The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c9.65

c9.65

*Dhamáni* is met with in the *Atharvaveda* and has the precise meaning of “blood vessel”, where the hymn, I,17 is an exorcism against haemorrhages. There it is an antonym of *hirā*, which, at first, seems to denote also blood vessels though of smaller calibre: “. . . if the smallest stops, let her stop, the big *dhamáni*. The middle ones of hundred *dhamánis*, of thousand *hirās* have stopped . . .”² The biggest vessels are the least numerous and Sāyaṇa commenting upon *AV.*, II, 33-6 considers the *dhamánis* as the relatively voluminous vessels. However, another passage of the same Veda directly contradicts the one translated above: VII, 35-2 mentions a thousand *dhamánis* and of a hundred *hirās*. But Sāyaṇa agrees with the later Vedic literature which replaces *hirā* by *hitā* and recognises 72,000 vessels of this type,³ defining them as *nāḍis*, “like a hair split thousandfold”.⁴ The *dhamánis* are, therefore, to be understood as the big vessels. Moreover, in another passage, the *Atharvaveda* refers once again to the hundred *dhamánis* (VI, 90-2). It is, therefore, the relatively smaller number which is preferably attributed to *dhamánis*.