Hindu Medicine c7.132

c7.132

The disastrous force of venomous snakes, against whose poisonous effect no magic, no medical wisdom avails, is explained as due to the serpents’ superior wisdom. Manasā boasts that she received her paralyzing magic and deadly power from the lord Ananta himself, who acted as her spiritual teacher and bestowed upon her a most wonderful charm,—a charm sacred to Nārāyaṇa, the primeval manifestation of Viṣṇu; for Ananta is another embodiment of Viṣṇu’s divine essence. She boasts that she is able to reduce the universe to ashes at will, and create it again. She vaunts herself to be a pupil of Śiva and disparages Dhanvantari for not being a pupil of Śiva himself: her enemy became possessed of his part of the secret wisdom of the lord of destruction only through the mediation of Garuḍa, who, in turn, had studied but for a short season with Śiva. Manasā herself, however, had been tutored for an extensive time by the lord of destructive powers; and, in days of yore, she had received from him vast wisdom.