History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.693

v5.c71.s1.693

In the Mahārṇava-karmavipāka of Māndhātṛ it is stated that there are two means of destroying the consequences of (evil) actions, viz kṛcchra (penances) and the reversal (or remedies) against diseases⁴²¹. The latter consists in making golden images of the sun (as the superintending deity of good health) and of the deity of a disease and offering worship to both these in a *maṇḍapa* on a raised *vedikā* (platform). The work expatiates at length on the Vedic verses employed according to Āśvalāyana and the Taittirīya Śākhā for *ghoṣa-śānti* (propitiatory ceremonies with loud recitation of Vedic mantras); the worship of the sun with Vedic mantras and of the planets, the offerings of *āhutis*, the Rudraikādaśinī, Mahārudra (11 times as many as the preceding) and Atirudra, repeating the thousand names of Viṣṇu, Vināyaka-śānti (as laid down by Yāj. I. 271-294), Navagraha-yajña in which it assigns each planet to some country and some gotra⁴²². It also prescribes how for the removal of particular diseases particular *dānas* may be given (such as *Kadalīdāna* i e. manufacturing a kadalī plant from one *pala* of gold and donating it). It deals with the gifts of the images of all diseases supposed to be incurable and quotes Śātātapa II. 47-48 in connection with the removal of rājayakṣmā (phthisis). It deals at length with fevers and other diseases and bodily defects such as greenish or cat-like eyes, deafness &c. But the detailed treatment of all these matters is passed over here from considerations of space, and also for the reason that these prescriptions are now either hardly believed in by people or hardly ever performed.