Almost the entire content of the medical texts, as well as the therapeutic practices carried out daily by the practitioners of the scholarly medicine of Ladakh, North-western India, are of a technical medical and a-religious nature. However, medical ethics and elements of medical epistemology are based on Buddhism, and all healers underscore the importance of the moral dimension in the practice of medicine, a dimension that refers expressly to religion. The ethnography presented in this article examines the role of religion for medical practice in both moral and practical points of view.