India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s7.8

c8.s7.8

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).