The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.22

c7.s2.22

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.