Reorienting Histories of Medicine: Encounters Along the Silk Roads

Buddhism and Healing: New Books Speaker Series 2022

The Buddhism, Psychology, and Mental Health program presents a series of informal conversations with the authors of new books on Buddhism and healing.

Dr Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim’s research has focused on the transmission of medical ideas along the Silk-Roads. Within this general scope, she has been working on the history of early Tibetan medicine, based primarily on manuscripts found in the Dunhuang caves. This work followed up on my work which consisted part of the ‘Islam and Tibet’ project at the Warburg Institute. Dr Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim’s current research project funded by the Wellcome Trust is titled: “Re-Orienting Early Medicine: Bridges of Knowledge between ‘east’ and ‘west’”. The main goal of this project is to analyse the ways in which ancient Hebrew medicine, like ancient Tibetan medicine, is a case of ‘medical syncretism’ deriving from what is termed ‘eastern’ and ‘western’ medical traditions. Her academic training has been in the Study of Religions and she is also interested in the ways religions have defined transmission of knowledge, both in the Buddhist and Jewish cases.