About:

• The controversy began after the National Medical Commission (NMC), the regulator for medical education and practices (which replaced the Medical Council of India in 2020) suggested to medical colleges on February 7 that the Hippocratic Oath should be replaced by a “Charak Shapath”.
  
  
• On March 31, the NMC issued a circular on “Implementation of new Competency Based Medical Education for Undergraduate Course Curriculum”, in which it said: “Modified ‘Maharshi Charak Shapath’ is recommended when a candidate is introduced to medical education”.
  
  

What does the Hippocratic Oath say?

• The Hippocratic Oath is attributed to Hippocrates of the island of Kos, a Greek physician of the classical period (4th-5th centuries BC), broadly corresponding to the period from the death of the Buddha (486 BC) to the rise of the Mauryas (321 BC) in India.
  
  
• The Oath is a charter of ethical principles that physicians over the ages have sworn to uphold in the practice of their profession.
  
  

What is the Charak Samhita?

• The Charak Samhita is a medical pharmacopoeia and collection of commentaries and discussions on medical practices that is historically dated to the 1st-2nd centuries AD.
  
  
• Along with the compendium of Susruta (c. 4th century AD), which is about surgery, the Charak Samhita is considered the foundational text of ancient Indian medicine, which was an evolved system of understanding and treating disease that was in several ways ahead of the Greeks.