The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.116

c7.s2.116

The Association of the Fire and the Waters:—Not only are the general ideas concerning the cosmic and physiological functions of the waters and of the fire, common to ancient India and ancient Iran, the Veda and the Avesta share certain more special concepts such as that of the association of the fire with the waters. This association is mythically manifested in the name of a personage whose name is found in the two texts in the form of Apām Nápāt, ‘grandson (or descendant) of the waters’, in the Veda¹ and under that of Apam Napāt in the Avesta. Originally it was certainly the fire of the clouds which shows itself in lightning and falls on earth in the form of the thunderbolt with the rain; the same also enters the plants with the waters that they absorb and which reappears in the combustion of wood ignited by means of friction.² In the Veda, as fire, as Agni, it is essentially made, in contrast with the waters of the females, in whom he engenders an embryo (*RV.*, II, 35, 13), although he is himself their son or their embryo. Husband or son of the waters, he is also their father, because Agni, whom he represents, has engendered the waters (*RV.*, I, 96, 2). In the Avesta, similar comparisons of the relations of natural elements with family relationships are not found, but Apām Napāt is also the male spirit of the waters and he distributes them (*Yast.*, VIII, 33). The two texts ascribe him detailed traits which are almost identical. In the Veda, ‘he has engendered all the beings’ (*viśvāny...bhuvanā*, *RV.*, II, 35, 2) and he is described as ‘pushing forward the rapid ones [horses]’ (*āśuheman*, *RV.*, II, 31, 6; 35, 1; VII, 47, 2).¹ In the Avesta, he has formed human beings (*Yast.*, XIX, 53) and is said to be *aurvat-aspa*, ‘having rapid horses’ (*Yasna*, VI, 4; LXIV, 6; *Yast.*, II, 9; XIX, 52, 53). Moreover because of the jumbling together, in the Veda, of the myths of Agni with whom he is mixed up, of Soma, who also often shows himself as a liquid fire² and of the waters linked up both with Agni and Soma, Apām Napāt is placed in relation with the storm clouds, celestial mountains. At least Agni, merely in its aquatic form, is called ‘son of the mountain’ (*adreḥ sūnuḥ*, *RV.*, X, 20,7), whereas Soma is both the mountain-plant and celestial liquid ‘milked from the mountain’³, that-is-to-say in the celestial mountain, in the clouds. On his side, the Apam Napāt of the Avesta is described as the ‘eminent master’ (*ahura bərazat*) and this designation is found