Summary
s.1The Bhaiṣajyavastu, “The Chapter on Medicines,” is a part of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, the corpus of monastic law of one of the most influential Buddhist schools in India. This chapter deals with monastic regulations about medicines. At the same time, it also includes various elements not restricted to such rules: stories of the Buddha and his disciples, a lengthy story of the Buddha’s journey for the purpose of quelling an epidemic and converting a nāga, a number of stories of the Buddha’s former lives narrated by the Buddha himself, and a series of verses recited by the Buddha and his disciples about their former lives. Thus, this chapter preserves not only interesting information about medical knowledge shared by ancient Indian Buddhist monastics but also an abundance of Buddhist narrative literature.
s.1《藥本事》是根本說一切有部律的一部分，該律是印度最具影響力的佛教學派之一的僧團法律文獻。這一章涉及僧團關於湯藥的規範。與此同時，它還包含許多不限於此類規則的內容：佛陀和他的聲聞的故事、佛陀為平息疫疾和度化龍王而進行旅程的長篇故事、佛陀本人講述的多個自己前世的故事，以及佛陀和他的聲聞念誦的關於他們前世的一系列偈頌。因此，這一章不僅保存了古代印度佛教僧侶所掌握的有趣的醫學知識，也保存了豐富的佛教敘事文學。