The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.22

c8.22

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.