Buddhism and Medicine in Tibet: Origins, Institutions, and Ethics

ABSTRACT

Scholars have recently debated the appropriateness of the term “Buddhist medicine,” with some treating it as a term of convenience and others rejecting it outright. This essay argues that Buddhist medicine is uniquely constituted in Tibet through three interconnected dimensions: origin narratives, institutional arrangements, and ethical motivations. With respect to origins, the central scripture of Tibetan medicine, the Four Tantras , frames itself as the teaching of a buddha, a claim that has been debated for at least seven centuries. Far from a superficial framing, however, this narrative has shaped the way that Tibetan medicine developed for most of the past millennium. With respect to institutions, in addition to lay familial lineages that still continue today, monastic physicians began regularly studying and practicing medicine in Tibet by the fourteenth century at the latest. These changing institutional arrangements have also shaped professional medical ethics in Tibet, from a worldly non‐maleficence concerned with protecting the physician's reputation to a bodhisattva beneficence enabled by monastic institutional support. Taken together, this fusion of Buddhist instructions, Buddhist institutions, and Buddhist ethics culminates in a Buddhist medicine that can be practiced not just on , but as a path to full awakening.