Did the Buddha take medicinal drugs?

Bhante Dhammika of Australia

Although the Buddha was long lived by the standards of his time he was occasionally afflicted by one or another medical conditions. During one of these, he suffered from what was described as an irregularity of the bodily humours (kaya dosabhisanna). Ananda consulted Jivaka, the royal physician who treated the Sangha gratis, and he recommended that the Buddha be ‘oiled’ (sinehetha) for two or three days. Being oiled could mean one of several things: being massaged with medicinal oil; ingesting such oil; putting drops of it in the nose or ears; or having it administered as an enema – all treatments mentioned in early Ayurvedic texts.

This course of treatment having finished, Jivaka then prescribed a regimen of strong purging (olaikaṃ virecanam) for the Buddha. This included inhaling the perfume of several bunches of blue waterlilies (uppala in Pali, nil manel in Sinhala) that had been treated with some type of medicine. How this medicine was administered is unclear; perhaps the waterlilies were dusted with powdered herbs and inhaled with the perfume of the flowers. After this, and again on Jivaka’s advice, the Buddha took a hot bath and ate only soup until he was back to normal.

The most interesting thing about the Jivaka’s treatment is his prescribing the inhaling of the perfume of the waterlilies. What could be the purpose of this? As it happens, plants of the Nymphaea species, which includes the blue waterlily, contains a decomposition of morphine called apomorphine. In traditional African and Middle Eastern medicine, infusions of blue waterlily roots, stems and leaves are take to reduce mental distress or to induce vomiting. In modern medicine it has wide applications – to ease anxiety, as an emetic, for opioid addiction, to stop the trembling in patients with Parkinson’s Disease, and most recently, for erectile dysfunction.

Whether inhaling the perfume of the blue waterlily could have any effect is not clear from any of the on-going research. If so, it’s probably miniscule. Nonetheless, it would seem that the ancient Ayurvedic physicians had some awareness of the plant’s medicinal properties and potential.

So the answer to the question “Did the Buddha take drugs?” would have to be “Yes, he did!”. But of course there must be a proviso to such an answer. There are drug and drugs – some are medicinal and taken for legitimate health reasons, while others are controlled or illegal – so-called “recreational drugs” – taken for their mind-altering effects. Alcohol would be the most common of this second type although there are other far more dangerous types available nowadays. The Buddha considered such drugs to be so individually and socially harmful that he made avoiding them one of the most basic moral principles.

The Buddha took a commonsense approach to drugs as is illustrated by his attitude to garlic. The ancient Indians believed (falsely as it happens) that garlic provoked hyper-sensuality and unruly behaviour and the Buddha believed this too and so he made it an offence for bhikkhus to eat garlic. However, he also believed (correctly as it happens) that garlic had medicinal qualities. So he made an exception to this rule – that if someone needed to take garlic for medical reasons they would not be breaking the rule. As with so much of the moral ethical and training rules the Buddha instituted, one’s intention (cetana) has to be taken into account.