ACUPUNCTURE ORIGINATE IN SRI LANKA?

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DID ACUPUNCTURE REALLY ORIGINATE IN SRI LANKA?

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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 artefacts 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, molluscs and

other gastropoda), typical of today's fashionable "detox" plans.

 

 

beautiful lush Balangoda country

 

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.

 

 

entrance to Belli Lena cave, Balangoda

 

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).

 

 

map schema of Mihintale hospital

 

King Dutugemunu is well reputed to have built many hospitals and put

dispensaries in very village of size. King Aggabodhi 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 Buddadasa (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 anaesthetic 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

artefacts, 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).