Hindu Medicine c11.7

c11.7

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.