The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.71

c8.71

One of the most important names of diseases in the Veda is *yákṣma* which we have already met with. This word appears not only in isolation but also in compound words such as *rājayakṣmá*, "royal disease", and *ajñātayakṣmá*, "unknown disease". These two compound words are found together in RV., X, 161, 1: “I deliver you by means of oblation so that you may live, from the unknown disease and from the royal disease...”¹ Yákṣma is used in the plural in RV., X, 85, 2, 31; AV., IX, 8, 10, where the “poison of all the yákṣmas” is exorcised. The White Yajurveda counts a hundred yákṣmas (XII, 97) and it is clear that often it is a case of disease or diseases in a general sense.