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India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s7: Section 7. Health and Disease

India as Known to Pāṇini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashṭādhyāyī c8.s7

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Section 7. Health and Disease

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There is evidence of early investigation and nomenclature in the Vedic period of a number of important diseases and also of the identification of many useful herbs which pharmaceutical research in that age employed to fight disease. The evolution is further suggested by the development of specialised studies, as for example, Toxicology (*Visha-vidyā*) which is enumerated in one place in the list of special sciences or *vidyās* (*Vedic Index*, II.312).

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These studies were cultivated at important educational centres and attracted brilliant pupils gifted with practical mental bias who must have found in them openings for a useful career in later life. Takshaśilā was one such reputed centre at which Jīvaka, the royal physician of king Bimbisāra received his education.

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Pāṇini brought up in the traditions of Takshaśilā uses several words for disease, such as *gada* (VI.3.70), *upatāpa* (VII.3.61) and *sparśa* (III.3.16), the last probably referring to contagious diseases. A medical doctor is called *agadaṁkāra* (VI.3.70). The herbs were known as *oshadhi* and the medicines as *aushadha* (V.4.37, *Oshadher-ajātau*). Since an *aushadha* was a compound of several ingredients to suit the needs of each case Pāṇini takes the view that it did not form a genus or class like the herbs.

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A special suffix *tas* was used to indicate the disease to be cured (*Rogāchhāpanayane*, V.4.49), in such phrases as *pravāhikātaḥ*, *kāsataḥ*, *chhardikātaḥ kuru* ‘please cure me of (1) diarrhoea, (2) cough, and (3) vomitting’.

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*HUMOURS OF THE BODY*. Kātyāyana commenting on Pāṇini’s *sūtra* *Tasya nimittaṁ saṁyogotpātau* (V.1.38), mentions the three humours of the body for the first time together, viz. (1) *vāta* (wind), (2) *pitta* (bile), (3) *śleshma* (phlegm). On this basis Eggeling says, there was "some kind of humoral pathology prevalent among the Indian physicians several centuries before our era." (*Ency. Br.* Vol. 19, p. 970b, 14th edition).

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We have separate reference to *vāta* in *sūtra* V.2.129 in connection with a patient (*vātakin*) suffering from wind. *Pitta* occurs in the *Sidhmādi* group (V.2.97) and *śleshman* forms part of the *Pāmādi-gaṇa* (V.2.100).

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DISEASES (ROGA, UPATĀPA)—Pāṇini frames rules for naming diseases after, e.g. (1) time (*kāla*); e.g. *dvitīyaka*, *chaturthaka*, fevers appearing after two or four days; (2) cause or effect (*prayojana*); e.g. fevers with shivering (*śītaka*) or heat (*ushṇaka*), or fevers produced by poisons as *vishpushpa*, and *kāsapushpa* (*Kāśikā*).

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Names of diseases (*rog-ākhyā*) were formed according to a regular pattern by adding the *ika* suffix (*sūtra* III.3.108), which according to the commentators regularised such forms as *prachchhardikā* (vomitting), *pravāhikā* (diarrhoea), *vicharchikā* (scabs), etc. The rule points to the tendency in medical science for names of ailments to follow a uniform derivative pattern, similar to that in modern pathology. *Pravāhikā* diarrhoea and *vicharchikā* (scabs) are referred to in a *sūtra* as *atisāra* and *pāman* (V.2.129).

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In medical language patients are described in terms of the disease from which they suffer. Pāṇini notes a general provision to derive the name of the patient after the name of the disease (V.2.128), for example *kushṭhī* from *kushṭha*, one afflicted with leprosy, (VIII.3.97), etc. Similarly he mentions *arśasa* (one suffering from haemorrhoids, V.2.127), *vātaki* (a sufferer from wind troubles), *atisārakī* (V.2.129, one afflicted with dysentry). One suffering from the debilitating effects of a disease was called *glāsnu*, 'convalescent' (III.2.139). Kātyāyana notes the word *āmayāvī* (*vārttika* on V.2.122) for an ailing patient.

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AUTUMNAL DISEASES—Seasonal outbreaks of epidemics were known, as shown in *sūtra* IV.3.13, referring to *Śāradika roga*, 'autumnal diseases.' These diseases, mostly fevers, coming after the rainy season, are still known.

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LIST OF DISEASES—The following diseases are noted in the *sūtras*.

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(1) *Atīsāra* (V.2.129), from which the derivative word was *atīsārakī*.

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(2) *Arśas* (V.2.127), piles.

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(3) *Āsrāva* (III.1.141), discharge. It is a disease mentioned in the *Atharvaveda*, the precise nature of which is uncertain. Sāyaṇa translated it as painful urination (*mūtr-āti-sāra*, *Atharva*, I.2.4) Lanmann takes it as diabetes and Bloomfield as diarrhoea (*Vedic Index*, I.74).

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(4) *Kushṭha* (VIII.3.97), leprosy. According to Charaka *sidhma*, *pāmā* and *vicharchikā* are reckoned amongst eighteen kinds of *kushṭha*.

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(5) *Kshetriyach*. It is mentioned several times in the *Atharvaveda*, which scholars take to be the name of a special disease. Indian commentators understand it in the sense of hereditary disease (*Vedic Index*, I.211). Pāṇini throws light on its meaning in the following *sūtra*:

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*Kshetriyach para-kshetre chikitsyaḥ*, V.2.92.

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'*Kshetriya* is that (disease) which is curable in another body', *i.e.* a foul disease which is incurable in this life.

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(6) *Nyubja* (VII.3.61), hump-backedness due to disease.

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(7) *Pāman* (V.2.100), a skin disease. It occurs in the *Atharvaveda* as the name of a skin disease (V.22.12). According to Keith the derivative adjective, *Pāmana* 'suffering from skin disease' is found in the later *Saṁhitās* and the *Brāhmaṇas* (*Vedic Index*, I.517).

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(8) *Vikshāva* (III.3.25), cough.

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(9) *Saṁjvara* (III.2.142), fever, probably consumptive in nature. The sufferer was called *saṁjvarī*.

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(10) *Sidhma* (V.2.97), a kind of leprosy, the sufferer being known as *sidhmala*.

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(11) *Sparśa* (III.3.16). According to Kātyāyana's *vārttika* the word denoted an ailment, probably contracted by touch or infection.

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(12) *Hṛid-roga* (VI.3.51), heart-disease. The word occurs also in the *Ṛigveda*. In the medical *Saṁhitās* the word probably denoted *angina pectoris* (*Vedic Index*, II.507).

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BODY (*ŚARĪRA*)—Anatomy of the body was a subject which had attracted the attention of the Indians even in the Vedic times (*Vedic Index*, II.358). The popularity of the subject is proved by the fact that even a grammatical treatise like the *Ashṭādhyāyī* contains a comprehensive list of terms for the various parts of the body. Body (*śarīra*) consists of two kinds of limbs (*svāṅga*), viz. *dhruva* (vital, VI.2.177) and *adhruva* (non-vital, III.4.54). The former is defined by the *Kāśikā* to include those limbs the loss of which results in death; the latter signified parts or limbs injury to which did not cause death. Pāṇini regards the costal bones (*parśu*, VI.2.177) as *dhruva* or an essential limb.

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The following bodily parts (*svāṅgas*) are mentioned by Pāṇini:

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Fingers (*aṅguli*), foot (*pāda*), forepart of the foot (*prapāda*, V.2.8), knee-caps (*ashṭhīvat*, VIII.2.12), legs *jaṅghā*), knee-joints (*jānu*, V.2.129) thighs (*uru*, *ūrvashṭhīva*, V.4.77), loins (*sakthi*, V.4.113), hips (*sphiga*, VI.2.187), belly (*udara*), navel (*nābhi*), womb (*kukshi*), arms (*bāhu*), chest (*uras*), ribs (*parśu*, VI.2.177), breasts (*stana*), collar-bone (*aṁsa*), neck (*grīvā*), nape (*manyā*, III.3.99, cf. *Vedic Index*, II.133), ears (*karṇa*), nose (*nāsikā*), eyes and eyebrows (*akshi-bhruva*, V.4.77), mouth (*mukha*, VI.2.167), lips (*oshṭha*), teeth (*danta*, IV.1.55), tongue (*jihvā*), forehead (*lalāṭa*), head (*mūrdhā*, *mastaka*, *śirsha*), bone (*asthi*), sinews and arteries (*nāḍī*, *tantrī*, V.4.159), heart (*hṛidaya*, *hṛit*, VI.3.50), lever (*yakṛit*, VI.1.163), hair (*keśa*, *loma*), nails (*nakha* derived as *na* plus *kha*, VI.3.74), skin (*tvach.*), flesh (*māṁsa*), vital parts (*arush*, V.4.51), bladder (*vasti*, IV. 3.56).

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The list includes some words specially noticeable, as *manyā*, *tantrī*, *arush* and *vasti*. According to *Amarakosha* the vein in the back of the neck was called *manyā*.

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MAHĀ-HAILIHILA—*Hailihila* and *mahā-hailihila* are words of unknown meaning and origin, mentioned by Pāṇini as special names of some article (VI.3.38). The word is not explained in any Sanskrit dictionary, nor is there any instance of its being used in literature. It appears that *hailihila* was a Semitic word appearing in a sanskritised form, as the name of a poison which was imported from the West. In Arabic *halāhila* means deadly poison (cf. Hebrew *halūl*, deadly poison). Steingass derives without reason the Arabic word from Skt. *halāhala* (F. Steingass, *Persian-English Dictionary*, p. 1506). The Skt. word itself is exotic as shown by its variant spellings, e.g. *hālāhala*, *halāhala*, *hālahala*, *hālahāla*, *hāhala*, *hāhāla* (Monier-Williams, *A Sanskrit-English Dictionary*, 1899 revised edition, p. 1293). Pāṇini's *hailihila* seems to come nearest to the original Semitic form of the word, which may have been Armaic, the international language of trade and commerce in the Achaemenian world from Syria to Gandhāra. Pāṇini refers to poisons in genesal called *visha* and to the third degree methods of liquidating particular persons marked out as *vishya* by the administering of poison.

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