Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

Early records says that a sick bikku took a pūtimuttabhesajja (陳棄药) which is Yang, Kyeong Ingenerally known as a ‘medicine’ made by fermenting bovine urine and shit. Some literary resources add that the drug is the product of fermenting bovine urine and poop, human urine and shit, or bovine urine alone. Chinese translators and the later Buddhist scholars were aware that pūtimuttabhesajja is a ‘medicine’ using bovine or human urine, however, no further details of its substance has been known or found so far. Only fragments of explanation on the drug can be found in some scritptures, so it is difficult to draw a clear picture of it. The notion of a drug made from the animal refuse is highly unlikely to be accepted by outsiders or later generations who do not understand the culture of the time. Such an example can be found in the Namhaegkiguinebopzon (南海寄歸內法傳) of Yijing (義淨) in 7th century Tang Dynasty, At that time in China, people put human faeces and urine in a bowl, called it ‘Yong-tang (龍湯)’, and took it as a medicine. He criticized harshly, and wanted to correct the custom by giving a proper example of the pūtimuttabhesajja used in India. The origin of pūtimuttabhesajja can be found in India’s traditional folk remedies of which the urine therapy takes a big part. This paper tried to find the meaning and substance of the pūtimuttabhesajja through investigating the case of using cow urine and its efficacy in traditional Indian medicine.