Hindu Medicine c7.145

c7.145

When moral perfection and saintliness, as they prevailed in the ideal beginnings of time, began to decrease in the course of ages, disease made its appearance; thus the span of life was shortened and the fulfilment of religious duties hindered, along with that of vows, austerities and the pursuit of enlightening sanctity. Then, out of compassion for all beings, holy seers gathered on an auspicious slope of the Himālayas and took to meditation on the problem: “By what means can disease be checked, since freedom from disease is the elementary requirement for all religious, secular, and spiritual pursuits?” With the inner eye of intuition they beheld Indra and realized, “the King of the Gods will reveal to us the means of checking disease, but who shall proceed to his celestial mansions and ask him?” One among them, the holy Bharadvāja, cried out, “Let it be I!”