The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.50

c8.50

In such like ideas disease is a phenomenon which does wrong to *rta*. In relation to the normal order disease is a disorder, and, as in the then current magical concept like brings in like, disease is linked with other disorders such as sin. Sin in its turn is a transgression of *rta* and it makes little difference whether this transgression is committed deliberately or by chance. Voluntary or not, the anamoly of behaviour or of thought brings in that of the organism. This does not mean that no importance is attached to intention; it aggravates the fault as it adds the anomaly of desire to physical or ritual disorder. But the responsibility is automatic, it is not effected by the purity of intention; hazard brings in baneful consequences just as effectively as they are brought in by pre-meditated perverse action. This concept has remained effective in the whole of classical India. The Epic and Puranic legends are full of stories where an accidental shortcoming is punished as a crime and the Jaina ascetics take extremely detailed precautions to avoid the unconscious destruction of minute beings which they do not all see and thus save themselves from the fatal consequences of unsuspected deaths. In the texts of the classical period, *dharma* substitutes *rta* but that is merely a change of vocabulary, *dharma* like *rta* is the universal normal order and starting from the *Rgveda* itself, the *dharman* of *Varuna* is several times mentioned in place of *rta*.¹