Look at the wall in the attached photo. Among these Tamil inscriptions is the budget for a hospital that existed in Chola India nearly a 1,000 years ago. We know how many patients it could take. We know the doctor's name. We even know what was set aside for lighting the hospital at night. This is the Venkatesa Perumal temple at Tirumukkudal, near Kanchipuram. In the 11th century, the temple shared its premises with a Vedic college, a hostel and a hospital called Virasolan. K. V. Subrahmanya Ayyar, an Indian epigraphist, discovered and copied the inscription during his 1915-16 field season. The writing covered about 540 square feet. In one section, the lines ran for 55 feet. The hospital had 15 beds. Its physician, Kodandaraman Asvatthama-Bhattan of Alappakkam, prescribed medicines for the in-patients, the college's teachers and students, and people attached to the temple institutions. Someone who performed surgical operations was paid separately. There were 2 people to collect medicinal herbs. They also supplied firewood and helped prepare medicines. 2 nurses looked after the patients and gave them medicines. A barber was paid too. Rice for the 15 in-patients had its own allocation. The pharmacy had an annual stock list. Oils and medicated ghees were measured out. 4 preparations were listed at 2,000 units each. 40 kasu, a unit of money, was provided for the medicines and preparation requirements. The account even mentions ghee to be kept underground for an aged ghee preparation. I find this much more interesting than a general claim that our ancestors practised medicine. Here we can read the arrangements for a particular hospital, with a named physician, staff duties and quantities to be supplied. And somebody had included the night lamp in that budget. Oil was to be bought for it to burn through the night, for a year counted as 360 days. Source: K. V. Subrahmanya Ayyar, "The Tirumukkudal Inscription of Virarajendra", Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXI, No. 38, pp. 220, 223-225, 249-250. Image Source: R. Muthusamy, Know Your Heritage, Tirumukkudal field-trip photographs, 2014; Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXI, pp. 249-250 (yellow highlights added). Photo 1: The actual inscribed wall and temple at Tirumukkudal. Photos: R. Muthusamy / Know Your Heritage. Photo 2: Original report, with the evidence highlighted: hospital staffing and patients; medicine inventory and night lamp; Ayyar's own account of copying the inscription in 1915-16. Photo 3: Hospital staffing and care: the inscription provides for 15 in-patients, a physician, a surgical practitioner, herb collectors and two nurses who administered medicines. Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXI, p. 249. Photo 4: The hospital's annual pharmacy inventory: measured oils and medicated ghees, four preparations stocked at 2,000 units each, and oil for a lamp to burn through the night. Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXI, p. 250.