The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c10.43

c10.43

The verse of the Atharvaveda which follows the one identifying prāṇa and apāna with barley and rice, contains yet another inexplicable proposition if prāṇa and apāna are understood as respiratory breaths: “He puts to play apāna, he puts to play prāṇa, the Man, inside the matrix. When thou, prāṇa, thou, pushest, then he is born again”⁴. This refers to the Cosmic Man compared in his development with the embryo and probably to that of the Sun which can concretely represent the Cosmic Man and which is reborn every morning. In any case we understand that the embryo was conceived as having, inside the matrix, pneumatic activity and as being born under the sush of the breath. Now, of all the conceivable organic breaths, the only ones which can have no rôle in the embryo are inspiration and expiration. The others, the animal spirits, which circulate in all parts of the body in formation are according to the classical physiological doctrine the agents of its growth and it is the breaths which determine the delivery. If, following this, we translate, “He put in play his inferior breath, he puts in play his superior breath the Man, inside the matrix . . .”, we can avoid the necessity of making the embryo breathe in a full space.¹