The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.162

c8.162

Expressions such as *śīrśaktí* and *śīrsāmayá* seem to denote the "pains in the head" whose precise nature cannot be determined by us because the *Atharva* does not let us guess their characteristics. *Pṛṣṭyāmayá* (AV., XIX, 34-10), "disease in the back", denotes lumbago as is apparently proved by a comparison with the *Ṛgveda*, I, 105-18: "He raises himself up like a carpenter suffering from pains in the back" (... *uj jihīte nicāyyā tāṣṭeva pṛṣṭyāmayī* . . .)." The "flux", *āsrāva*, is simultaneously polyuria or even the normal flux of urine, diarrhoea, Haemorrhage, the excessive discharge of all that can normally or abnormally flow from the body. *Śūla* denotes the lancinating pain in *karṇa-śūlā*, "pain in the ear" (*AV.*, IX, 8-1). The names of skin-diseases, of which several are mentioned, seem to be only the simple names of morbid symptoms.