The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.59

c8.59

Dropsy is a special disease, a special punishment of Varuṇa, but all sorts of other diseases spring from the infringement of the ṛta of any one of the natures. This is proved by the fact that Varuṇa, Lord of the Norm is, because of this link, the opponent of all diseases. He is invoked as the "guardian of the liquid of immortality"⁴ and he is told: "A hundred, a thousand remedies do you have, O king. Great, profound be your benevolence. Remove far off perdition, far far off. All sins committed, remove them from us."⁵ The number of remedies ascribed to him has little importance because the formula which mentions them is a stock phrase applicable to other gods. But their very mention indicates that in his invocation the poet thinks of the disease and of the return of health when he demands the removal of “Perdition” and of sin. Now the “Perdition”, *Nirṛti* has a name, which, by means of a sort of word-play, evokes the negation (preposition *niḥ*) of *ṛta*; it is also in some way “Anomaly” in general, which implies that all the diseases and sins depend on it.