English
The seven apdnas are paurnamdasi, astaka, amavasya, sraddha, diksd, yajia and daksina. The seven kinds of vydxa are bhimi, antariksam, dyauh, naksatrani, rtavah, Grtavah and samvatsarah. a pundaritkam nava-dvaram tribhir gunebhir avrtam tasmin yad yaksam Gtmanvat tad vat Brahma-vido viduh. (Those who know Brahman know that being to be the self which resides in the lotus flower of nine gates covered by the three gunas. A.V. x. 8. 43.) The ndadis ida, pingalad and susumnd, which figure so much in the later Tantric works, do not appear in the Atharva-Veda. No reference to pranayama appears in the Atharva-Veda. 2 AV lacks 8 Ibid. 11. 16. 1. Prapa and apdna are asked in another passage to enter a man as bulls enter a cow-shed, Sayana calls pradna, apana ‘‘ sariras-dharaka”’ (A.V. 111, 11. 5). They are also asked not to leave the body, but to bear the limbs till old age (111. 11. 6). 4 Manas and citta are also separately counted in A.V. m1. 6. 8. ° The word cittinah is sometimes used to mean men of the same ways of thinking (ctttinah samana-citta-yuktah—Sayana. A.V. 1. 13. 5). XIII] Practice of Medicine in the Atharva-Veda 293 Agni is described as being gjas and is asked to give ojas to the worshipper}. Practice of Medicine in the Atharva-Veda. As we have said above, there is evidence to show that even at the time of the Atharva-Veda the practice of pure medicine by professional medical men had already been going on. Thus the verse II. 9. 3, as explained by Sayana, says that there were hundreds of medical practitioners (satam hy asya bhisajah) and thousands of herbs (sahasram uta virudhah), but what can be done by these can be effected by binding an amulet with the particular charm of this verse®, Again (II. 9. 5), the Atharvan who binds the amulet is described as the best of all good doctors (subhisaktama). In v1. 68. 2 Prajapati, who appears in the Atreya-Caraka school as the original teacher of Ayur-veda and who learnt the science from Brahma, is asked to treat (with medicine) a boy for the attainment of long life?. In the Kausika-siitra a disease is called lingi, i.e. that which has the symptoms (liga), and medicine (bhaisajya) as that which destroys it (upatapa). Darila remarks that this upatapa-karma refers not only to the disease, but also to the symptoms, ie. a bhaisajya is that which destroys the disease and its symptoms*. In the Atharva-Veda itself only a few medicines are mentioned, such as jangida (XIX. 34 and 35), gulgulu (x1x. 38), Rkustha (x1x. 39) and Sata-vara (1x. 36), and these are all to be used a8 amulets for pro- tection not only from certain diseases, but also from the witchcraft (krtya) of enemies. The effect of these herbs was of the same miraculous nature as that of mere charms or incantations. They did not operate in the manner in which the medicines prescribed 1 Ojo’ sy ajo me dah svaha (A.V. 11. xvi. 1). Sayana, in explaining gah, says, ‘“‘ojah Sartra-sthiti-karanam astamo dhatuh.”’ He quotes a passage as being spoken by the teachers (dcaryath): ‘“‘ksetrajnasya tad qjas tu kevaldsraya isyate yatha snehah pradipasya yathabhram asani-tvisah”’ (Just as the lamp depends on the oil and the lightning on the clouds so the ojah depends on the kshetra-jna (self) alone). os Satam ya bhesajani te sahasram samgatani ca Srestham Gsrava-bhesajam vasistham roga-ndsanam. (Oh sick person! you may have applied hundreds or thousands of medicinal herbs; but this charm is the best specific for stopping hemorrhage. A.V. Vi. 45. 2.) Here also, as in 11. 9. 3, the utterance of the charm is considered to be more efficacious than the application of other herbs and medicines. Water was often applied for washing the sores (VI. 57. 2). 3 Cikitsatu Prajapatir dirghayutvaya caksase (v1. 68. 2). 4 Darila’s comment on the Kausika-sitra, 25. 2. 294 Speculations in the Medical Schools [cH. in the ordinary medical literature acted, but in a supernatural way. In most of the hymns which appear as pure charms the Kaustka- siittra directs the application of various medicines either internally or as amulets. The praise of Atharvan as physician par excellence and of the charms as being superior to all other medicines pre- scribed by other physicians seems to indicate a period when most of these Atharvanic charms were used as a system of treatment which was competing with the practice of ordinary physicians with the medicinal herbs. The period of the Kausika-siitra was probably one when the value of the medicinal herbs was being more and more realized and they were being administered along with the usual Atharvanic charms. This was probably a stage of recon- ciliation between the drug system and the charm system. The special hymns dedicated to the praise of certain herbs, such as jangida, kustha, etc., show that the ordinary medical virtues of herbs were being interpreted on the miraculous lines in which the charms operated. On the other hand, the drug school also came under the influence of the Atharva-Veda and came to regard it as the source of their earliest authority. Even the later medical literature could not altogether free itself from a faith in the efficacy of charms and in the miraculous powers of medicine operating in a supernatural and non-medical manner. Thus Caraka, v1. 1. 39 directs that the herbs should be plucked according to the proper rites (yatha-vidht), and Cakrapani explains this by saying that the worship of gods and other auspicious rites have to be performed (margala-devatarcanadi-piirvakam); in VI. 1. 77 a compound of herbs is advised, which, along with many other virtues, had the power of making a person invisible to all beings (adrsyo bhiitanam bhavatt) ; miraculous powers are ascribed to the fruit dmalaka (Emblic Myrobalan), such as that, if a man lives among cows for a year, drinking nothing but milk, in perfect sense- control and continence and meditating the holy gayatri verse, and if at the end of the year on a proper lunar day in the month of Pausa (January), Magha (February), or Phalguna (March), after fasting for three days, he should enter an amalaka garden and, climbing upon a tree full of big fruits, should hold them and repeat (japan) the name of Brahman till the a@malaka attains im- mortalizing virtues, then, for that moment, immortality resides in the @malaka ; and, if he should eat those amalakas, then the goddess Sri, the incarnation of the Vedas, appears in person to him (svayam XIII] Practice of Medicine in the Atharva-Veda 295 casyopatisthanii srir vedavakya-riipini, v1. 3. 6). In vi. 1. 80 it is said that the rasayana medicines not only procure long life, but, if they are taken in accordance with proper rites (yatha-vidhi), a man attains the immortal Brahman. Again in vi. 1.3 the word prayas- citta (purificatory penance) is considered to have the same meaning as ausadha or bhesaja. The word bhesaja in the Atharva-Veda meant a charm or an amulet which could remove diseases and their symptoms, and though in later medical literature the word is more commonly used to denote herbs and minerals, either simple or compounded, the older meaning was not aban- doned1. The system of simple herbs or minerals, which existed independently of the Atharva-Veda, became thus intimately con- nected with the system of charm specifics of the Atharva-Veda; whatever antagonism may have before existed between the two systems vanished, and Ayur-veda came to be treated as a part of the Atharva-Veda*. Prajapati and Indra, the mythical physicians of the Atharva-Veda, came to be regarded in the Atreya-Caraka school as the earliest teachers of Ayur-veda’. Bloomfield arranges the contents of the Atharva-Veda in fourteen classes: 1. Charms to cure diseases and possession by demons (bhaisajyani) ; 2. Prayers for long life and health (ayusyanzt) ; 3. Imprecations against demons, sorcerers and enemies (abhicari- 1 The A.V. terms are bhesajam (remedy), bhesaji (the herbs), and bhesajih (waters). The term bhaisajya appears only in the Kausika and other siitras and Brahmanas. Bloomfield says that the existence of such charms and practices is guaranteed moreover at least as early as the Indo-Iranian (Aryan) period by the stems baesaza and baesazya (mafithra baesaza and baesazya; haoma baesazya), and by the pre-eminent position of water and plants in all prayers for health and long life. Adalbert Kuhn has pointed out some interesting and striking re- semblances between Teutonic and Vedic medical charms, especially in connection with cures for worms and fractures. These may perhaps be mere anthropological coincidences, due to the similar mental endowment of the two peoples. But it is no less likely that some of these folk-notions had crystallized in prehistoric times, and that these parallels reflect the continuation of a crude Indo-European folk- lore that had survived among the Teutons and Hindus. See Bloomfield’s The Atharva-Veda and Gopatha-Brahmana, p. 58, and Kuhn’s Zeitschrift fir vergleichende Sprachforschung, X11. pp. 49-74 and 113-157. 2 The Atharva-Veda itself speaks (xIx. 34. 7) of herbs which were current in ancient times and medicines which were new, and praises the herb jangida as being better than them all—za tvd parva osadhayo na tva taranti ya navah. 3 A.V. vi. 68. 2—Cikitsatu prajapatir dirghayutvdaya caksase ; ibid. X1x. 35. I— Indrasya nama grhnanto rsayah jangidam dadan (The rsis gave jangida, uttering the name of Indra). This line probably suggested the story in the Caraka-samhitd, that Indra first instructed the rsts in Ayur-veda. See ibid. x1. vill. 23—yan matali rathakritam amrtam veda bhesajam tad indro apsu pravesayat tad apo datta bhesajam. The immortalizing medicine which Matali (the charioteer of Indra) bought by selling the chariot was thrown into the waters by Indra, the master of the chariot.