The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.181

c7.s2.181

The fact that Vayu appears in the *Rām Yast* as superior to Ahura Mazda seems to support strongly the hypothesis of the existence of vayism as an autonomous religion.¹ One can, however, observe that it is not rare that Ahura Mazda appears in the Avesta below the supreme rank without the necessity of seeing in it each time the traces of the influence of a competing religion. In the *fargard* XXII of the *Videvdāt*, he asks for help against Aṅra Mainyu, from Mathra Spənta and mostly from Airyaman, just as in the *Rām Yaśt*, he honours Vayu by asking him to vanquish the demon. In the Yasts, Ahura Mazda has sacrificed to Ardvī sūrā Anāhitā to ask from him the favour of attaching himself to Zoroaster (V, 17-19) and he honours Tistrya (VIII, 25). These cases can be compared to that of *Rām Yast* and if one can invoke the well-attested existence of a special religion of Ardvī sūrā Anāhitā (120), one cannot do the same in the case of Mathra Spənta, of Airyaman, or of Tistrya. The case of the last-named one allows us to understand that basically the homage of Ahura Mazda to any entity does not necessarily place him below the latter. In fact in the *Yast*, VIII, Ahura Mazda says not only: “Myself who is Ahura Mazda, I honour by the expressed name Tistrya, the splendid, the brilliant”² (25) but also that he has made him as his equal to enable him to struggle against a *pairikā* (50 & ff). Ahura Mazda, therefore, does not go down in esteem when he honours one of his creatures, because by honouring him he does not accomplish an act of humble piety, but a rite whose efficacy is taught by him, this efficacy being necessary provided that that rite be in conformity with the Order (56). It should not be forgotten that we are dealing here not with Christianity but with a cult where the officiating person who honours the god by his name, does not perform an act of devotion but only magically sets in motion the action of the god. It is, therefore, possible that in the Rām Yast, Vayu may not be really superior to Ahura Mazda and it is not indispensable to believe that the veneration of Vayu has been frequent and exclusive for constituting a veritable religion of the wind. Moreover, it is a rule of the Yasts that they exalt without limits the entities to which they are dedicated and place them turn by turn above all. This is how is found in them an echo of the henotheism of the Vedic hymns. In that case, it appears to be possible to admit that the eminent rôle ascribed to the wind in the Rām Yast, as also in other parts of the Avesta, comes from the survival and the evolution in Mazdaism of the ancient and the naturalistic Indo-Iranian ideas on the wind. It is not necessary to represent to oneself, the formation of the Yast as the result of a syncretism of Mazdaism and of vayism. The hypothesis of survivals explains the concordances noted between the Avestan and the Vedic data. The hypothesis of vayism could equally explain them if it was to be admitted that this religion has precisely preserved the Indo-Iranian notions, but it introduces a superfluous deviation and brings in the risk of finally exaggerating the importance of speculations on the wind in Iranian thought.