Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c11.8

c11.8

References to the healing art may next be noticed. The earliest mention is a droll account in 1087, given (Nr 40) in connection with the army of Vikrama-Śāntara. While hurrying to the seat of war, the men, in order to appease the fire in their bellies, fed on carcases, and as the result were driven mad with indigestion. On applying to the army doctors, these said elephant was the remedy. So they swallowed elephant and were cured, whereupon the doctors laughed. More to the point is the statement (Sb 277) that in 1158 there were three medical dispensaries in Baḷḷigāve. And in 1162 the Kōḍiya maṭha there is described (Sk 102) as a place for the treatment of the diseases of destitute sick persons. In the thirteenth century there was a Vaidya named Dēvapilleyaṇṇa, who was physician to the mother of the minister of the Hoysala king Nārasimha III (Ak 8). Like Dhanvantari (the physician of the gods) was this Dēvarāja, and celebrated for his new system of medicine (Ak 9). In the fifteenth century, in the time of the Vijayanagar king Dēva-Rāya II, there was the famous and learned head of a line of physicians, known as Sālagrāma, whose name was Kēśava, the son of Aruṇāchalēśa-paṇḍita (Dv 81). In 1818, when an epidemic of small-pox and cholera had broken out and the people were dying around, it was stopped in the following supernatural manner (Kr 25). The goddess Mahākāli of Ujani became incarnate in a Śūdra virgin of the Gaṅgaḍikāra tribe, named Nanjamma, whose family descent is given. Wherever she went these diseases and other troubles, among Brāhmans, Kshattriyas, Vaiśyas, and Śūdras alike, were cured. And out of the gifts made to her a new temple of Mahākāli was erected at Kannambāḍi. Sixteen years afterwards she had a *ranga-maṇṭapa* built for it (Kr 24).