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The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8: Chapter Three: The Data of the Vedic Samhitas on Pathology

The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8

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Contents

Chapter Three: The Data of the Vedic Samhitas on Pathology

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The Vedic literature contains, in all its parts, numerous references to the various parts of the body, to diseases and even to the functioning of the organism. In its oldest stratum, in the Saṃhitās, these references are fortuitous and they do not furnish us with enough data on the knowledge of the period. The Saṃhitās, being only the collections of hymns, of liturgical songs and of magical and ritual pieces, were in no way suited for descriptive accounts of the rudiments, which one could have acquired at that time, of anatomy, physiology and medicine. The references found in the most recent data of the Vedic literature in the essentially “brahmanic” stratum, that is in the Brāhmaṇas and in the Upaniṣads are more important for the contemporary state of science. There, often, the cosmo-physiological speculations are discussed in a way, which though not at all systematic, allows us at least to have an idea of the same. But the indications of the Saṃhitās, thanks to their antiquity, are also quite precious. Moreover, their comparison with more recent data allows us to observe either their agreement or their disagreement with the latter ones. It is, therefore, possible to distinguish between the notions which go back to the oldest texts and those which appear at a later date and to fix certain points of relative chronology in the formation of the medical science of India.

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There is quite an amount of temptation to stick on here. Yet, the difficult problem of the absolute chronology of the Vedic texts cannot be avoided here. The position of the scientific ideas of ancient India in relation to those of the anterior and neighbouring civilisations can be studied only if it is possible to bring these texts, if not to the dates, at least to the periods of general chronology. To decide, for example, if a certain Indian notion is anterior, contemporary or posterior to a corresponding Greek notion, it is evident that it is not sufficient to state with precision the stratum of Vedic literature from which it is found, but it is equally essential to know at least the approximate epoch to which it appertains.

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The existence of the Vedic literature is supposed by all other known literatures of India. Buddhism and Jainism, founded in the VIth century B. C., refer, in their ancient traditions, to the Brahmins and to their religion. It is certain that before their time, the essential part of the Brahmanic literature had been constituted and this had taken place a long time ago. Two concordant facts prove it. Firstly the language of these Brahmanic texts is not the language which had been in use during the centuries preceding the Christian era; it is much more archaic. Towards the end of IVth century B. C., at the time of the Expedition of Alexander and of the Seleucid Embassies to Central India, the current language was no longer the ancient Indian, the Sanskrit, it was already a form of middle-Indian; the forms of geographical names or of the names of men reproduced by the Greek sources, clearly establish this point. Moreover, in the totality of the Brahmanic literature, there are several successive strata of different ages as is shown by the evolution of terms or of the habitudes of style. Now this is the second fact which establishes the antiquity of the Brahmanic literature—the geographical horizon of the texts belonging to the oldest stratum is in the West of India whereas that of the linguistically more recent stratum, progressively extends itself towards the East. The authors of the oldest book, the Rgveda, belong to a circle of conquerors, the Aryas, fighting the indigenous people. The texts belonging to latter epochs thus lay out the stages of the conquest going from the West to the East, the conquest, which in the times of the Buddha and of Mahāvīra, had not only attained the East, but had also permeated the entire population for centuries, because the Sanskrit language, brought in at the time of the conquest and still used in the Brahmanic texts (which refer to it) had already transformed itself into middle-Indian.

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Efforts have been made to have an idea of the time which must have passed between the successive literary strata, in which the Vedic and the Brahmanical texts can be chronologically spread out. These are of the Rgveda, of the other Vedas, of the Brāhmaṇas, of the liturgical commentaries, of the Āraṇyakas, “books of the forest” for the use of sages who have retired into the jungle, of the Upaniṣads, speculative texts generally attached to the Brāhmaṇas and the Āraṇyakas, and lastly the Sūtras, manuals of ritual and religious legality, associated with other technical manuals on grammar, prosody and astronomy which together form the group of Vedāṅga or parts of the Veda. Long ago Max Müller had proposed to calculate in roughly two hundred years the duration of each of the earlier periods corresponding to the first stratum, the last one having taken a longer time and having been possibly elaborated (in part), even a long time after the beginning of Buddhism. Certain savants have thought that this period of two hundred years was too short, others as too long and Max Müller himself said that his choice was altogether arbitrary.¹ He put it forward not as probable, but simply as being reasonably adopted for fixing the ideas while waiting for better things. His calculations showed that the collection of the Ṛgveda was constituted sometime between 1200 and 1000 B. C.

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¹ Physical Religion, London, 1891, p. 96. For a bibliography of similar calculations and of various efforts at dating the Vedic texts, cf. L. Renou, Bibliographie védique, pp. 158 and ff.

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It is not possible to be content with such an hypothetical dating. That is why efforts have been made, as had been done much before Max Müller, to fix the absolute dates of the Vedic texts in the light of the astronomical indications contained therein. Unfortunately, neither the effort of Colebrooke, who started from an astronomical text, much later than the Ṛgveda, the Jyotiṣavedāṅga, nor those of H. Jacobi and of B. G. Tilak, based on the interpretation of certain data in the Ṛgveda and dating this text several thousand years before Christ, have been convincing. The interpretations of the proposed texts were not always convincing and even if they were certain, it was not possible to calculate therefrom sure dates of these texts. These latter can always reproduce the astronomical data which are not contemporary to them but which have been inherited by them from an ancient tradition. Their indications cannot be decisive without cross-checking.

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There is another means of dating these texts, which, without being infallible, have at least the advantage of being based on passably credible historical data, namely the data of the Purāṇas which have been neglected and often discredited. The Purāṇas contain long genealogical lists which have greatly deceived those who have utilised them. These lists deserve all the criticism that has been made of them. They are not of a very old date and are full of disagreements and incoherent statements which completely condemn them. But before rejecting them, one must remind oneself that it is these very lists which have furnished the key to Indian history. It is in the genealogical lists of the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, read in the translation made by Maridas Pullé of a Tamil version, that de guignes had recognised in 1771¹, under the name of Sandragutten (Candragupta), the Indian king Sandrokottos mentioned by the Greek and Latin historians as a contemporary of Seleukos. These very lists, once again, in agreement with the Simhalese chronicles, describe the succession of the Mauryas, revealing that Aśoka was the grandson of Candragupta and permit us to utilise for the general chronology of India (before the IInd century B. C.) the synchronism of Aśoka and the Greek king mentioned in the inscriptions of the former. Hence everything is not false in the Purāṇas. They furnish us the means to calculate the probable epoch of king Parīkṣit, legendary but only half so, whose praise is sung in the Atharvaveda (XX, 127) as of a living prince. One could, therefore, determine the probable period of the Atharvaveda.

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¹ Date of the composition of the memoir which has revealed this discovery and which has been read at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, in 1772 and published in 1778 in the Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres, Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 312-336. cf., H. H. Wilson, The Vishnu Purana, Vol. IV, London, 1868, pp. 230-31; F. E. Pargiter, The Purāṇa Text of the Dynasties of the Kali Age, Oxford, 1913, pp. 60 & 74. The various variants manifestly go back to a common origin.

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According to the Viṣṇupurāṇa (IV, XXIV, 32), 1015 years passed between the birth of Parīkṣita and the consecration of the Magadhan king, Nanda. The same period is calculated at 1115 years by the Bhāgavatapurāṇa (XII, 11, 26) and at 1050 years by the Vāyu-(XCIX, 415), the Matsya-and the Brahmāṇḍapurāṇas.² According to these texts, the dynasty founded by Nanda would have lasted a hundred years. Therefore, the Purāṇas, (leaving aside the somewhat aberrant data of the Bhāgavata) without agreeing on the exact figure, allow a period of eleven centuries between the birth of Parīkṣit and the end of the Nandas. Now this end of the Nandas dates from the time when Candragupta took over power in 313 B. C. It is, therefore, in the XVth century B. C., roughly towards 1400 B. C., that Parīkṣit of the Atharvaveda should be placed. A number of hymns of this Veda could be older still, as the hymn to Parīkṣit belongs to the most recent stratum of the collection.¹

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¹ Oldenberg had admitted that the hymn was contemporary to Parīkṣi (ZDMG, Vol. XLII, p. 238) but Bloomfield, after Roth, ha supposed that Parīkṣit could have been a purely legendary pseudo sovereign; cf., Vedic Index, under Parīkṣit.

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² Arrian, Inde, IX; Pliny, Nat. Hist., VI, XXI, 5 (Littré's Edn.). Plin gives 154 kings and 6451 years and 3 months instead of 6042 years. Soli follows Pliny.

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There are several facts to confirm the authenticity of the Puranic information on this point. First of all, the Purāṇas while calculating the time between Parīkṣit and Nanda, also fix the corresponding positions of the stars (Viṣ. p. IV, XXIV, 33). Now these astronomical positions suppose an impossible movement of the Great Bear around the Pole. They are merely arbitrary conceptions and at first view they seem to compromise the value of numerical data. But one must observe nevertheless that these astronomical observations, not being in any way the results of observation, could not have been traditional. They are the result of a clumsy effort at astronomically determining a given period of time. But this period of time has every chance of having been indicated by tradition and that of the Purāṇas can easily go back to an ancient period. The Purāṇas, in the form in which we have them, are quite late but several books of this name, which were most probably utilised as models, are already mentioned in ancient literature. Moreover, even in the epoch of Candragupta, the epoch which closes the period measured by the Purāṇas, Megasthenes has observed that the Indians possessed long geneologies of royal families which contained the names of 153 kings who ruled during 6042 years. Under such conditions, if it is remembered that the succession of the Magadhan kings, as given by the Purāṇas before and after Candragupta is confirmed by other sources and appears to be exact, it will not be showing oneself as too credulous as regards the Puranic tradition if we say that they have correct ideas on the succession of anterior kings.

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On the other hand the same tradition will have us believe that the grandson of Parīkṣit, Śatānīka had studied the Veda at the feet of Yājñavalkya¹, a sage who is unanimously considered to be the first master of the White Yajurveda. Now it is perfectly plausible that the various recensions of the Yajurveda should belong to a period neighbouring the epoch of the composing of the Atharvaveda.² On the contrary, the Brāhmaṇas, the Āraṇyakas and the Upaniṣads belong to more recent times as is proved both by the state of the language in which they are edited as also by the fact that they suppose as existing the same Vedic texts. Now the Bṛhadāraṇyaka-up., which belongs to the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa of the school of the White Yajurveda, accords a lot of importance to Yājñavalkya and asks him through an interlocutor as to what happened to the descendants of Parīkṣit, (III, 3, 1). This is quite a natural query if Yājñavalkya has been the preceptor of the grandson of Parīkṣit. It shows that the school of the White Yajurveda had a souvenir of the relations of its founder with the descendants of Parīkṣit.

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¹ Viṣṇu. p., IV, 21, 2; Bhāg. p., IX, XXII, 37.

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² The date of the Sāmaveda has not been discussed here; this text simply consists of the Ṛgveda passages, arranged in view of liturgical songs.

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It seems, therefore, quite well to situate the composition of the Atharvaveda and of the Yajurveda towards 1400 or a little afterwards³ and that of the hymns of the Ṛgveda, being older, towards at least 1500. The rest of the Vedic literature which is more recent, is to be necessarily dated in the centuries which follow, in part before Buddhism and Jainism, which suppose its existence and almost entirely before the IVth century B. C., the probable epoch of the grammarian Pāṇini. This latter writes in a language which particularly corresponds to that of the ancient Gṛhyasūtras¹, which constitute one of the last strata of the Vedic literature. We may consider that the Brāhmaṇas and the Upaniṣads, the books which contain the biggest share of the cosmo-physiological speculations studied by us and are chronologically placed between the Saṃhitās and the Sūtras, belong chiefly to the period between 1000 and 500 B. C.

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³ It need not be said that inside the Vedic schools, in the various “branches” (Śākhā), it has been possible to arrange, retouch, even enrich the texts a long time after their composition. If the hymn of praise to Parīkṣit of the Atharvaveda goes back, in all probability, to the time of Parīkṣit, it has been possible to put beside it other hymns which were comparatively recent. The scrupulous faith with which the texts have been passed on to our time does, in no case, favour the hypothesis of a long period of the re-editing of the texts. Once the concurrent Śākhās had been constituted, the texts had to be fixed definitely.

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¹ cf., L. Renou, *La Durghaṭavṛt*. Vol I, pt. 1., Paris, 1950, p.8.

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*The Medical Rôle of Divinities*:—Many of the Vedic divinities play, at least, occasionally, a medical rôle, in the sense that they dispense remedies or on the contrary, provoke diseases. This, of course, is not the place to record all that is available on the subject in the Saṃhitās as the divinities do not have much of an importance in classical medicine, whose formation we are studying.² Only it is necessary to remind ourselves of the chief traits of the divine and the demoniacal medicine of the Veda in order to measure all that Āyurveda has rejected therefrom and the little that it has kept in an extremely restricted field

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² The richest selection of passages of the Veda concerning the medical role of the gods is found in G. N. Mukhopādhyāya, *History of Indian Medicine*, Vol. I, Calcutta, 1923 (cf., *JA*, July-Dec., 1933, fasc. annexe, pp. 102 ff). The most typical of these passages had already been studied occasionally by Bergaigne in his *Rel. véd*. to which a reference can be made. The work of Mukhopādhyāya is interesting for having published the therapeutic formulae which in the medical texts are ascribed to the gods. Reference may be made to it once for all. See also Reinhold F. G. Muller, *Die Medizen im Rgveda* in *Asia Major*, Vol. VI, 1930. But this last follows the system of arbitrary interpretations of Hertel.

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In the first rank of the Vedic healers are the twins Aśvins³, the "ones provided with horses", who have been compared with Dioscuros and who are also known under the name of Nāsatyas. The hymn X, 39, 3b of Rgveda invokes them as follows: "You, O Nāsatyas, it is you who are called doctors of whosoever is blind, of whosoever is weak, of whosoever has had a fracture".⁴ It is the last expression which is their most typical characteristic as bhiṣaj, a word which ordinarily signifies doctor or healer but in the Rgveda denotes more precisely the “bone-setter” because the hymn IX, 112, 1 proclaims: “Yes, all that is diversified, that are our thoughts, those are the things to whom men dedicate themselves; the carpenter desires what is cut down (wood), the bhiṣaj that which is fractured, the priest that which flows (soma)....”¹ In them one has even desired to see the first orthopaedists of India as they have given a “leg of iron” to a certain Viśpalā, but she seems to be most probably a mare who had won a race,² the apparel of prosthesis seems to vanish in a metaphor. Moreover a leg made entirely of iron would not have been of much utility because of its weight; it is certain that the Indians of the Vedic epoch did not fabricate any such thing.

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³ On the legends concerning the Aśvins one may consult C. Renel, *L'évolution d'un mythe Aśvins et Dioscures*, in *Ann. de l'Univ. de Lyon*, Paris, 1936, but the author is imbued with the prejudices of the Vedic interpretation of Regnaud.

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⁴ ......*andhásya cin nāsatyā kṛśasya cid yuvām id āhur bhiṣájā rutásya cit*,

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¹ nānānām vā u no dhīyo ví vratāni jánānām/tákṣā riṣṭám rutám bhiṣág brahmā sunvántam ichati...

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² cf., R. Pischel, Vedische studien, 1, 89, Vol. I, pp. 171-3.

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In the Veda, the Aśvins are often the protectors or the rescuers of the blind, the decrepit and old and of persons fallen into a pit. The literature of the epics has also sometimes accorded them this speciality. The Mahābhārata (I, 715 ff.) narrates the history of Upamanyu who, having become blind for having eaten the plant “sun” (arka), falls into a pit and who is rescued by the Aśvins after he had invoked them in a hymn as in the Veda.³ In this Mahābhārata-passage (721) they are called the “doctors of the gods” (devabhiṣaj), a title which brings to mind that of “divine doctors” (daivyā bhiṣájā) given to them in the Ṛgveda, VIII, 18, 8, and which is repeated in the Yajurveda (VS, XXVII, 9, devānām bhiṣajā; Kāth., XXVII, 4; Maitr., IV, 6, 2). Caraka describes them exactly in the same manner as the Mahābhārata and gives the following justification for the expression: “It is said that the Aśvins are the doctors of the gods, the conveyors of the sacrifice.⁴ In fact they have replaced the severed head of Dakṣa, the broken teeth of Pūṣan and the lost eyes of Bhaga and it is they who have treated the paralysis of arm of the one who has the thunderbolt (Indra). They have treated the one who has the rabbit (the Moon) seized by the royal disease and thanks to them, the Moon of whom the *soma* (the element of virility) had fallen¹ has recovered his health. The son of Bhṛgu, Cyavana, an old lover, having become decrepit, was made lovely to look at and received, a lovely voice and became young once again. By these acts and many others they became the most eminent doctors of the Magnanimous ones such as Indra, etc., and to whom the utmost homage should be rendered. The men with two births prepare for them the libations of *soma*², the laudations, the formulae and all sorts of libations, the fumigations as also the beasts (to be sacrificed). In the morning, when the *soma* is pressed, Śakra partakes of the *soma* in the company of the Aśvins and on the occasion of the Sautrāmaṇi, the Blessed one (Indra) is happy in their company. It is Indra and Agni and the Aśvins who are mostly honoured by the twice-born; they honour them with the words of the Veda, differently than other divinities.”³

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³ On this hymn, L. Renou, L'hymne aux Aśvins de l'Ādiparvan, Eastern & Indian Studies in honour of F. W. Thomas.

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⁴ cf., RV., I, 15, 11, yajñavāhasaḥ. Cakradatta, in his commentary of Caraka glosses yajña-vāhau by yajñam vahata iti. They are the same words which are later on employed by Sāyaṇa for explaining the Vedic passage.

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¹ Variant pointed out by Cakradatta: *atipacita*, “too much cooked” but Cakradatta glosses: *tatrapy atipacanena somapānātiyogam darśayati*, “here by the expression ‘excessive cooking’, is shown the abusive use of *soma* as a drink”. The cooking in question is a case of digestion, cf., the following two notes.

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² But Cakradatta: *grahāḥ somapānapātrāṇi*, “cups for drinking the *soma*”.

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³ Caraka, Cik., I, 4, 40-47:

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*aśvinau devabhīṣajāv yajñavāhāv iti smṛtau|*
*dakṣasya hi śiraś cchinnam punas tābhyām samāhitam| 40*
*praśirṇā daśanāḥ pūṣṇo netre naṣṭe bhagasya ca|*
*vajriṇaś ca bhujastambhas tābhyām eva cikitsitaḥ| 41*
*cikitsitaḥ śaśī tābhyām gṛhito rājayakṣmaṇā|*
*somābhipatitaś candraḥ kṛtas tābhyām punaḥ sukhī| 42*
*bhārgavaś cyavanaḥ kāmī vṛddhaḥ san vikṛtim gataḥ|*
*vītavarṇasvaropetaḥ kṛtas tābhyām punar yuvā| 43*
*etaiś cānyaiś ca bahubhiḥ karmabhir bhiṣagottamau|*
*babhūvatur bhṛśam pūjyau indrādīnām mahātmanām | 44*
*grahāḥ stotrāṇi mantrāṇi tathā nānā havīṃṣi ca|*
*dhūmrāś ca paśavas tābhyām prakalpyante dvijātibhiḥ| 45*
*prātaś ca savane somam śakró ’śvibhyām sahāśnute|*
*Sautrāmaṇyām ca bhagavān aśvibhyām saha modate | 46*
*indrāgnī cāśvinau caiva stūyante prāyaśo dvijaiḥ|*
*stūyante vedavākyeṣu na tathānyā hi devā’ḥ| 47*

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As has been observed to me by Mr. Renou, it is necessary to read *cendraḥ* in the verse 42 and translate as follows: “and thanks to them, Indra, fallen ill because of *Soma*...” although the various editions do not give this reading. Similarly *atipacita* should be replaced by *atipavita* in the variant remarked in the note 4. In fact, the MSS. of the Bibl. Nat., *Sanscrt.* 1304 (collection by Cordier of a Kashmirian MS.) reads: *somātipavitaś cenduḥ*, the original reading of the last word must be clearly *cendraḥ*. *atipavita* responds to the Vedic expression *Somātipūta* applied to Indra meaning “excessively purified by the *soma*”, “having received too many libations of *soma*.” It is all the more normal that Caraka refers to the episode of the healing of the drunken Indra, when in the ancient ritual there is a form of *sautrāmaṇī* which has the name of Caraka.

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This beautiful tribute shows that, for Caraka, the Aśvins are the gods of another age and this was also the feeling of the editor of the legend of Upamanyu in the *Mahābhārata*, because he thought that they must be addressed in the antique style, whereas everywhere else, the hymns which dot the epic, are in classical Sanskrit. On his side, Suśruta describes the legend of the head of the sacrifice cut by Rudra and replaced by the Aśvins (*Sūtra*, 1, 14). We should, however, note that all the mythical facts thus mentioned in the classical medical texts are not already found in the *Ṛgveda*. The legend of Cyavana (Cyavāna in the *Ṛgveda*) is here implied, but it is evident and it was quite natural that the medical texts have received the legends concerning the Aśvins from other mythological sources, which can be placed between the *Ṛgveda* and them. The references of Caraka relate chiefly to the epic form of these legends, although the origin of the epic form sometimes goes back to the *Black Yajurveda* as is, for example, the case with the disease of Soma which we will discuss later and also with the replacement of the severed head of the sacrifice (*Taitt. S*, VI, 4,9; *Kāṭh.*, XXVII, 4; *Maitr.*, IV, 6, 2).

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The mythological reputation of the Aśvins as the doctors of the gods has quite naturally designated them for fulfilling, as we have already seen, a rôle in the teaching of medicine to human beings, a science reputed to be of divine origin. This reputation was also the cause, especially from the epoch of the *Carakasamhitā*, of ascribing to them the revelation of various formulae, and still later, even of the composition of several works. Indra, to whom they are said to have taught medicine, is, on his side, reputed to be the author of various medicinal preparations. We have seen that, in the Indian tradition, he is included in the group of divine instructors and it is because of his relations with the Aśvins that he is specially regarded as a master of medicine, because by himself he does not have the reputation of a healer comparable to that of the Aśvins. Actually it cannot be said that in the Veda he is a doctor-god. Only in some of the passages (Bergaigne, II, p. 495) is he presented as a rescuer like the Aśvins and often he is asosciated with them, they being called Nāsatyas on such occasions. By chance we even know that this association existed at a very early date even outside India. The well-known treaty between the king of the Mitanni and Subiluliuma, the king of the Hittites (dated in approximately 1380 B. C.) enumerates in a list of divinities “the gods Mitras, the gods Uruwana, the god Indara and the gods Nasattiyas”, that is to say, Mitra and Varuṇa, Indra and the Nāsatyas.¹

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¹ cf. among others, G. Furlani, *La religione degli Hittiti*, Bologne, 1936, p. 50. Lastly, Dumézil, *Naissances d’archanges*, Paris, 1945, p. 20. The plural number represents most probably the forms of dual numbers missing for the proper names in the language of the treaty. They are similar to the Avestan and Vedic ones which apply to two names constituting a couple. cf. Dumézil, op cit., p. 21.

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By the side of the Aśvins and of Indra, the basically favourable gods, there is another whose character, as depicted in the Veda, is equivocal and which will remain the same in the Ayurveda : he is the powerful and terrible Rudra. He can come to the rescue but he is always ready to fly into a rage; “May we not make you furious, Rudra, by the adorations, or by a song of maleficent tribute, O Bull, neither by means of a concomitant invocation. Make our sons grow by means of remedies; I hear that you are the best among the doctors.²

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² *mā tvā rudra cukrudhāmā nāmobhir mā duṣṭutī vṛṣabha mā sáhūtī | ún no vīramarpaya bheṣajébhir bhiṣáktamam tvā bhiṣájām śṛṇomi |* RV., II, 33,4.

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This is one of those characteristics of Rudra which has developed most in the classical legends of Rudra-Śiva. The entire classical Sanskrit literature employs *krodha*, derived from the root *krudh*—(which figures in the Vedic passage just cited), to denote the state of frenzy of Śiva in his form of the destroyer. This is the normal state of Rudra; it is not, therefore, necessary to suppose along with Sāyaṇa that the adorations and other acts of cult described here are the incorrect forms of these acts of cult. All incitation, good or bad, can unleash Rudra. The Vedic invocation fortifying the magical power of the god to whom it is addressed, must be used with precaution when the god is as formidable as Rudra. But in his beneficent aspect, Rudra is, at other times, also celebrated as a doctor, notably in the *Yajurveda*, where he is the “first divine doctor” (*prathamo daivyo bhiṣak*, Taitt. S., IV, 5, 1, 2; Vāj. S., XVI, 5).

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Rudra’s sons, the Rudras, Rudriyas or the Maruts, have the same characteristics as he. On the one hand they are the gods of remedies while on the other they are terrible inasmuch as in their naturalistic aspect they represent the fury of the storms. To their friendly forms are juxtaposed their maleficent forms (Berg., II, 401). Moreover, the author of the evil is the one who can cure it most easily as he is its master. Rudra himself heals the evils which he creates (Berg., III, p. 33) and the *Atharvaveda* at the end of a hymn consecrating an amulet against disease formally declares that: “One who has done, may he undo, it is he who is the chief among doctors; that he may therefore prepare for you the remedies through the intermediary of the human doctor; he the pure”.¹

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¹ *yaś cakāra sá niṣ karat sá evá súbhiṣaktamaḥ/ sá evá túbhyam bheṣajáni kṛṇávad bhiṣájā śúciḥ/ | AV., 11, 9,5.*

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*Varuna, Sin and Disease*:—Among the divinities having a medical rôle, Varuna is also worthy of being referred to. It is not so much for the rôle itself, which is small but because of his relations with an entity whose concept is a rudiment of the scientific notion, *rta*.

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The *rta* is the regular order in general, being the moral rectitude, the ritual exactitude and the true law of the universe; in one word, it is the “Norm”. Varuna is the Lord and the guardian of this “Norm”. The concept of *rta* goes back to the Indo-Iranian period (see *supra*, p. 67); to the Vedic *rta* correspond exactly the Avestan *asa* and the Old-Persian *rta*. He has for basis the sentiment that all things are harmoniously regulated and are not left to chance in this universe. The fixity of the stellar figures, the periodical return of the mobile stars to similar positions, the evident verification of all the principal and regular phenomena of nature have, from a very early date, imposed this notion. Among the peoples inclined to explain the organism by the cosmos and the cosmos by the organism, this notion must have quickly extended itself from the sky to the earth, from the world to the living being. Although victim of innumerable accidents, the existence of this last one could not be conceived as being outside the orbit of the great cosmic law, as the same body was a little cosmos. If this is not, properly speaking, a scientific concept of natural law, it is at least an idea quite near the same. The scope of this idea is absolutely general because there is nothing which is not governed by *rta*, including the moral behaviour of man. Sometimes the Indian and the Iranian minds are blamed for having thus mixed up the physical and the moral but it should also be recognised that this very mind has also raised above them a sufficiently large concept for covering both of them.

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Oldenberg has carefully studied the *ṛta* and has very well observed that the origin of this concept lay in the spectacle of the regular movements of the sky, but he has not recognised that the generality of its application automatically brought in its extension to morals. In the simultaneous relationship of *ṛta* with the astronomical phenomena and moral behaviour he has only seen the double trace of an Indo-Iranian borrowing from the Semitics. Maintaining that Mitra, the habitual associate of Varuṇa, was the Sun and that Varuṇa was the Moon, he has supposed that the group of seven Ādityas, which is the culminating point of the two associates, was originally that of the Sun, the Moon and the five planets. Not finding among other Indo-European people the equivalent of a similar group, observing that the Indo-Iranians had another solar god and another lunar god and finding that they did not evince much interest for the planets, he thought that the group of Ādityas was by its origin a stranger to the Indo-Iranian mythology. He has supposed it to have been borrowed from the peoples who were more advanced in astronomy, that is, the Semitics. In the relationship of *ṛta* with the moral idea, he has seen a confirmation of his thesis because, he says, the Semitics seem to have raised themselves to a more mature concept of moral life earlier than the Indo-Europeans.¹ Such a building up of hypotheses without documentary support is astonishing when it comes from such a philologist as Oldenberg. Of course, it is plausible and one could look for new arguments to support it. One could observe, for example, that the name of Āditya signifying "son of Aditi", of the "Absence of link", would have fitted with the mobile heavenly bodies such as the planets (from the Indian point of view the Sun and the Moon are planets) in opposition to the stars, heavenly bodies which seem to be permanently linked among themselves. But this only seems to reinforce the first hypothesis, which identifies the Ādityas with the planets, without rendering others less gratuitous, and all that one can learn of the Indo-European pre-history of Varuṇa by confrontation with Ouranos¹ is not favourable to the suppositions of Oldenberg. The essential characteristic of this god is that of being king and not Moon. In India, the god-Moon is a king surrounded by a group of constellations but Varuṇa is king in a larger sense and right from Indo-European pre-history itself; one cannot support its purely astral origin.

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¹ *La religion du Veda*, French trans. by V. Henry, Paris, 1903, pp. 162-163.

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¹ Oldenberg did not accept the equation Varuṇa—Ouranos, as correct.

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It was natural that the universal order, the notion whereof had been suggested by the regularity of cosmic phenomena, had been placed under the charge of a universal god-king and it is probably as his substitute that the Moon-god, Coryphaeus of the celestial procession, had received royal authority on this part of the domain of ṛta and royal authority in general therefrom. But these kings, Varuṇa in any case, are not capricious despots, Varuṇa makes the Norm prevail, he does not change it, either because he lacks the power to do so or because he does not have the desire for the same. Ṛta therefore, definitely appears as a quasi-scientific concept of celestial regularity, a concept extended to all the terrestrial and spiritual objects, which has been transformed into that of the universal Norm and has been influenced by the social representation of the monarchical organisation.²

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² In a rectoral discourse published by M. Alsdorf after his death (die magische Kraft der Wahrheit im alten Indien, in ZDMG, 1944, pp. 1-14), Lüders has tried to give a new interpretation to the sense of ṛta. He maintains that in the post-Vedic epoch, when the word tends to disappear, it denotes "verity" and that this sense and this alone was the one which prevailed in the Veda. Its antonym anṛta would have always signified falsehood. The importance given to ṛta would come from the belief in the magical power of truth. This thesis appears to be unacceptable. Of course, truth has an eminent magical power in the Vedic ideas and the translation of ṛta by verity is satisfactory for the large part of the context. But this is due to the fact that the universal Norm is generally true, authentic. Otherwise it would not be the Norm in nature. If it were to happen that the moon were to rotate in the wrong direction, it will follow anṛta, it will make the Norm false, but as long as it does not happen, the Norm remains what it is and retains its permanent verity. The Norm is, therefore, precisely verity, but verity itself borrows its magic force from the Norm because all that is true fits in with it and works by its power. Darmesteter (Ormazd et Ahriman, p. 17), had well seen that the Vedic ṛta and the Avestan asa are simultaneously order and truth. Beside the opinion that in classical Sanskrit ṛta means only "verity" is not exact. This is the opinion of Indian lexicographers, because in the classical language, the sense has

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In such like ideas disease is a phenomenon which does wrong to *rta*. In relation to the normal order disease is a disorder, and, as in the then current magical concept like brings in like, disease is linked with other disorders such as sin. Sin in its turn is a transgression of *rta* and it makes little difference whether this transgression is committed deliberately or by chance. Voluntary or not, the anamoly of behaviour or of thought brings in that of the organism. This does not mean that no importance is attached to intention; it aggravates the fault as it adds the anomaly of desire to physical or ritual disorder. But the responsibility is automatic, it is not effected by the purity of intention; hazard brings in baneful consequences just as effectively as they are brought in by pre-meditated perverse action. This concept has remained effective in the whole of classical India. The Epic and Puranic legends are full of stories where an accidental shortcoming is punished as a crime and the Jaina ascetics take extremely detailed precautions to avoid the unconscious destruction of minute beings which they do not all see and thus save themselves from the fatal consequences of unsuspected deaths. In the texts of the classical period, *dharma* substitutes *rta* but that is merely a change of vocabulary, *dharma* like *rta* is the universal normal order and starting from the *Rgveda* itself, the *dharman* of *Varuna* is several times mentioned in place of *rta*.¹

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¹ Similarly also the *dhāman*, the "law" of *Varuna*. In classical Sanskrit *dharma* has, by the passage of the consonantic stem *dharman*—to the stem in—a, finally prevailed.

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Although the concept of Norm has guided Indian thought and even Indo-Iranian thought from early times towards an outline of the scientific interpretation of the word regulated by an immutable law rather than by the caprices of divine personalities, scientific medicine of the classical period has not preserved the old simplistic assimilation made by the Veda of the disorders of health with the ritual, moral or other disorders.

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specialised itself in that of verity or justice, but *rtena* is sometimes used in late rituals as an equivalent of *vidhinā*, "according to rules". Moreover, in the Veda, the word alternates with *dharman* which has specialised itself in the sense of "order". Lastly, it is not at all possible to separate *rta* from *rtu* which denotes assuredly real phenomena but chiefly regular ones: the seasons and the menses. Besides if verity was the force which moves the word, it would be nothing but its Law or its Norm.

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This medicine was too attentive to the multiple causes of various disorders, causes observed by it directly or inferred from observations and according to its theories. But under the stress of beliefs prevalent among the non-medical circles, it has admitted, at a sufficiently late hour, the automatic influence of pernicious acts, especially when they are voluntary; because in this case they have a more serious effect on the creation of diseases.¹

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¹ This then concerns chiefly acts done in an earlier life. cf., *Un chapitre de la Hāritasamhita sur la rétribution des actes*, in *JA.*, July-Sept., 1934, pp. 125-39.

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If in the Veda the responsibility of acts or of intentions, not in conformity with the Norm of the world, is automatic, the application of consequences is often effected by Varuṇa, the guardian of this Norm. Varuṇa "ties" the sinner to his "ties". The oldest hymns do not explicitly state the effect produced by them but the Atharvaveda drops a hint and the Brahmanical texts declare formally that the sinner tied down by Varuṇa is attacked by dropsy.² This is in accordance with the fact that Varuṇa who, in the classical literature, will become the god of the waters or of the oceans or will be reduced to this secondary rôle, is already in the Rgveda frequently in relation with the waters.³

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² For example, *AV.*, IV, 16, 7; *Ait. brah.*, VII, 15 (the texts employ "seizes" in place of "ties": *atha haikṣvākam varuṇo jagrāha, tasya hodaram jajñe*..., seized the descendant of Ikṣvāku and to this descendant was born a stomach...").

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³ cf., Berg.. III, pp. 122 & ff and chiefly, the hymn, *RV.*, V, 63.

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Dropsy is a special disease, a special punishment of Varuṇa, but all sorts of other diseases spring from the infringement of the ṛta of any one of the natures. This is proved by the fact that Varuṇa, Lord of the Norm is, because of this link, the opponent of all diseases. He is invoked as the "guardian of the liquid of immortality"⁴ and he is told: "A hundred, a thousand remedies do you have, O king. Great, profound be your benevolence. Remove far off perdition, far far off. All sins committed, remove them from us."⁵ The number of remedies ascribed to him has little importance because the formula which mentions them is a stock phrase applicable to other gods. But their very mention indicates that in his invocation the poet thinks of the disease and of the return of health when he demands the removal of “Perdition” and of sin. Now the “Perdition”, *Nirṛti* has a name, which, by means of a sort of word-play, evokes the negation (preposition *niḥ*) of *ṛta*; it is also in some way “Anomaly” in general, which implies that all the diseases and sins depend on it.

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⁴ *RV.*, VIII, 42, 2: *amṛtasya gopām*...

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⁵ *śatám te rājan bhiṣájaḥ sahásram urvī gabhīrā sumatíṣ te astu| bādhasva dūré nírṛtim parācaíḥ kṛtám cid énaḥ prá mumugdhy asmāi* *RV.*, 1, 24, 9.

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Besides, the disease denoted by the most general terms like *ámīvā* and *yákṣma*, is formally put in relation with the sin. The *Atharvaveda*, taking up the hemistitches of the *Ṛgveda*, groups them in two verses, which illustrates very well the close relationship between physical trouble and sin, ritual or moral shortcoming, intentional or involuntary: “O Soma and Rudra, chase out the one who spreads herself everywhere, the disease (*ámīvā*) has penetrated into our house. Remove far away the “Perdition”, far far away. All sins committed, remove them from us. Soma and Rudra, you, in us, in our bodies, deposit all the remedies. Untie, remove from us, whichever it might have been, the sin committed (by us) and attached to our bodies.”¹ Elsewhere, he has said that the medicinal plants chase, from each limb of the body, the “evil of sin”, that is to say, coming from sin or attached to it (*yákṣmam enasyám*).² Similarly all sorts of anomalies which engender physical troubles are rather associated with sin or *Nirṛti*. The *grāhi* which, we have already seen, taking hold of the man, on whom *Tṛta* has wiped off the sin of gods (*supra*, p. 43), is the type of seizing demons who can possess human beings. Among these are the *rákṣas* to whom are applied such epithets as “devourers” (*astrin*), who particularly cause miscarriages and whose co-relation with the *grāhi* is attested by the fact that the *Atharva-* veda asks for the delivery of a man simultaneously from the one and the other (II, 9, 1). These rákṣas are themselves, in co-relation with the sorcerer-demons, the yātudhānas (cf., supra, p. 46). The nightmare (duśvápnya) is also, along with Nirṛti and the rákṣas, a cause of disorders because it is said: “that the stone for pressing (the soma), by talking may push back the rákṣas, the nightmare, Nirṛti, all that devours. . .”¹ Lastly, bad luck, materialised in the form of the black-bird, of bad omen, śakuna or śakuni, brings down, in association with Nirṛti, the sin on the human being or “wipes” it on him with the mouth of Nirṛti (AV., VII, 64, 1-2). All the causes of disorders are, therefore, related or allied; they belong to the domain of the sin, to the violation of the Norm and they affect, for most of the time, the healthy being like an impurity wiped off on him. That is why efforts are often made to treat them by the ritual of wiping off or of effacement as also by means of prayers.

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¹ *AV.*, VII, 42, 1-2: *sómārudrā ví vṛhatam viṣūcīm ámīvā* *yā no gāyam ávivéśa|* *bādheihām dūrám nírṛtim parācaíḥ kṛtám cid énaḥ prá mumuktam* *asmát | | 1 | |* *sómārudrā yuvám etāny asmád víśvā tanūṣu bheṣajāni dhattam|* *ava syatam muñcátam yán no ásat tanūṣu baddhám kṛtám éno* *asmát | | 2 | |*

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² *AV.*, VIII, 7, 3. The preceding verse invokes the plants against the “evil sent by the gods”...*yákṣmād devéṣitād*...It is precisely the disorder of sin because such an evil has passed from the gods to human beings by the intermediary of *Tṛta* (cf., *supra*, p. 36).

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¹ grāvā vádann ápa rákṣāṃsi sedhatu duśvápnyam nírṛtim víśvam atríṇam... (RV., X, 36, 4).

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These ideas have survived in classical medicine but not in the focal points of its doctrines. They have been preserved mainly in the common beliefs and have been introduced in the medical texts by the pressure of the latter without being integrated in their systems of more scientific explanations. The seizing demons, the grahas, the heirs of the grāhi attack specially children, just as the rakṣas attack the embryos, and, among other demons, certain śakunis are said to provoke diseases, studied by classical medicine in special chapters, separately and in addition to ordinary diseases about which it has to learn.² The she-demon related to the grahas and who are given the auspicious name of “mothers”, the mātṛkās, play, in the same texts of the classical medicine, a rôle of the first order. They are also attached though this time indirectly to Vedic souvenirs because they form a part of the pan-demonium grouped around Śiva who, undoubtedly of the extra-Vedic origin, already appears in the hymns in the forms, already seen by us, of Rudra.³ In any case, whereas classical medicine had to embark upon the path of the detailed explanation of morbid causes, in the eopch of the Vedic texts, it was thought to be enough if a relationship could be established between the pathological phenomena and all that appeared to be contrary to the Norm of the world if its origin could be ascribed to shortcoming and to fault, so that they could be fitted back in a general and familiar determinism.

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² cf., Le Kumāratantra de Rāvaṇa, pp. 62 ff., 177-8, On Śakuni, see the index of this book.

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³ ibid., cf., Index, see the words Śiva, Rudra, Skanda.

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Various Diseases: As our religious texts do not furnish us with systematic descriptions of the morbid states, the identification of these states is quite often uncertain and generally vague. The references made therein are, in any case, frequently sufficient to enable us to have an idea of the majority of the ailments mentioned therein. Moreover, every time we come across the name of a disease common to the Veda and to the manuals of classical medicine, we can try to apply the classical sense of this name to that passage of the Veda containing it; if this sense fits in well with the context and mainly with various contexts where that name comes in many a time, we have the right to admit that probably that sense is exact. This is the method which was used by Bergaigne for the determination of the sense of the Vedic words.¹ It is true that here it could be objected that the sense of the name of a disease is not at all comparable to a commonplace term. Scientific nosology keeps old terms for an indefinite period of time, but being in progress all the time and subject to ceaseless modifications, it frequently changes the concepts covered by these terms. Various words like “leprosy” or “asthma” have no relation whatsoever with *lepra* or *asthma* [of the Greek language] and it will be false to use them today in the translation of a Greek text without pointing out that they are meant in a sense altogether different than in the actual usage.

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Similarly, when a term of the Veda, is also found in the *Āyurveda*, one cannot be sure, *a priori* that it possessed the same sense in the Veda as it had in the *Ayurvedic* texts. Here it may be pointed out that the possibilities of the evolution of senses should not be exaggerated. *Lepra* [in Greek] denoted all sorts of non-classified cutaneous ailments, whereas leprosy today is an individualised disease, defined by a certain group of symptoms and it is bacteriologically characterised. Similarly *Asthma* denoted all sorts of breathlessness whereas asthma today is a dyspnoea of the expiratory type coming on by fits and characterised by the cytological formula of expectoration. But asthma and leprosy still remain the ailments whose essential manifestations are respectively respiratory and cutaneous. If, therefore, in ignorance of the exact sense which the Greeks gave to the word *lepra*, the sense of "leprosy" as known to the modern doctors, were given to it, one would be ascribing to the Greeks an exact knowledge which they did not at all possess. But if one were to be content with the supposition that among the Greeks *lepra* signified a serious cutaneous disease, that will be quite exact.

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One could undoubtedly find examples of more complete changes of sense than those which have come in the case of *lepra* and "leprosy" and *asthma* and "asthma", but it will be difficult to find any which be such that nothing common exists any longer between the old and the modern connotation. Under such conditions, when a disease known to classical texts is found as mentioned in the Veda, if we do not have the right to believe that the Vedic authors knew it as it is taught by the Ayurvedic practitioners, we have, at least, the right of admitting that in the Veda also it is a disease of the same type as in the *Āyurveda*. Moreover the changes of sense between the Vedic period and the classical period could not have been as considerable as they have been between the Hellenic epoch and the modern period where medicine has profoundly renovated, thanks to modern discoveries, the significance of the old terminology preserved by it. Moreover, the terms common to the Veda and to the *Āyurveda* denote chiefly the states without specificity such as cachexy or isolated symptoms such as the lancinating pain. These states and these symptoms belong more to the domain of common experience than to that of medical diagnosis; their names are therefore more of commonplace expressions than technical terms whose significance would be subject to conventional changes.

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¹ *Etudes sur le lexique du Rg-veda*, Paris, 1884, p. III.

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One of the most important names of diseases in the Veda is *yákṣma* which we have already met with. This word appears not only in isolation but also in compound words such as *rājayakṣmá*, "royal disease", and *ajñātayakṣmá*, "unknown disease". These two compound words are found together in RV., X, 161, 1: “I deliver you by means of oblation so that you may live, from the unknown disease and from the royal disease...”¹ Yákṣma is used in the plural in RV., X, 85, 2, 31; AV., IX, 8, 10, where the “poison of all the yákṣmas” is exorcised. The White Yajurveda counts a hundred yákṣmas (XII, 97) and it is clear that often it is a case of disease or diseases in a general sense.

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¹ muñcāmi tvā haviṣā jīvanaya kám ajñātayakṣamād utá rājayakṣmāt|| See also AV., III, 11, 1.

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