The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.121

c8.121

V. Henry has also conjectured and at the same time Bloomfield too, that jāyānya, because of its derivation from the root jan, “to beget”, or of a theme like jāyā, “wife”, could designate a congenital disease, or better still, a venereal disease⁴, and both of them have identified it definitely as syphilis. Bloomfield has brought in favour of this identification, an argument which is more pleasing than solid. The *Kauśikasūtra* (32, 11-13), in the ritual indicated by it against *jāyānya* prescribes the attachment (to the patient) of an amulet tied with a cord of the lute (more exactly of *vīṇā*) and where also enters another organ of the same musical instrument as a component. From this Bloomfield supposes that the pieces of *vīṇā* are the substitutes of "nautch-girls" which must have produced the disease and that the charm is a homeopathic one.¹ To suppose that the Atharvanic sorcerers were capable of recognising a relation of cause and effect between the frequentation of prostitutes and the appearance of the abscesses affecting the bones or of ulcers, is to credit too highly their spirit of observation and their clinical sense. Even today, laboratory tests are not sufficient for proving the etiological relations of this type. As regards the idea that *jāyānya* can designate a congenital disease, it is not very probable, there being nothing to allow us to believe that the *jāyānya* in the *Atharvaveda* can be considered as appearing from birth and how could one then believe it to be congenital when it did not appear from that very moment?