All our sufferings, our sicknesses, weaknesses, and moral depravity are simply the consequences of our actions in former bodies. When the Jews asked our Lord, “Who did sin, this man (_i.e._ in a former life) or his parents, that he was born blind?”[261] they evidently had in their minds the Hindu doctrine of previous existences. The principles of the Brahminic religion do not appear to have embraced any care for or attention to the needs of sick people. Involved in philosophical speculations, and the perfecting of their system of caste, the founders of the Brahminic religion had no time to bestow on such mundane matters as disease and its cure. It was not until the rise of Buddhism and the political ascendency which it acquired over Brahmanism (from about 250 B.C. to A.D. 600), that public hospitals were established for man and animals in the great cities of the Buddhist princes.[262] Buddhism had a gospel for every living creature; it taught the spiritual equality of all men, whose good works, without the mediation of priests and Brahmins, would save them from future punishment. Medicine, under the fostering care of Buddhism, was studied as any other science, and the noblest outcome of the movement was the establishment of public hospitals. A great seat of medical learning was established at Benares, and Asoka, King of Behar or Putra, published fourteen Edicts, one of which devised a system of medical care for man and beast.[263] Amongst the legends of Gotama Buddha is the history of Jíwaka, which is of great interest to the historians of medicine, as it illustrates the state of the science in India at that early age. The following account is abbreviated from Mr. Spence Hardy’s translation of Singhalese MSS.[264] Jíwaka was a physician who administered medicine to Budha. He learned his profession in this way. When he was seven or eight years of age, he ran away from his parents, resolving that he would learn some science; so he considered the character of the eighteen sciences and the sixty-four arts, and determined that he would study the art of medicine, that he might be called doctor, and be respected, and attain to eminence. So he went to the collegiate city of Taksalá[265] and applied to a learned professor to take him into his school of medicine. The professor asked him what fees he had brought with him. Jíwaka said he had no money, but he was willing to work. The professor liked the manner of the lad, and agreed to teach him, though from other pupils he received a thousand masurans. At this moment the throne of Sekra trembled, as Jíwaka had been acquiring merit, and was soon to administer medicine to Gotama Budha. The déwa resolved that as he was to become the physician of Budha, he would himself be his teacher; and for this purpose he came to the earth, entered the mouth of the professor, and inspired him with the wisdom he needed to teach his pupil in the most excellent manner.