Doctor Sir Anton Jayasuriya that Sri
Lanka may well have been there first; in fact thousands of years
before the Chinese usurpers.

To begin with, we can question dates. The view that acupuncture

"arrived", so to speak, with the classic Book of the Yellow Emperor
(200 - 400 BC), is clearly wrong. This may have been the first time
the points and meridians were written down in China. But history now
takes us back much further. The famous Ebers Papyrus (dated from about
7,000 BC and now in the British Museum) shows diagrams of what are
clearly acupuncture meridians.

In 1991 Oetzi the "Ice Man" was discovered mummified in the Tyrolean
Alps. His frozen corpse has dated from 5,200 years ago. Oetzi was
recognized as a warrior and clearly had many skirmishes in battle and
several injuries had resulted. What was remarkable was that there were
marks on the body coinciding with known acupuncture points. Expert
Professor Jayasuriya describes them as the key points for treating a
spinal disorder complicated by sciatica (a lumbar discopathy). This
would mean that acupuncture dated from at least 3,000 years earlier
than had been supposed and had arrived in Europe long before it went
to China!

This turns the traditional view on its head.

Can we say then where acupuncture did originate? Almost certainly, Sri
Lanka. This is quite plausible, as Sri Lanka has an ancient healing
tradition that goes back into the remote depths of antiquity.
Moreover, Sri Lanka was the origin of much influential thought and
substance. Sri Lanka (formerly known to the Arabs as Serendib, from
which we get our word "serendipity") is mentioned in Ancient Greek and
Roman texts. The earliest maps of the world show it quite clearly,
just off the tip of the Indian subcontinent, whereas China was unknown
in the West. Indeed there is a powerful myth that Sri Lanka was the
original "Garden of Eden", from which innocent Man was expelled by an
irate God! Another legend says this is the land of King Solomon's
Mines. There is little doubt the valley of gems in the stories of
Sinbad the Sailor also refers to Sri Lanka. It is there today, close
by the town of Ratnapura (which means "city of gems"), and the ground
oozes precious stones in the mud every time it rains heavily.

However, concrete evidence of Sri Lanka's influence is more valuable.

The Western pharmacopoeia has traditionally contained a number of
substances unique to Sri Lanka and nearby Kerala. Abbess Hildegard of
Bingen (1098 - 1179) wrote a number of medical tracts in which she
mentions twenty five such Sri Lankan herbs and poisons. Notable among
these is Nux vomica, from the Sri Lankan plant Goda kadura. Samuel
Hahnemann made it into possibly his most famous homeopathic
detoxifying remedy. Where did the Abbess get it: it only grows in Sri
Lanka? The postulated links with Sri Lanka were there in classical
times. Local history records quite clearly that an ambassador to Rome
was witness to throwing the Christians to the lions. Roman gold coins
dating from the reign of Julius Caesar and before have been found in
the ancient cities of Anuradhapura, Sigiriya, Polonnuwara and other
historical sites in Sri Lanka.

The ancient Egyptian pharaohs, who were buried in the Valley of the
Kings and the pyramids, had their nostrils, sinuses and body cavities
stuffed with black peppers to preserve them, as part of the
mummification process. It happens that this particular variety of
black pepper, even today, grows only in Sri Lanka and nearby Kerala.
The fact is the Spice Route, which originated in Sri Lanka and went to
Malabar, across the Red Sea to Arabia, and so into the Middle East and
Europe, preceded the Chinese Silk Route by some 4,000 years or more
(c. 7,000 BC).

There is thus no doubt: Sri Lanka was a major player on the world
stage while China was still engaged in formative and destructive wars,
and long before China emerged as a civilized nation, Sri Lanka had
great kings, great art and monumental works of irrigation and
building. This little island was evidently on a par with ancient
Greece, Ancient Rome and Egypt of the pharaohs. Long before the Romans
(400 BC), Sri Lanka had hydro spas, swimming pools, public baths with
working spray-jet showers, major irrigation reservoirs and
hydro-engineering skills that worked accurately to a fall of one inch
in one kilometre.

But it has other claims to fame. Archeological investigations, at

several cave-dwelling sites, using accurate modern dating techniques,
have shown continuous habitation here by the earliest modern Homo
sapiens taking place for over 37,000 years. Cro-Magnon Man (Homo
sapiens sapientis, the wisest of the wise) may have come out of Sri
Lanka and not "out of Africa" at all! Known locally as the "Balangoda
Man", after the district of the same name, these were very
sophisticated people. Their fine microlithic tools pre-dated
comparable artifacts of central Europe by almost 20,000 years. From
skeletal evidence they were a very healthy lot, averaged almost 6 feet
in height (174 cm) and often lived to a great age. Balagodans ate a
diet of plants, animals and seafood (oysters, mollusks and other
gastropoda), typical of today's fashionable "detox" plans.

The Balangoda district is lush and fertile and supports all manner of
crops. Farming was developed here and Stone Age Mesolithic Man
selected it for settlement, finding it a rich, harmonious and
congenial terrain. It also has great mineral resources; there are over
50 varieties of precious and semi-precious stones abundant in the
ground. The stones and gems were cut with incredible skill and gave
rise to a microlithic tool culture. In what Professor Anton Jayasuriya
describes as the first ever industrial revolution, Balangoda Man, over
30,000 years ago, began to fashion quartz, flint, bone, chert and
other minerals into various functional shapes of great utility and
technological sophistication.

I mentioned earlier the history of healing from this little island of

wonder.
The king has always been invested with healing powers. According to
the epic chronicle the Ramayana, a king ruling Sri Lanka about 10,000
years ago called Ravana was also a great healer. He is portrayed with
10 heads, signifying immense wisdom, and twenty hands, signifying
great dexterity. One of the pairs of hands is holding acupuncture
needles. King Pandukabhaya (c. 500 BC) built the first general
hospital in the world, according to American historians Will and Ariel
Durant. King Mahinda IV built the oldest properly excavated hospital
in the world, at Mihintale (8th century).

King Dutugemunu is well reputed to have built many hospitals and put
dispensaries in very village of size. King Aggabod Jhi VII (766-772
AD) studied the medical plants over the whole island of Lanka (to find
out) whether they were wholesome or harmful for the sick. This is
perhaps the first recorded instance of medical research in Sri Lanka.
King Buddhadasa (c. 3rd AD) is credited with the saying "If you can't
be the king, be a healer." King Buddhadasa carried out great feats of
surgery on humans and animals, including brain surgery. Professor
Jayasuriya suggests the anesthetic used was a mixture of acupuncture
and herbal opiate wine.

Which brings me back to acupuncture. Sri Lanka almost certainly

originated acupuncture. Small pointed bones and needles of flint,
quartz, chert and other hard substances have been found among cave
artifacts, going back over 30,000 years. Swiss archeologists Sarasin
and Sarasin report these being used for acupuncture, as well as the
obvious tattooing and stitching ("Steinzeit auf Zeylan", 1908).
Moreover, ancient Sri Lankan manuscripts depict acupuncture points
mapped on the human body. Acupuncture was also used on animals. The
probable reason that the Indian (Sri Lankan) elephant was successfully
tamed is that acupuncture points were worked out that calmed the
beasts and enabled them to be communicated with and trained. These are
shown quite clearly in the accompanying illustrations, which
considerably pre-date (500 years older) the now less important Yellow
Emperor's Book.

The African elephant, of course, has never been trained. Remember that
Hannibal crossed the Alps on Asian elephants from along the spice
route. "Nobody knows the acupuncture points needed to train an African
elephant," points out Professor Jayasuriya.

A modern rendering of elephant acupuncture points: From "The Puncture

Reflexotherapy (Tsienn-Tsieu-therapy), 1988; by V.G. Vogralik and M.V.
Vogralik.

And what became of Balangoda Man? Their descendants are the Vaddas
(aboriginal Sri Lankans), living in the jungles of Wanni. The Vaddas,
along with Balangoda Man remains, have been extensively studied by Dr
Diane Hawkey of the Arizona State University. Her analysis of dental
morphology shows that Balangoda Man (Homo sapiens balangodensis) may
well have marched forth and inherited the Earth. If she is right,
history will have to be extensively re-written. Incidentally, the last
Vadda chieftain, Tissahamy, died in 1991 at the ripe old age of 104.

A special descendant of the Balangoda aristocracy was Mrs. Sirimavo

Bandaranaike, the word's first woman prime minister (of Ceylon, as
it then was known). This was yet another Balangoda historical first!
In the 1970s the lost acupuncture was regained and brought back to
Sri Lanka by three Sri Lankan medical specialists. Mrs Bandaranaike
awarded them WHO fellowships, thus completing the circle of the
spread of acupuncture from Sri Lanka, to Europe, to China and then
back to Sri Lanka.

As Professor Jayasuriya remarks: it had taken 37,000 years to

complete the cycle!

MRCP/ FRCP

Professor Jayasuriya and Medicina Alternativa has founded the Royal

College of Practitioners, in honour of King Buddhadasa and the
dazzling history of healing outlined here. The UK has an MRCP
certificate (Royal College of Physicians) but it means little more
than being skilled and recognized in pharmaceutical drug trading. I am
immensely more proud to be a Fellow of the Sri Lankan Royal College of
Practitioners, descended from Kind Buddhadasa, than I would ever be of
the much vaunted English certification!

Professor Keith Scott-Mumby MB ChB, MD, PhD, FRCP (MA).