The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.139

c7.s2.139

⁴ *vātasya sargo abhavat sárīmaṇi* (*RV*., III, 29, 11). Geldner has understood it as “Der Wind strom enstand, wenn er (the fire) sich in Lauf setzte” and if the current of the wind has been considered as being born at the moment when the fire was starting, that is because at that time the fire was a wind. If, in any case, it could be admitted (but this hypothesis can neither be confirmed nor denied) that here the word *sarga* has one of the senses current in the classical language, i.e., that of ‘creature’, the translation would be: “it became, at the time of shooting forth, the creature of the wind” and it would then be simply a reference to the fact that the wind sets ablaze the fire which starts. This sense will suit quite naturally because immediately before it is a question of the fire ready to set itself ablaze which, as is said in the text, “has developed within his mother” (and which in that case is Mātariśvan: *mātariśvā yád ánimita mātári*).