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The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2: The Indo-Iranian Data

The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2

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The Indo-Iranian Data

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The comparison of passages concerning medicine in the oldest texts of India and Iran, that is in the Vedas and in the Avesta, is likely to indicate some of the notions which had been formed during the period of the Indo-Iranian community and have been preserved both by the Iranians and the Aryans who entered India. These notions are not very numerous and are quite vague. But nevertheless it is worthwhile taking them into consideration. It is necessary to take stock of these ideas so that it may be possible to see which elements of classical Indian medicine can be traced to the period of the old Indo-Aryan community and which have been acquired at a later date. But this stock-taking is quite a delicate affair because all that is common to Indians and Iranians of the historical period does not necessarily go back to the Indo-Iranian community. The two peoples could have separately borrowed the same notions from a third people or better still, either of the two could have communicated its own acquisitions in the subject to the other.

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In fact, the relations between India and Iran have been permanent since antiquity. Darius had established two satrapies in the basin of the Indus from the end of the 6th century B.C. and the annexation of a part of the Indian territory of the West could have taken place even in Cyrus' time. After the destruction of the Persian empire by Alexander and the short occupation of these satrapies by the latter, India won them back. Yet the relations between India and the Iranian regions continued to be unbroken. The Iranian people of Upper Asia and of Iran itself, the Śakas, the Parthians and the Kuśānas conqurred vast territories of India several times and stayed there as rulers for long periods. The Sassanids also penetrated into the country or maintained regular relations with its sovereigns. From a very early date a continuous traffic with Iran and, across Iran, with the Western countries had been established which passed through regions now in Afghanistan and across the Iranian territory. We will refer back to this traffic when we discuss the eventual relations between the savants of India and those of the Hellenic world. In the intellectual sphere, the existence of Buddhism in Bactriana and in Sogdiana, on the routes which bypassed the Pamirs to the west and led to Central Asia and to China, is the clearest trace of the Indian contribution to the Iranian territories. Reciprocal proofs are available to show the Iranian influence on India from the epoch of Aśoka, in the middle of the IIIrd century B.C. and even from the Achaemenid period. One can, therefore, conclude that a part of the common heritage of India and Iran, especially in the domain of scientific ideas, in whose formation emulation, always and everywhere, plays a big rôle and which could not have been developed to such an extent in the prehistorical period, can be dated back to the period of the exchanges rather than to that of the original community.

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The relatively later dates of our Iranian sources (texts) make it likely that they contain borrowings from India and they developed certain indigenous ideas under the influence of India, either as an example or as a reaction against her. We should be very cautious in ascribing to the hoary past of the Indo-Iranians those concordances of ideas which may be due to latter-day communications or, on the contrary, in considering as cases of recent borrowing those ideas which may have emerged in the original community.

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The Avesta, called "recent", is our oldest source for the knowledge of medicine in Iran, as the Gāthās do not contain any reference to medicine. It is not a priori impossible that an element under Indian influence has been able to react, directly or not, on the redaction of some of its passages. According to Parsi tradition, the Achaemenid Avesta had been burnt by Alexander, except for the passages dealing with astronomy and medicine, which had been translated into Greek. Later on, in the 3rd century A.D., after the Chief Priest Tansar had undertaken, on the order of Ardaser I, the restitution of the Avesta already begun under the Arsacidian Parthians, Sahpuhr I, the son and successor of Aradaser (241-272), caused to be inserted therein certain passages relating to medicine, astronomy and cosmogony which had been "scattered in India, Greece and elsewhere".¹ Ordinarily, it is not thought necessary to believe in this traditional account.² But of course there is no decisive argument against it. In any case, the Avesta of the Sassanian period, which is today partly lost, did really contain, notably in the Huspāram-nask, certain passages relating to medicine, as can be seen from the résumé included in the Pehlavi *Denkart* (of the IXth century).¹ The same *Denkart* has kept the tenor of a medical text but the technical passages which would be the most important for judging about its doctrines are unfortunately vague.² This text seems to attest a Hellenistic influence, notably when it allows a big rôle to the cold, to the dry and to the hot which are *phukhron*, *eiron*, *ugron* and *thermon* in Greek. The points of resemblance with Indian medicine which have been pointed out, do not have much significance.³ For the rest, it takes up the data of the Avesta which are thus mixed up with foreign notions.

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¹ cf., J. Darmesteter, Le Zend-Avesta, Vol. III, Paris, 1893 (Ann. Mus. Guimet, Vol. XXIV, p. xxi-xxii).

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² A. Christensen, L'Iran sous les sassanides, Copenhagen, 1936, pp. 136-7.

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¹ cf., A. Christensen, ibid, pp. 414 & ff.

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² *Denkart*, ed. Peshotan senjana, Bombay, 1874-1928, Vol. IV, pp. 181 & ff.; & transl., pp. 220 & ff. A study & transl. in L. C. Casartelli, *Un traité pehlevi sur la médicine*, in Muséon, Nov., 1886, pp. 532 & ff.

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³ Casartelli, *op. cit.*, Ist article, pp. 314 & ff.

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Elsewhere, an Indian influence appears to be quite manifest. The biography, or better still, undoubtedly the autobiography of the doctor of Khusro I (king from 531 to 579), Barzoe, who had brought from a journey in India the Book of Kalilagh and Damnagh, that is, a version of the *Pañcatantra*, contains a summary of embryology, which has, it seems, justly been recognised by Hertel, as containing typical Indian notions.⁴ This is how, according to Barzoe, delivery is caused by a wind and this is precisely the teaching of classical Indian medicine. But even in this case, where the reality of a contact with India of the VIth century is beyond any doubt, as it had brought the Pehlavi imitation of the *Pañcatantra*, it will not be possible to assert that the notion of the rôle ascribed to wind in delivery was known in Iran before Barzoe. He was more likely to have found this notion again in India instead of having brought it from there. Actually, this notion could have had its origin either in Indo-Iranian pre-history or could have been borrowed from India before the 6th century B.C. The first eventuality cannot be rejected because, as we will see, the concept of the physiological rôle of the wind is very old. The second one is made possible by what is known of the Indian contribution to the famous school of medicine established in the 5th century at Gundesapuhr, in Susiana, by the Nestorians expelled from the Byzantine Empire.¹

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⁴ cf., Christensen, *op. cit.*; pp. 418 & ff. The autobiography of Barzoe has been edited & translated by Th. Noeldeke, *Barzoes Einleitung Zu dem Buche Kalila wa Dimna*... Strasbourg, 1912.

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¹ cf. Reinaud, *Mémoire sur l’Inde*, in *Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres*, Vol. XVIII, 2nd part, Paris, 1849, p. 309 on the continuity of Indian scientific contribution to Iran even after the invasion of Islam, cf., following pages, specially those concerning medicine, p. 316 et ff.

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On the other hand, several Indian texts on medicine, starting from the *Caraka-saṃhitā* show that for a long time before (these texts), Iranian doctors had been in contact with India and had been able to learn precisely the Indian theory regarding the physiological rôle of the wind. Several times and exactly in the chapter which deals with the functions of the wind,² the *Caraka-saṃhitā* brings in, in an assembly of savants assembled round the master Ātreya, a certain Kāṅkāyana Bahlikabhiṣaja “K. the doctor from Bactria”. The title of “Bactria” shows clearly his Iranian origin and even his name signifies that it is “Sogdian”. This is, at least, what appears to be most probable when it is seen that his name denotes a patronymic signifying “a descendant of Kaṅka” and that K’ang or K’ang-kiu in Chinese is a transcription of the name of Sogdiana.³ It is true that Sogdiana and Bactria are separated by the course of the river Oxus but there is no contradiction in a man coming from Sogdiana, in practising medicine in Bactria. Kāṅkāyana plays only a secondary rôle in Indian medicine but it is significant that this Iranian is presented in one of the fundamental texts of the Āyurveda as having been admitted into a circle of Indian doctors. By this example it can be seen that in the absence of direct historical evidence, it can be sometimes quite delicate to interpret recognised concordances between Indian and Iranian medical data.

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² *Sūtra*, XII. Kāṅkāyana also appears in Caraka, *Sūtr*, I. 12; XXV, 22; XXVI, 8&śār., VI, 21; MS Bower, ed., Hoernle, 935. Vāgbhaṭa; *Aṣṭāṅgasaṅgraha*, cik., X (ed. Gaṇeśaśarman, Vol. II, p. 64); *Cakradatta*, *Cikitsāsaṃgraha*, V, 19 (Kāṅkāyanaguṭikā); XXX, 35, (*Kāṅkāyanamodaka*); Nityanatha, *Rasaratnākara*, ed. of Bombay, 1897, p. 490 (*Kaṅkāyanaguṭikā*); *Śārṅgadharasaṃhitā*, 2, VII, p. 50 et ff. (*Kāṅkāyanaguṭikā*). He is mentioned in the commentary of Dalhaṇa on Suśruta, *Sūtr*, I, 2. The preparations ascribed to him include besides the *guṭikā* (pill) and the *modaka* (cake), or *vaṭaka* (fried cake) whose récipé is given by G. Mukhopadhyaya, *Hist. of Ind. Medicine*, (Vol. II, Calcutta, 1926, pp. 464 & 466). The proposed identification, in this book, of Kāṅkāyana with the Kankah mentioned by Reinaud, *Mémoire sur l’Inde*, p. 314, is impossible, as the personage discussed by Reinaud belongs to the Muslim period. In the *Kauśikasūtra*, a Kāṅkāyana is twice mentioned, without, however, being designated as a Bactrian or as a doctor.

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³ cf., Chavannes, *Documents sur les Ton-kiae occidentaux*, index.

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The medical data of the Avesta,¹ as it has reached us, are mostly contained in the *Videvdāt* (*Vendīdād*) which appears to belong, in its totality, to the beginning of the Arsacidian period² (250 B.C.—A.D. 224), although the materials are older. This work gives us information concerning doctors and fixes their fees (VIII. 36) but, of course, it does not contain any account which could be really called medical. It distinguishes three types of doctors practising with the aid of knife, of plants or of the holy word (*manthra spenta*) the last being the most esteemed (VII. 44, cf., also *Yast*, III, 6).

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¹ Noted many times, notably by H. Fichtner, *Die Medizin in Avesta untersucht auf Grund der von Fr. Wolff besorgten Ubersetzung der heligen Bücher der Persen*, 1924.

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² Christensen, op. cit., pp. 33 & 415.

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This classification has been commented upon several times. Christensen³ has made a *rapprochement* between this passage and another which is given in the *Aphorisms* of Hippocrates (VII. 87) and according to which, all that can not be cured by medicines, is cured by fire and that which cannot be cured by fire is incurable. He thinks that this Greek classification has been able to exert some influence on the Iranian one and observes that the latter is completed in the *Denkart* by the mention of fire (and also of the "burning" which he interprets as denoting the fumigation by means of aromatic herbs and which most probably is cauterisation by means of caustics). But the Greek classification and that of the *Videvdāt* agree only in the total number of their elements because the holy word is not mentioned in the *Aphorisms* and the fire is missing in the *Videvdāt*. Hence there is no significant trace of influence. Much more important, however, is a remark of Darmesteter, taken up and emphasised recently by Mr. Benveniste. According to this remark the Avestan classification of doctors corresponds to that of Pindarus regarding curative processes (*Pyth.*, III. 91).⁴ The concordance being, in this case, complete, it follows that, in all probability, the tradition of a deliberate division of medicines in three classes, drugs, surgical means and charms, is Indo-European. But this does not reveal anything concerning the eventual existence of the already determined processes and of already established doctrinal concepts, dating from the Indo-Iranian period and which could have been in vigour in the period of the *Videvdāt*.

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³ ib., p. 415.

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⁴ Darmesteter, *Ormazd et Ahriman*, Paris, 1877, p. 293, No. 2; E. Benveniste, *La doctrine médicale des Indo-Européens*, *Rév. Hist. Rel.*, July-Dec., 1945, pp. 5 & ff.

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The holy word referred to in the *Videvdāt* is the formula *Airyemā isyo* (*Yasna*, LIV).¹ This formula is personified in the Avesta and Ahura-Mazda himself invokes it against the 99,999 diseases created by Aṅra Mainyu, offering in return thousands of heads of cattle and a benediction (*Vid.*, XXII). The word *manthra*, designating the "word" and more precisely the magic formula corresponds exactly to the Vedic word *mantra*. The rôle ascribed to it, which is quite an important one because it is the recourse of Ahura Mazda against the Evil Spirit is, upto a certain extent, comparable to the power imputed in India to the *mantras* and chiefly to the similar and important rôle which, in the Vedic texts, is assigned to the "Voice" (*vāc*) or of the sacrificial formula (*bráhman*), which has also become a personified god. The *bráhman* is often for the Vedic gods that which a *manthra spenta* is for Ahura Mazda in his struggle againt Aṅra Mainyu. This *bráhman*, who "gives victory in the combat" (*prtanāsu sahyāḥ, RV.*, I. 152,7) is useful to the gods in their combat against the enemies. It is by him that Agni expels the demon of abortion (*RV.*, 162. 1 & 2) or kills the *Yātudhānas* (*AV.*, 1, 8, 4). It is by means of the *bráhman* of his singer or by that of the Soma that Indra has exalted his courage or his force (*RV.*, II. 17, 3).² Again it is with his aid that Bráhmaṇaspáti, the "Master of the *bráhman*", made sovereign (*RV.*, II. 24, 15), has "torn" *Vala* (ib., 3). These are some of the examples to which can be added others where the *bráhman* is replaced by the "voice" (*vāc*) or the "voices", by the "hymn" (*arká*) or even by the *mantra*. It is specially said about *Bráhmaṇaspáti* that he "enunciates the elogious mantras in which the gods Indra, Varuṇa, Mitra and Aryaman have pleased themselves",¹ now the last-named of these is the Vedic counterpart of the Avestan Airyaman.² It seems, therefore, that the concepts relating to the formula of curative magic are, generally speaking, Indo-Iranian, but the contents of the invocation *Airyemā isyo* is trivial and does not have in India its special counterpart capable of making us think that from the Indo-Iranian period itself a precise formula of magical therapeutics had come into being. Similarly the words denoting "remedy", charm, or drugs, *bheṣajá* in Vedic, *baesaja* in Avestan, are the result of one and the same Indo-Iranian form but they, in no manner, suppose that the "remedies" which are respectively designated by them, can be taken back to an Indo-Iranian therapeutics which had already been traditionally contributed.

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¹ Regarding this formula, G. Dumézil, *Le troisième souverain*, Paris, 1949, p. 47 & ff. Regarding the curative role of the Avestan Airyaman/the Vedic Aryaman: ib., p. 81 & ff.

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² *asya* ... *bráhmaṇā śuṣman aírayah*. Sāyaṇa explains *asya* as designating the *stotr*; Geldner asks if it is not the *soma*, which has been under discussion, under this hypothesis; he translates *bráhman* as "magic force". In fact it is conceivable that in lieu of a formula, a "virtue" is ascribed to the *soma*. This example could be invoked to support the theory of Hubert and Mauss who see a *rapprochement* between the Indian *bráhman* and the Melanesian *mana* which is the magic force aud sometimes simultaneously the formula possessing that force. (*Esquisse d'une théorie générale de la magie*, in *Année soc.*, 1902-1903 (1904), pp. 111, 117 & ff). But in spite of this example the *bráhman* is, probably even in this example, essentially the formula having a magical virtue whereas the *mana* is only secondarily a formula.

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¹ . . . . *bráhmaṇaspátir mántram vadaty úkthyám/yásminn índro váruṇo mitró aryamā devā ókāṃsi cakriré*. (*RV.*, I, 40, 5).

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² Secondarily one may observe that Mitra plays an important role in the Avesta, that Indra is present there under this name or under that of Andra, a demon. But he responds to Vərəθragna of the camp of Good and that Varuṇa, ‘the Asura of the gods’ (*AV.* I, 10, 1) corresponds for a considerable part of his mythical personality to Ahura Mazda.

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The origin of plants and probably of the surgical knife is indicated by the *Videvdāt*. Zarathustra asks Ahura Mazda as to who had been the first doctor. Ahura replies that his name was Thrita who obtained from Ksathra Vairya the means to counter various diseases. Ksathra Vairya is the Aməsa spənta who presides over metals, also it is thought that Thrita received the knife from him (*Vid.*, XX. 2-3).³ At the same time Ahura Mazda has given innumerable medicinal plants which encircle the mythical tree Gaokərəna (ib., 4). These plants are associated with waters and with the liquid of immortality, the haoma. This haoma has a terrestrial form of golden yellow which is made use of in liturgy, but the Gaokərəna grows in the waters of the lake Vourukasa and produces a white haoma which, one day, will give the good persons immortality whereas a sea of molten metal will submerge the evil-doers. Besides, the waters and the plants are related to the Aməsa spənta, Hauravatāt and Amərətat, the arch-angels of health and immortality.¹

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³ On this subject one may also see the remarks of Darmesteter *Haurvatāt & Ameretāt*, Paris, 1875, p. 53, note which shows that Manu, father of men, has also, as described in the Vedas, obtained several remedies. But this is only a vague analogy with the personage of Thrita (Moreover Darmesteter does not insist on this point) and the details on either side do not agree. The same author (p. 55, n. 2), makes a just *rapprochement* between the epithet *vispobis* ‘of all the remedies’, applied to the tree of Vourukasa (*Yast*, XII, 17) and the Vedic epithet having the same sense, *viśvábheṣaja*. In the Rg-veda, it does not qualify a tree but the wind (X, 137, 3) or the waters (I, 23, 20 & cf. X, 137, 6 where the same idea is expressed in a different manner), once even the hand of a singer (X, 60, 12), but in the Atharvaveda it is applied most of the time to

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¹ cf., Darmesteter, op. cit., Rapprochement with the Nāsatyas: G. Dumézil, Naissance d’archanges, Paris, 1945, pp. 157-170.

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Many of these notions and particularities are found in Vedic India. The soma, which corresponds to the haoma, is both the sacrificial liquor and the king of plants. Among other hymns, the oṣadhīstuti, the "praise of plants" (RV., X. 97) is addressed to him, this hymn being ascribed to Bhiṣaja, the "cure-man". The quality of the sovereign remedy of the soma has been proclaimed on many occasions.² It is specially said (RV., I, 23, 19) and repeated in other forms that: "In the water is the liquor of immortality (amṛta), in the waters is the remedy (bheṣaja)".³

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² Numerous references in Bergaigne, Rel. Véd., I, 152 & ff: 192. The soma-plant has most frequently been identified with an asclepiade. It seems that several species have been employed at different times and in different places, cf., Aurel Stein, On the Ephedra, the Hūm Plant & the Soma, in B.S.O.S., 1931, Vol. VI, p. 501-514. For the rapprochements between the soma and the haoma, cf V. Henry Sóma & Homa in Ann. Mus. Guimet, Bibl. Vulg., Vol. XX, Paris, 1906, pp. 51-80; G. Dumézil Le Festin d’Immortalité, Paris, 1924 (numerous references in the index). Jogeshchandera Ray, The Soma Plant, in Ind. Hist. Quart., XV, 1939, p. 197, makes the identification of the soma plant with the Indian hemp extremely probable. According to a decisive remark of this author, it is in any case out of the question that this plant supplied an alcoholic drink as the effects of this drink are immediate when it is prepared extemporaneously by pressing and with the addition of water. The alcoholic fermentation required a long interval between preparation and consumption. (This will bring it very near bhang.-trsltr).

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³ cf., infra, p. 46.

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The mythical hero of the Avesta has for its counterpart the Vedic Tritá, but the two personages are not equivalent. Thrita is the third of four mortals who first of all extracted the plants, the jaṅgida (II, 4, 3; X, 35, 5), the plant of Kanva (Kaṇvasya vīrudh, VI, 52, 3); the nitatni (VI, 136, 3) the totality of plants (VIII, 7, 26) and the kuṣṭha (XIX, 39, 5).

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haoma (Yasna, IX. 4-13). The second is Āthwya, father of Thraetaona. Sometimes, the name Āthwya has been identified with the epithet āptya, “of the waters”, which joins itself to the name of Trita, but it is extremely doubtful if the supposed correlation is exact, Āthwya and Thrita constitute two distinct personages and chiefly the phonetic correspondence in very much open to question.¹ “Trita” signifies “the third”² and he is one of those who prepare the soma,³ just as Thrita is that of the haoma. Thraetaona would have for his counterpart the Vedic Traitana, an insignificant personage (RV., I. 158, 5) whereas in the Avesta he is a hero of premier rank, who put to death the demon Azi Dahāka. In effect, the exploits of Thraetaona correspond more with those of Trita, the enemy of demon Viśvarūpa. In any case, only Thrita in the Avesta and Trita in the Veda have roles related to medicine, but whereas Thrita is the first doctor, Trita, on the contrary, is the first transmitter of evil.

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¹ On the entire question, cf., K. Ronnow, Trita Āptya, eine vedische Gottheit. Uppsala, 1927, p. XXIII & ff.

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² This interpretation is more or less certain but it is not excluded that the name has not been originally used in another sense.

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³ Bergaigne, Rel. Véd., II, 328, thinks that it has acquired this sacerdotal role by means of a secondary transformation; yet the quality of Thrita, the third preparer of the haoma, seems to show that this role is Indo-Iranian.

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According to the Atharvaveda (VI. 113, 1): “On Tṛtá (-Tritá) the gods have wiped off their sins. Tṛtá has wiped them off on men; if, later, the seizer (grāhi) has taken hold of you, that the gods destroy it for you by means of the incantation”.⁴ The ritual usage of the hymn, one found at a sufficiently late date,⁵ without the possibility of affirming or denying its ancient origin, is that of exorcising the sin due to the marriage of the younger brother before that of the elder one and one could be led to think that the “seizing one” is the seizure of moral guilt having no relation with the disease. Yet the hymn, X. 161 of the Ṛg-veda makes a close rapprochement between the grāhis of the two afflictions, whose relations with the sin we will precisely see and which are nevertheless diseases: “I deliver you by means of the oblation so that you may live free from the unknown evil and from the royal evil; if the seizing one has taken hold thereof, of it, O Indra and Agni, deliver it.”¹

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⁴ tṛté devā amṛjataitād énas tṛtá enam manuṣyéṣu mamṛje/áto yádi tvā grāhir ānaśé, tām te devā brāhmaṇā naśayantu.

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⁵ Kauśikasūtra, 46, 26.

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¹ muñcāmi tvā haviṣā jīvanāya kam, ajñātakayṣmād uta rājayakṣmát, grāhir jagrāha yádi vaitád enam, tásyā indrāgni prá mumuktam enam.

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Tṛtá or Tritá is hence an intermediary like Thrita, a “third” person if one so wishes to call him between the gods and men, but whereas Thrita passes on to human beings the remedies of Ahura Mazda, Tritá communicates to them a morbific defilement of the gods. Hence between these two mythical personages, there is a similarity and a contrast at the same time but the contrast is less strong than the similarly, as Tritá is far from having, in the Veda, an entirely malefic rôle, as he has prepared the soma; a liquor like the amṛta.²

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² cf.. Ronnow, op. cit., chap. II; Das Lebenswasser, p. 64 & ff.

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Often enough his fatal rôle has not been correctly recognised. In order to identify Tritá completely with the Avestan Thrita, Haug has covered this rôle by means of tendentious translations.³ He has understood the passage, which we have just quoted as signifying that Tritá extinguished diseases in the human beings just as the gods had extinguished it in him, but mṛj can not denote “extinguish” and Bloomfield has quite justly recognised in Tritá the “scapegoat” of the gods.⁴ Haug has equally claimed that in the Ṛg-veda (VIII. 47, 13) disease was sent to him for being “pacified” and he has added that reference is made in the Avesta to this circumstance “by the surname Sāma, which signifies pacifier”. But this assertion is false because there is no question of pacifying in the Ṛg-veda (VIII. 47, 13) which says: “That which openly, that which secretly, O gods, is badly done, on Trita Āptya, all that place far from us; your help be benign, your help is good help”.⁵ This passage, when compared with the preceding one, provides good evidence that Tṛtá or Tritá is the divine scapegoat but the men on whom he tries, in his turn, to discharge a disease, request the gods to take it back and send it back to him with their own affliction, so that this personage, though indirectly and in return, is also the scapegoat of human beings. There is thus quite a distance between this rôle and that of a cure-giver and it is surprising that Pischel has tried to make Tritá a doctor.¹

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³ Martin Haug, Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings & Religion of the Parsis, ed. by E. W. West, London, no date (1878?), p. 277 & ff.

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⁴ Trita, the Scapegoat of the Gods in J.A.O.S., 1894, p. CXIX & ff.

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⁵ yád āvir vád apīcyám dévāso asti duṣkṛtám, tṛté tád víśvam āptvá áré asmád dadhātanāneháso va ūtávaḥ suūtávo va ūtávaḥ. Elsewhere (AV., VI, 84, 3) the favourable epithet anehas, ‘benign’, which designates the absence of “(hostile) designs” (cf., L. Renou, J. A., 1939, p. 211) applies to Nirṛti, in order to turn away her fatal influence and when she does not rage, this epithet suits her quite well. Nirṛti can, therefore, have a relatively favourable aspect, cf., infra, concerning the double character of gods and demons.

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¹ Basing himself on an indeterminate passage (RV.. II, 34, 10) and disregarding the precedents, cf., Gotting. gel. Amzeigen, Gottingen, 1894, p. 426, & ff., Résumé by Ronnow pp. IX & 39. See ibid., pp. V to XX, the principal theories on the subject of Tritá. Besides that of Haug, referred to above, to add among others, the identification, summarily but cleverly presented, of Tritá Āptya on the one hand with Thrita and Athvya on the other in V. Henry, Le Parsisme, Paris, 1909, p. 220.

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Beneficent when he presses the soma, maleficent when he wipes off on human beings the impurity which the gods have wiped off on him, useful when one can, thanks to the gods, throw on him this impurity, Tritá in so far as he has a relationship with the diseases or with the soma, the liquid of immortality, does not possess a unequivocal character, whereas the Avestan Thrita appears as only a beneficent character. But there is here nothing surprising in a Vedic personage and it does not prevent him from going back to the same mythical Indo-Iranian figure, to whom goes his Avestan counterpart. Moreover, it is probable that he responds better than the other one to the image which can be conceived of their common mythical ancestor.

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The equivocal character of gods and demons becomes a commonplace thing in India from the time of the Veda. This can be linked with the general and very important fact that in the Veda many notions have two opposite values, one favourable and the other unfavourable, as it is well attested by the Vedic vocabulary, which is extremely ambivalent.² This causes astonishment to our minds, used, by a long Christian tradition, to the classification of beings and of notions as good and bad ones. In reality, the mixing of contrary tendencies is quite constant. It is by means of an idealistic systemisation to which we are accustomed, that we separate them and then divide them among completely conceived superhuman figures. But since such a systemisation was not thought necessary everywhere, it has not been created everywhere. Greek mythology, as that of India, admits, though to a lesser degree, the ambiguity of the character of gods; this permits us to believe that this ambiguity is Indo-European. The Iranian dualism, on the contrary, opposes radically and mechanically, the Good and the Evil. It is not possible to accept that, under this absolute form, it is primitive. It is more likely that the mythical Indo-Iranian personalities, such as Thrita-Trita had been, in their origin, equivocal and have remained the same in the Veda whereas in the Iranian texts they have been secondarily made to specialise into the Good and the Evil ones. Moreover even in the Avesta, there are traces of the ambiguity of action of divine personalities and these traces can be interpreted as the survivals of concepts anterior to the dualist systemisation. This is an important question for the chronology of ideas and we will come to that on the subject of Vāyu.

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² cf., L. Renou, L'ambiguïté du vocabulaire du Rgveda, in J. A., 1939, p. 161-235; see particularly on the character of the gods, p. 220 & ff. Bergaigne, Rel. Véd., Vol. III, p. 3 has already studied the turn-by-turn beneficent and redoubtable character of 'sovereign gods', but they are not the only ones to play a double role vis-à-vis human beings, cf. also J. Filliozzat, Etude de démonologie indienne. La Kumāratantra de Rāvaṇa et les textes paralleles, in Cahiers soc. As., IV, Paris, 1937, on the favourable role of Rāvaṇa, p. 136 & ff.; on the maleficent role (rare, but cf., L. Renou, J. A., 1939, p. 224) of Viṣṇu, p. 72, on that of Gaṇeśa p. 78.

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The Iranian systemisation necessarily takes the origin of all the diseases back to the spirit of the Evil, Aṅra Mainyu (Vid., XXV. 2) or to various other beings connected with him. Chief among them are, on the one hand, the yātus, the pairikās and the jainis, exorcised conjointly at the end of the fargards, XX, XXI, XXII of the Videvdāt and on the other hand and with less surety, the drugs (druj) Nasu and Jahi.

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The Avestan yātus are the demon-sorcerers, indeed human sorcerers (Yast, II. 11 and VIII. 44). Similarly in the Ṛg-veda, yātu denotes sometimes sorcery, sometimes the demon-sorcerer. The latter one is specially the yātudhāna ("one who carries [in himself] sorcery" and the man can be yātudhāna) because the singer of Ṛg-veda (VII. 104) utters imprecations against one who calls him yātudhāna.¹ The pairikās and the jainis are the female demons who do not have their counterparts in the Veda unless it be that these two names are related to that of the evil jāyānya or Jāyenya (cf., infra), but this cannot be admitted as valid.¹ The drugs are the demons of “untruth”,² ordinarily female ones and have for counterparts the Vedic drunhs (cf., infra). But here only the corresponding general concept is Indo-Iranian as the various drugs known in the Avesta, are not found in the Veda. In the Avesta, Jahi is the drug of luxury; she is mentioned beside a list of diseases (Vid., XXI, 17), but she is in this neighbourhood only because of her evil character and not necessarily as a morbid cause. The same holds for daevi and other impure beings mentioned with her.

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¹ cf., already De Harlez, Avesta, Paris, 1881, p. CXXXII. RV., VII, 104, 16 puts as parallel ones the person who has called a singer a yātudhāna and the person who has declared himself to be pure, although being a rakṣāsa, this seems to assimilate the yātudhānas and the rakṣās. In the classical Sanskrit literature, these two types of beings are closely related; for example the Rāmāyaṇa (Bomb., VII, 59, 15) makes them descend simultaneously of the Yadus and the rakṣasa (or rākṣasas); they can play a role in the production of diseases to which we will allude later.

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¹ For pairikās, Darmesteter had once suggested an entirely forced etymology, tending to relate this name to the vedic apsaras or apsarā (Ormazd et Ahr., p. 177, note 2) because he had by means of an equally forced comparison, identified the pairikās, ancestors of the peris, the fairies of Iran with the apsaras of India.

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² cf., Nyberg, Die Rel. des alten Iran, p. 133.

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More important is the drug Nasu for whom Hertel and Reinhold Müller have desired to find a Vedic counterpart and in whom they have desired to see the witness of the Indo-Iranian concept of the igneous nature of disease.³ The hymn X. 163 of the Rg-veda consists of a charm for chasing the yákṣma from all the parts of from body which are successively named. In the Videvdāt (VIII. 35-72), the purification of corpses by means of water is discussed and the limbs from which water chases away, turn by turn, the drug Nasu, are enumerated. There is perforce a resemblance between the two enumerations without their having a common Indo-Iranian origin. However Hertel and Müller had thought that the rapprochement of the two texts revealed the existence of a worry among the Indo-Iranians, which we will call a prophylactic one, and he had proposed that the Avestan drug was regarded as a demoniacal fire. Earlier, he had suggested that the yákṣma drew its name “from the high temperature of those who are caught by it”,⁴ but he had not noticed that there is no proof to show that the yákṣma was necessarily feverish. His conviction was essentially based on the equivalence which he had proposed yákṣati = yájati¹ and on the sense of “changing into fire” which he claimed as the original sense for yaj=to sacrifice.² From all this, it resulted that the disease had been a malignant fire for the Indo-Iranians.

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³ Reinhold, F. G. Muller. Die Medizin im Rg-veda, in Asia Major, Vol. VI, 1930, p. 315-387, including Johannes Hertel, Nachtrag zu Rg-veda X, 163; Vendidad, VIII, 35-72, p. 377-385.

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⁴ cf. also Vid., IX, 15 & ff., which deals with the purification of the man made impure by the contact of a corpse.

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¹ Die arische Feuerlehre, I, Leipzig, 1925, p. 24, approved in the last resort by R.F.G. Müller, Grundlagen altindischen Medizin in Nova Acta Leopoldina neue Folge, 11, No. 74, Halle, 1942, p. 12.

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² Die arische Feuerlehre, p. 20. In any case an Avestan yaska does correspond to the Vedic Yákṣma (we will discuss it once again), the former having the general sense of disease.

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This theory is a tissue of hypotheses which cannot stand at all. It has been conceived chiefly by virtue of an already conceived Vedic interpretation. Hertel has not been the first who tried to see everywhere in the Veda, only one essential theme. The old mythologists found everywhere in it the storm, Regnaud the soma, Hertel always the fire³. The mere fact that each of these systems has been defended is sufficient to demolish all of them together, because it proves that the storm, the soma and the fire, all three play a considerable role and in consequence it will not be possible to accord exclusive importance to any of them. In any case, to a reader not informed about the Avesta, the drug Nasu does not appear to be of igneous nature. It is variously qualified but it is under the hideous form of an insect that it is shown by the Videvdāt (VII. 2 & 5; VIII. 16 & IX. 26) and this form particularly suits it because this is the form of the flies of corpses, because it is precisely the drug of the corpses.⁴ Moreover, as we will see, it is not a disease but an eventual cause of disease. The fact that the yákṣma and the drug are successively expelled from all the limbs of the body, cannot establish their community of origin; this is the usage in all cases of evil impregnation and it is not found solely in India and Iran.

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³ ibid., p. 119.

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⁴ In his alread accepted interpretation of the Avestan data, cf. H.S. Nyberg, Die Religionen des alten Iran, deutch von H. H. Schaeder, Leipzig, 1938, p. 20.

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It is, however, possible to establish a rapprochement between the yákṣma and the drugs, not as going back to the Indo-Iranian concept of an igneous physical impurity, but because of the relations existing between the physical evil or the material impurity on the one hand and the sin on the other. The Avestan *drug*s are chiefly the demons of sin and impurities. The *drug*, *par excellence*, is covered and fertilised by the sinners, voluntary or involuntary ones: the one who refuses to give a piece of cloth to the faithful indigent, one who urinates near one's foot, one who has a nocturnal pollution and one who, at the age of fifteen, has intercourse with a prostitute (*Vid.*, XVII, 34-5). This clearly shows that physical impurities and moral defects can be assimilated. The *drug* represents therefore all the evil elements attached to human beings in their bodies and in their spiritual personalities. In so far as it is attached to the bodies, it can give rise to diseases (*Vid.*, IX, 48). It had been probably observed that the contact of corpses was not only repugnant but also dangerous and that the disease which had led to death stays attached to the body, because it is said that various afflictions are found in those depots where corpses are exposed, in the *dakhmas* (*Vid.*, VII, 58). The dog, chiefly certain dogs having special characteristics, were considered as being capable of putting the *drug* Nasu on the run (VIII, 16-18) and it is not, undoubtedly, because the dog is a creature of Ahura Mazda (*Vid.*, XIII, 39), highly valued for his utility in keeping watch over the herds and men. The dog keeps his tongue and his teeth surprisingly clean even when he nourishes himself on carrion; he could, therefore, appear to possess a virtue which destroyed putrefaction. Similarly it is probable that other beings who nourish themselves on corpses in stages of decay—birds, wolves, flies—were thought to have a quality of purification because it was agreed that they did not pass on the impurity with which they were in contact (*Vid.*, V, 3-7).¹ It is clear that these ideas have hardly anything to do with medicine; they are, in the first place, the result of instinctive repulsions and then that of a unitary concept of evil. Lastly they are the observations leading us to the belief that the dead spread a morbific power to which is opposed an anti-morbid magical virtue found among beings who can expose themselves to contagion with impunity.

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⁵ nasu is manifestly related to the Latin nec-are, Greek nexus. ‘corpse’. Hertel translates drug as ‘destruction’ (vernichtung) and nasu as putrefaction (Vermesung) but cf. infra.

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¹ The text observes that otherwise the impurity will extend itself everywhere because of the multitude of corpses. The wind figures in the list of beings who do not pass on the impurity.

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If the Vedic *yákṣma* is not, like the *drug*, a cause of disease, it has at least some relationship, like the *drug*, with sin or bad disposition (*infra*, p. 80). It even seems that one must consider it as the physical evil produced by a sort of *drug*. Actually the word *druh* is used in expressions characterising the disposition of the man who contracts *yákṣma* because of an act of impiety towards Mitra and Varuṇa: “the man who, O Mitra and Varuṇa, the impure (*abhidruh*) man, who does not press for you the waters (the juice of the soma), the artful (*akṣnayādruh*) himself deposits the *yákṣma* in his heart . . .”¹ Accordingly, one may observe that the *yákṣma* is exercised conjointly with the *druh* in the *Atharvaveda* (II, 10, 6). The root *druh*, in the classical language, signifies “to cause harm, being hostile”, but in the Vedic, this hostility consists of all that twists the normal order, the *ṛta*; it is the heresy, the impiety, indeed it is the error or the falsehood. The Vedic *druhs* are originally related to the Avestan *drugs*, which are the antagonists of the *asas*, the Avestan counterpart of the *ṛta*. The sense of the Avestan *drug* is justly “falsehood” or “disorder”.²

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¹ *Jánoyó mitrāvaruṇāv abhidhrúg apó ná vām sunóty akṣnayādhṛk/ svayám sá yákṣmam hṛdaye ní dhatte... (RV., I, 122, 9).*

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² cf. in the last place, Nyberg, *Die Rel. des alten Iran*, p. 133.

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But as usual, the role of the Vedic *druhs* is equivocal, whereas that of the Avestan *drugs* is solely bad.³ A Vedic *druh* can be of service if one can make use of it against the evildoer or can send the evildoer to break himself against it: “The person, O Maruts, who having a bad desire in his thoughts, O Vasus, wishes to strike against us, let him loosen himself against the toils of the druh! Beat him with the most burning beetle!”¹ Elsewhere the druhs which pursue the departures from the ṛta belong to Mitra and Varuṇa: “All these, O male ones (Mitra and Varuṇa), are infallible, they are yours, in them one has seen neither marvel nor prodigy, the druhs pursue the monstrosities of human beings...”² In other words, the druhs pursue, without miracle, naturally, the shortcomings in the natural order and they punish these as a revenge, acting in the capacity of the guardians of ṛta, Mitra and Varuṇa.

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³ It is the *drug* itself which in *Vid.*, XVIII, 13 & ff. explains all that is favourable and all that is harmful to her, thus giving the means to combat her. One can here make a *rapprochement* between this fact and the one that in India the discussion of an anti-demon ritual is ascribed to Rāvaṇa, chief of the Rakṣasas who in the Veda are specially known as the demons who cause abortion, and that this Rāvaṇa had, even from before the time of Galien (IInd century A.D.), become known as a doctor (cf., Filliozat, *La Kumaratantra*, pp. 170 & ff.). One could therefore conclude that the personage of the Avestan *drug* has, like Rāvaṇa, been subjected to a favourable evolution. According to Nyberg, op. cit., p. 67, it is with pleasure that she talks to Sraosa who has put aside his formidable mace. But probably it should be understood that she talks because of the fear that he may not seize her again.

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¹ yó no maruto abhí durhṛṇāyús tiráś cittāni vasavo jighāṃsati/druháḥ pāśān práti sá muciṣṭa tápiṣṭhena hánmanā hantanā tám (RV., VII, 59, 8).

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² ámūrā víśvā vṛṣaṇav imā vām ná yāsu citráṃ dádṛśe ná yakṣám/druháḥ ṣacante ánṛtā jánānām...(VII, 61, 5),

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In any case it appears to be certain that the concepts of the Vedic druh and the Avestan drug go back to a general Indo-Iranian idea about the wrong done to the normal order, to anamoly in all its forms, of which the diseases are a part, but correctly speaking, they are not medical concepts. One cannot, on its basis, talk of an Indo-Iranian medicine.

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The diseases mentioned by the Avesta are probably the demons of diseases.³ Their names are extremely obscure⁴ and were already so under the Sassanians, because some of them have been left without a translation in the Pehlavi version of the Videvdāt.⁵ Moreover, they are very rarely related to the Vedic names of diseases. The Avestan word gada, “ruin, evil”, is currently found in classical Sanskrit under the form gada, “disease”, and appears in the Vedic in agadā, “doing well”. The name of the disease pāman is common to the Avesta and the Vedas (AV., V, 22, 12). Neither in the Avesta nor in the Atharvaveda is its sense made clear by the context. However, in the Atharva, the pāman is said to be the cousin “of the fever”; it is, therefore, probable that it is inflammatory. Moreover, the Chāndogya-upaniṣad brings in a personage, Raikva, who “scratches himself” for a pāman, from which he suffers (pāmānam kaṣamānam, IV, 1, 8); it is also, therefore, a pruriginous affection, generally believed to be itch. But it can also be any type of pruriginous dermatose and it is not wise to admit without any proof that the itch, properly speaking, was clearly distinguished since the Vedic period itself, especially as in the classical Indian medicine, the *pāmā* corresponding to the Vedic *pāman*, corresponds to eczema rather than to itch. Suśruta says: "The diagnosis of the *pāmā* is done according to the tiny vesicles accompanied by discharge, according to the pruritus and the peripheric inflammation" and he continues this time in characterising the veritable itch which he calls *kacchū*: "By the pustules accompanied by a great deal of inflammation, appearing on the buttocks, on the hands and on feet, this is how itch is represented".¹ Moreover, the Avesta has the name of a disease corresponding to *kacchū*: *kasvī(s)*, as has been kindly indicated to me by Mr. Benveniste, who has also informed me that *pām* denotes in Afghan the itch. One may, therefore, admit that *pāman* denotes from the Indo-Iranian epoch an "itch" in the general sense and not in the medical sense properly speaking.²

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³ The chief passages where its enumerations are found are Vid., VII, 58 XX, 3; XXXI, 18.

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⁴ cf., Nyberg, op. cit., p. 340.

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⁵ cf., Haug, Essays...., p. 363, note 3.

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¹ *sāsrāvakaṇḍūparidāhakābhiḥ pāmānukābhiḥ piḍakābhiḥ ūhyālsphoṭaiḥ sadāhair ati saiva kacchūḥ sphikpāṇipādaprabhavair nirūpyā.—Súsr, Nid., V, 11 12.* The eruptions of the vesicles at the places of the choice of the itch, which are the very ones indicated by Suśruta, are actually the very important symptoms of the itch, but unlike the groove and the swell of the epiderm above the parasite not described by Suśruta and whose importance has been definitely established among us only in the 19th century, they are not pathognomonic. It is true that the *pāmā* and the *kacchū* sometimes appear to be mixed up. The Tibetan version of Vāgbhaṭa's *Aṣṭāngahṛdaya* (Nid., XIV, 9) renders *pāmā* as *gyan pa* which, according to Jaeschke (*Dict.*, see the word), denotes a skin-disease, hereditary and non-contageous, therefore, something else than the itch. But in the Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary of Tse-ring-oung-gyal (published by J. Bacot, Paris, 1930) *gyan pa* is rendered both as *pāmā* and as *kacchū* (variant of *kacchū*). The Tibetan version of Vāgbhaṭa, ib, *Cik.*, XIX, 84, again employs *gyan pa* for explaining *kacchū*, although the *Mahāvyutapatti* (Sakaki edn.) gives *pāmā*—*gyan pa* and *kacchū*—*khyi rṅo*, "itch of dog".

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² Because of semantic evolution the sense of linguistically related terms can differ from one language to another. The equivalent of Skt. *kacchū*, AV. *kasvī (s)* is found in the Koutchéen language in the form of *kasvo* but corresponds in sense not to the Sanskrit *kacchū* but to the Sanskrit *kuṣṭha*, denoting the totality of dermatoses including leprosy, cf., J. Filliozat, *Fragments de textes koutchéens de médecine et de magie*, Paris, 1948, see the word in the index.

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There is yet another contrast between the Avestan and Indian nomenclatures of skin-diseases. In effect, the Avestan druka has been identified with the Sanskrit dadruka.¹ In the two words—ka represents a suffix and dadruka is more usually found in the form of dadru. In Vedic neither dadru nor dadruka is found, but beginning from Suśruta, dadru is referred to in medical texts. This author describes it conjointly with the pauṇḍarīka: “The pauṇḍarīkas have the aspect of the leaves of blue lotus, the dermatose dadrus have the colour of the flower of flax or are of copper colour; they are serpiginous and pustulous. The traits common to both are the elevation, the circularity, the pruritus and the slow rate of evolution.² These indications do not allow to identify the diseases in question, these can be those of several different dermatoses.³

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¹ cf., W. Krogmann, Zeit. für vergl. sprach, Vol. LXV, 1938, p. 141.

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² puṇḍarīkapattraprakāśāni pauṇḍarīkāṇi|atosipuṣpavarṇāni tāmrāṇi vā visarpini piḍakāvanti ca dadrukuṣṭhāni|tayor dvayor apy utsannatā parimaṇḍalatā cirotthānātvam ceti sāmānyarūpāṇi (Nid., V, 5).

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³ This is, what is, actually indicated by the translation ‘ringworm’ (dartre), adopted by K.L. Bhiṣagratna in his version of the Suśruta and by the majority of authors, as the term does not possess a precise medical value. It follows therefore that the two ailments were considered as having extremely similar aspects and that they were willingly mixed up by the Tibetans. Sāyaṇa in his commentary on the Chāndogya Upan. gloses pāman by kharju, a relatively popular term, little used in the Sanskrit nosology and which includes the itch and all types of pruritus.

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One could think of a rapprochement between the Avestan azivāka (varient azavaka, of Vid., XX, 12, 18 & 23) and Vedic ajakāvā (RV., VII, 50, 1). But even if the equation was phonetically speaking, incontestable, it will remain uncertain. The sense of azivāka is unknown; only that it is a disease is clear. The sense of ajakāvā identified by Bergaigne⁴ with ajakā, the name of an eye-disease in classical Sanskrit, is problematical. It has been proposed to translate it as ‘scorpion’, though without much reason.

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⁴ Etude sur le lexique de R.V., see the word.

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It should therefore be admitted that there is no common nosological nomenclature pertaining to the Veda and the Avesta, except in so far as it concerns a few skin-diseases and this leads us to think that in the Indo-Iranian period there was no fixed nosology which the Aryans could have brought with them into India. The anatomical terms common to the Vedic and the Avestan are the names of the organs or of various parts of the body related to ordinary general knowledge.

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Therefore nothing proves the existence of an Indo-Iranian medicine, already fixed as the outline of a science. The therapeutics by means of magical imprecations itself, which is the only one whose examples are found in the Avesta, does not have any significant concordance with the ones which are known to us by an infinite number of the Vedic passages. The Avestan formulae are simple and have very little by way of characteristics. Parallels can be easily found for them in the Veda but, long ago, de Harlez has also been able to compare them with the ‘Accadian’ incantations.¹

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