The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.s1.2

c8.s1.2

The majority of hymns used in curative charms, whether they belong to the *Ṛgveda* or to the *Atharva* are formulae of exorcism of this type, irrespective of the fact whether the disease aimed at is presented as being caused by the action of a demon or not. But it is certain that the recitation of hymns did not suffice. It was accompanied by a ritual, which has not been preserved for us in the oldest texts but by others like the *Kauśikasūtra* attached to the *Atharvaveda*. This Sūtra has probably modified the ceremonies in usage in the epoch of the *Atharvaveda* but it certainly contains ancient traditional data and gives an extremely exact general idea of Vedic therapeutics. This therapeutics is essentially magical. We have, incidentally, picked up some of its traits, which show that it has little to do with the really medical.¹ The numerous plants mentioned in the hymns manifestly assume the rôle of magical ingredients rather than that of veritable drugs. We have already seen the use of *rajanī*, “colouring”, which, because of its dark colour, is used to re-dye the decolourised skin and will absorb the decolorisation, of which it is antagonistic. This is not a truly medical use. One of the chief remedies mentioned (*RV*., I, 43-4, VII, 295; *AV*., II-27-6, VI-57), the remedy *par excellence* of Rudra, *jālāsa* is, according to Bloomfield, only urine, who interprets in this manner the indications of the *Kauśikasūtra*, or rain-water conceived as cosmic urine according to Geldner:¹ in any case it is not a real remedy. But, *á priori* one must think that in the Vedic epoch, one could not have helped observing the medicinal properties of certain plants and of their products, but these are not generally these properties which appear in the hymns. The bdellium (*guggulu* or *gulgulu*), for example, to which classical medicine attributes medicinal properties, figures in the *Atharvaveda* only as an odorous product, suitable for chasing away bad influences; it retains this characteristic in the field of exorcism right up to more recent epochs.² The hymn, XIX, 38, is addressed to the bdellium of Sindh and to that of the ocean, that is to say, brought in by maritime commerce.