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Hindu Medicine c11: Notes to Chapter II

Hindu Medicine c11

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English

Notes to Chapter II

c11.1

in the form of lightning; 3. the fire inhabiting the vegetable realm (trees) which is generated from wood when fire is stirred by means of a wooden board and stick; 4. the animal fire inhabiting warm-blooded beings, especially men, which bestows bodily warmth, complexion and color; 5. the domestic fire on the house-altar of every Aryan homestead, tended by the father of the family as the ever-present tutelary deity of the household; from this domestic fire are taken the two forms of sacrificial fire for the oblations to the gods, and the offerings to the forces of the realm of death and destruction.

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⁷ Cf. Margaret Sinclair Stevenson, " Without the Pale, The Life Story of an Outcast," The Religious Life of India, Oxford University Press, New York, 1930, p. 20.

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⁸ Cf. Yoga: Personal Hygiene by Shri Yogendra, The Yoga Institute, Bombay, 1940. The volume forms part of a series of publications of the Bombay Yoga Institute. In 1931 the Institute started with a periodical, " Yoga "; this after three years was supplemented by a sequence of monographs on the various aspects and aims of yoga practice relating to the criticism and experimental research of Western medicine and psychology. The author, well versed in Western medicine, is a pupil of the late Hindu saint and yoga teacher, Yogīśvara Paramahaṃsa Mādhvadāsjī, who died in 1921. Mādhvadāsjī entrusted the author with the task of initiating a " practical Yoga Renaissance." For this purpose Shri Yogendra founded the Bombay Yoga Institute, toured the United States, and collaborated with various Western scholars. The two first chapters of his book deal with the " Ideals of Yoga Hygiene " and the " Possibilities of Eternal Youth," the other chapters specialize on the Yoga treatment of various parts and organs of the body; ch. 3 deals with the " care of the teeth, mouth, tongue, ear and sinus"; ch. 4, care of the nose; ch. 5, of the eye; ch. 6 and 7, of the digestive organs; ch. 8, of the respiratory apparatus, ch. 9, of the sexual organs; ch. 10, of the brain and nervous system; ch. 11, of the skin. The last chapter deals with hygiene in general.

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⁹ Cf. George Weston Briggs, Gorakhnāth and the Kānphaṭa

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Yogis, Oxford University Press, New York, 1938, p. 291; Śiva-saṃhitā, ed and transl. by Rai Bahadur Śrīśa Chandra Vidyārṇava, The Pāṇini Office, Allahabad, 1923, ch. III, 3-8; Gheranda-Saṃhitā, ed. and transl. by Shris Chandra Vasu, Bombay, 1895, ch. V, pp. 59-64.

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¹⁰ Cf. Vedāntasāra by Sadānanda, ed. R. Garbe in O. Böhtlingk’s Sanskrit-Chresthomathie, 3. Auflage, Leipzig, 1909, No. 93-104; Vedāntasāra of Sadānanda with Introduction, Text, English Translation and Comments by Swami Nikhilananda, Almora, 1931, No. 77-85.

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¹¹ With regard to the third among the subsidiary winds, an obvious deterioration of the original conception has taken place in course of time; “ksut,” “sneezing” (onomatopoeic) became understood as “ksudh,” “hunger,” because of the identical spelling of both in writing and elocution under the form of “ksut,” whenever the final “dh” of “ksudh” became a “t,” according to the rules of euphonic junctions. The replacement of the less familiar “ksut” in favor of the more frequent “ksudh” (hunger) occurs in Gherandasaṃhitā, V, 68, where Krkara is said to “produce hunger and thirst” (ksuttrṣam); while in V, 67 sneezing, “making ‘ksut’” is said to be its function. The same erroneous interpretation is found in Vedāntasāra: “krkarah ksudhākarah.” Gherandasaṃhitā, V, 68 states that from the fifth wind, Dhanamjaya, “sound is produced”; although its main function is described as follows: “it does not leave the body for a moment,” still it is considered the motor-force from which speech and singing originate.

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¹² Corpus Hippocraticum, Περὶ ἀέρων, ὑδάτων, τόπων, 14; and Περὶ ἱερῆς νούσου, 2.

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¹³ Bṛhad-Āraṇyaka-Upaniṣad, VI, 4, 9. “When he wishes that she should desire and enjoy him, he should insert the member in her, join mouth with mouth, caress her organ by gently rubbing it, and should mutter: ‘thou takest thy origin from every limb; thou art generate from the heart; thou art the condensation of the limbs; do thou drive mad this here (the woman whom he is

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kissing) and that here (the organ he is caressing), like (a doe) wounded by a poisoned arrow!’ ” The two classic translators of the Upaniṣads, Paul Deussen (“Sechzig Upanishads des Veda,” 3. Auflage, Leipzig 1921, p. 515) and R. E. Hume (*The Thirteen Principal Upanishads*, p. 169) have somehow missed the ritualistic detail of this kāma-sūtra practice; Deussen, in translating “dem Wild gleich, das der Giftpfeil traf, mach rasend diese da auf mich,” and Hume, in rendering “distract this woman here in me, as if by poisoned arrow pierced.” The text, however, has “. . . māday-emām amūm mayi,” that is, “fac intoxicatam hanc (feminam), illam (vaginam) in me.”

c11.11

The first of these, the *Gospel of the Hebrews*, was used by the Jewish Christians of Palestine, and was probably a version of the Gospel of Matthew, though it contained some traditions not found in our canonical books. The *Gospel of the Egyptians* was used by the ascetic sects of Egypt, and was marked by a strong tendency towards mysticism and asceticism. The *Gospel of Peter* was used by the Docetists, and taught that Christ did not really suffer, but only appeared to do so.

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These gospels, and others like them, were not accepted by the Church as a whole, and were gradually lost or suppressed. The Church, however, felt the need for a standard collection of writings that would serve as a guide for faith and practice. This led to the formation of the New Testament canon, a process that took several centuries to complete.

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The first step in this process was the collection of the letters of Paul, which were widely circulated among the churches. Then came the four Gospels, which were accepted as the authoritative accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus. The Acts of the Apostles and the other epistles were gradually added, and finally the Book of Revelation.

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By the end of the second century, the core of the New Testament was generally accepted by the Church. The process of canonization was not a formal act of a council, but rather a gradual recognition by the churches of the writings that were most valuable for their life and worship. It was only in the fourth century that the canon was formally closed by the councils of the Church.

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The formation of the New Testament canon was a crucial event in the history of the Church. It provided a standard of faith and practice that helped to unify the Church and to protect it from the influence of heretical sects. It also ensured that the teachings of Jesus and the apostles would be preserved for future generations.

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