The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.53

c7.s2.53

The Avestan yātus are the demon-sorcerers, indeed human sorcerers (Yast, II. 11 and VIII. 44). Similarly in the Ṛg-veda, yātu denotes sometimes sorcery, sometimes the demon-sorcerer. The latter one is specially the yātudhāna ("one who carries [in himself] sorcery" and the man can be yātudhāna) because the singer of Ṛg-veda (VII. 104) utters imprecations against one who calls him yātudhāna.¹ The pairikās and the jainis are the female demons who do not have their counterparts in the Veda unless it be that these two names are related to that of the evil jāyānya or Jāyenya (cf., infra), but this cannot be admitted as valid.¹ The drugs are the demons of “untruth”,² ordinarily female ones and have for counterparts the Vedic drunhs (cf., infra). But here only the corresponding general concept is Indo-Iranian as the various drugs known in the Avesta, are not found in the Veda. In the Avesta, Jahi is the drug of luxury; she is mentioned beside a list of diseases (Vid., XXI, 17), but she is in this neighbourhood only because of her evil character and not necessarily as a morbid cause. The same holds for daevi and other impure beings mentioned with her.