Hindu Medicine c7.153

c7.153

Caraka, to whom it is attributed, is generally believed to be identical with the court-physician of the king Kaniṣka of Peshawar in the first century A. D. Hindu tradition has enhanced the stature of this classic authority on medical knowledge by looking upon Caraka as an incarnation of Ananta-Śeṣa, the giant cosmic serpent who supports the universe. Śeṣa is the embodiment of the primeval creative waters out of which the universe took its origin; it is the life-carrying substance of the universal organism. In the beginning, the lotus-flower of the universe sprouted forth from the liquid element; what was “left over” of these waters when the world and all creatures emerged out of them through transmutation of their divine substance, remained at the bottom and formed “Śeṣa,” that is, “the residue, the rest.” The cosmic serpent and the primal waters are the elementary aspect of the Supreme Being, Viṣṇu, who periodically, for the duration of a world-cycle, transforms part of his transcendent essence into the universe and its creatures. Thus it is the divine universal life-substance itself, which through Caraka’s teachings discloses the secret of life and the rules of living, pointing out the ways by which health and long life may be ensured and disease and old age warded off.