The origin of the Banian Hospital in Western writing has been traced back to Henry Lord's ''A Display of two forraigne sects in the East Indies''. Here he emphasized the hospital's use for injured birds, alongside commentaries on vegetarianism and protections for insects. Historian, Will Sweetman, asserts that such accounts depict
Svetambara Jains.
Accounts of the hospital in
eighteenth-century French orientalist literature expanded the kinds of animals cared for to include lice and other blood sucking vermin and to include cattle, goat, and dogs too sick or old to work.
The following is an account of a
bestiary
A bestiary (from ''bestiarum vocabulum'') is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history a ...
at
Surat
Surat is a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word Surat literally means ''face'' in Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of the river Tapti near its confluence with the Arabian Sea, it used to be a large seaport. It is now ...
offered by a nineteenth-century visitor to the city. It appeared in ''
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction
John Limbird (1796?-1883) was an English stationer, bookseller and publisher, characterised by an obituarist as "the father of our periodical writing".
John Limbird was christened on 1 May 1796 in the parish of St. Nicholas, Glatton, Huntingdonsh ...
'' on 1 September 1827.
"The Banian hospital at Surat is a most remarkable institution; it consists of a large plot of ground, enclosed with high walls, divided into several courts or wards, for the accommodation of animals; in sickness it for themselves. At my visit, the hospital contained horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, monkeys, poultry, pigeons, and a variety of birds, with an aged tortoise, who was known to have been there for seventy-five years. The most extraordinary ward was that appropriated to rats, mice, bugs, and other noxious vermin. The overseers of the hospital frequently hire beggars from the streets, for a stipulated sum, to pass a night among the fleas, lice, and bugs, on the express condition of suffering them to enjoy their feast without molestation."
In 1818,
Sir Richard Philips rejected the idea that this stemmed from Banian beliefs in
metempsychosis
Metempsychosis ( grc-gre, μετεμψÏχωσις), in philosophy, is the transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. The term is derived from ancient Greek philosophy, and has been recontextualised by modern philoso ...
, as many previous authors did, and espoused it stemmed from benevolence.
Geography Illustrated on a Popular Plan
(London: 1818) p.536 .
References
{{Reflist
History of Surat
Veterinary medicine in India
Veterinary hospitals
ÅšvÄ“tÄmbara
Jainism in India
Birds of India
Cattle in India
Horses in India
Monkeys in India
Poultry industry in India
Rats of Asia