The earliest reference to the ideal-type of a civil hospital in Indian history can be had…

Described as charity hospitals established by the heads of the Vaisya families, Fa Hsien lists a cross section of poor and maimed people who were examined and given medicines for cure at these hospitals. The stay of the patients and provisioning for medicine was available in-house. In effect, the description seems to physically testify the existing form of the ideal type of an Ayurveda hospital that Charaka had mentioned in his treatise. Seen in conjunction with Emperor Asoka's edicts about planting of medical herbs, and passages from Sanskrit and Pali literature about the merits of establishing 'Arogyashala', Charaka's description of a hospital does not seem to be historically untenable. They lend credence to the Indic claim of being the place where institutional health care in South Asia evolved first.