Hindu Medicine c7.111

c7.111

The next stanzas seem to reflect a parallel external treatment. The same arcanum, presumably, is poured all over the limbs and joints of the patient’s body; this ablution, again, is made with the intention of transferring the disease into the birds tied under the patient’s bedstead; there follows an appeal to the divine power of the wind, supposed, here as elsewhere, to act as the universal “ cleanser ” or “ purifier ” (pavana) , and to carry off the disease, far away, “ beyond the navigable streams ” (Ath.-Veda VIII, 7, 15) .