The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.124

c8.124

The Profoundly Morbid Impregnations:—Another ailment or category of ailments is often taken to be not only congenital but even hereditary. The disease called, *ksetriyá*, "belonging to a field", is conceived by the Vedic commentators as hereditary or passing in the family, sometimes having been contracted during the period of embryo.² The hymns of the *Atharvaveda* where the *ksetriyá* is exorcised (II, 8 & 10; III, 7) do not enable us to know its symptoms, but consider it as a bond (*pāśa*) of which two stars, the "unfastenings" (*vicṛt*) can deliver and they associate it with Nirṛti and with the bond of Varuṇa. In classical medicine the term does not seem to have been employed, but in a comparison, the matrix is represented by the "field", *ksetra* (Suśr., Śār., II-33). It is, therefore, conceivable that the commentators have been able to think that *ksetriya* was a disease arising in the foetus or, better, coming from the matrix, hence hereditary.