ABSTRACT
The rst contacts between Indian and Western cultures probably date back to the time of Indus Valley Civilization, around the third millennium BC. This civilization was roughly contemporaneous with the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms of Egypt and the Sumerian and Akkadian period in Mesopotamia. There were two main capitals: Mohenjo-daro in the south and Harappa in the north. The excavations of Mohenjo-daro show a great knowledge in the eld of public health and sanitation. Shilajit, a drug still in use in Ayurveda, has been found in these excavations (Ranade and Deshpande, 2006). Several seals discovered in both the regions point to a reverence for plants and their products, which are also common to the medical traditions of Egypt and Mesopotamia (Zysk, 2009). The identication of the Harappan seals found in Mesopotamia evokes the possibility of a reciprocal inuence between the medical notions belonging to the Indus and Sumerian civilizations.
