The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.27

c8.27

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