The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c6.94

c6.94

The different *saṃhitās* are thus unanimous in admitting the impurity of the Aśvins who are not soma-drinkers originally although, as says the Rg-veda, the “drinkers of nectar” (*madhupa*, I, 180, 2).³ But the *Taittirīya-saṃhitā* goes a step farther than the rest, it vilifies the doctor and says that the Aśvins are impure like “doctors roving among men.” Certainly, the promiscuity with human beings places them below the gods, but the term employed to say that they are “roving,” *cara*, is a synonym of the name of the Carakas and one may believe that the Taittirīyas have fired a passing shot at the rival school of the Carakas, who have not inserted anything similar in their *saṃhitā*. This will be all the more effective if medicine had a place of honour among them. In that case this will also explain their silence about it. Besides, as regards the *sautrāmaṇi*, the rite of offering liquor (*surā*) to the Aśvins, to Sarasvatī and to Indra, Hillebrandt has supposed a relationship between the fact that there is a *caraka-sautrāmaṇi* and the fact that the medical *Caraka-saṃhitā* makes out a case for liquor.¹ This *rapprochement*, in itself, is not very characteristic because it is quite natural that liquor be praised as medicine in a book of medicine. But, in all cases, the Carakas are not animated against the "cara doctors", as are the Taittirīyas and the doctor Caraka could have been one of them.