History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.676

v5.c71.s1.676

It was believed in very ancient times that diseases were the consequences of sins⁴¹³ In the Atharvaveda VIII. 7.3 plants are said to have destroyed from each limb the disease due to sin⁴¹⁴. Manu XI. 49-52, Vas. 20 44, Yāj III. 209-211, Viṣṇu Dh. S Chap 45, Śātātapa I. 3-11 and II. 1, 30, 32, 47, Gautama-smṛti in verse chap 20 and Gautama (in prose q by the Mit on Yāj. III. 216) or Vṛddha-Gautama (according to Smṛtimuktāphala p. 861), Yama (q by Pr. M. p 9), Śaṅkha (q. by the Mitākṣarā on Yāj. III. 216), Smṛtyarthasāra pp. 99-100 state the diseases and bodily defects from which sinners suffer after they are born as men. As a sample Yāj. III. 209-211 may be cited here; the murderer of a brāhmaṇa suffers from Tuberculosis, a drinker of *surā* has black teeth, the thief of brāhmaṇa's gold has diseased nails, one guilty of incest suffers from leprosy; the thief of food suffers from dyspepsia, one who stealthily learns without permission (or one guilty of plagiarism) is born dumb, one who mixes up inferior corn with superior corn is born with excessive limbs (with six fingers &c.), a backbiter is born with pus in the nose; a thief of oil is born as *tilapāyī* and one who falsely reports faults in others has a foetid breath. Yāj. III. 217 states that after reaping the consequences of their (evil) deeds (by falling into Hell and) by reaching the state of lower animals, sinners are born as human beings of a low order, poor and with condemned marks on the body; even medical works like the Carakasaṁhitā held the belief that diseases were the consequences of actions done in past lives (vide Sūtrasthāna, Chap. I. 116).