The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c11.22

c11.22

A chance reference in a grammatical text, which was pointed out to me by my *guru*, Jules Bloch, gives us another decisive proof for the history of the Ayurvedic doctrines in this very period. A *vārttika* of Kātyāyana on Pāṇini (V, 1, 38) mentions, in fact, in a number of examples concerning suffixes indicative of cause, the appeasement (*śamana*) and the excitement (*kopana*) of wind, bile, and phlegm (*vāta-pitta-śleṣman*) and their morbific coming together.¹