The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c6.9

c6.9

The legend of the origin of the Āyurveda is inseparable from the legends concerning the origin of many other sciences. Almost upto our times, it has been an Indian practice to take back the first teaching of sciences and letters to superior gods. The script is supposed to have been invented by Brahman, Astronomy to have been revealed by Sūrya, the grammar of Pāṇini to have been elaborated by Śiva, in whose mouth besides the Tantras place the teaching of all sorts of things. Indra also, though less frequently, is a god of teaching; tradition ascribes him another grammar and Barth (*Oeuvres*, III, 223) has identified the source of this last association with a passage of the *Taittirīya-saṃhitā* where it is said that Indra made speech distinguishable (VI, 47, end).