The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.150

c7.s2.150

In the *Videvdāt*, the reference to the wind is principally made as a natural element, designated under the name of *Vāta*. *Yima* asks *Ahura Mazda* that his kingdom be free from the hot and cold winds (II, 5). In III, 42, the Law which chases away sins is compared to the wind (*Vāta*) ‘of right’¹ which sweeps the atmosphere (*thwāsa*). The passages V, 3 to 7 envisage the case of the transport of a dead body by the wind and V, 12 & 13 refer to the wind which dries the earth. In V, 15 & 17, it is a case of the mythical wind but even then, identical to the atmospheric wind, which *Ahura Mazda* sends out with the waters of the *Vouru kasa* Sea. *Vāta* is nevertheless conceived in the same text as personified and doublet of *Vayu* because both of them are invoked one after the other, *Vayu* with his qualificative of *uparo kairya*, ‘having the superior action’, *Vāta* with those of heroic (*takhma*) and of ‘created by Mazda’ (*Mazdadāta*). At the time of their invocation are also invoked once again the supreme entities of Mazdaism (XIX, 13 & 16). Yet the *Videvdāt* knows also of an evil wind the demona, the wind (*Vāta*¹ *daeva*, X, 14) which it exorcises and it sees in Vayu mostly the spirit of death which carries the man fallen in water or in the fire (*Vid.*, V, 8 & 9).² On the contrary, a litany of the *Nyāyisn*, (I, 8) invokes the ‘Vāta, healthy and of good intentions’.³