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EDUCATION AND ARCHITECTURE
411
The PCV refers to Jvara (22.63), the fever (63.36); Dāhajvara=the hot fever or inflammatory fever (63.26); Pittajvara = the bilious fever (37.22); Kuştha vyādhi = the leprosy (77.101); Upaghāta=the morbid affection; weakness or mental sickness (63.26); Sphoțaka=the swelling, boil or tumour (63.26); Aruci=the want of appetite (63.26); Śūla=the shooting of acute or sharp pain in the body (63.26); and Māri (2.7.32)=the epidemic or pestilence which is fatal in form. The reference to vāūpa vilanghiyāl 109.2 (vāyunā vasiksta PCR, 114.2) indicates the disease of rheumatism or paralysis.
On the occasion of a break of epidemic there were large scale death. It is said that an epidemic spread due to the air which was infected with (germs of) diseases (bahurogasamubbhavam vāur 65.68).
Disabled persons such as the blind (andha), the deaf (badhira), the dumb (mūka), the lame (paigu), men having one arm withered (Kuņi 2.77), the dwarf (vāmaņa) and the hunch-backed (khujja= kubja) 14.31 are referred to in the PCV.
Patients were cured by administering drugs (81.12). Taste of medicines differed. There is a reference to Kaduosaham (70.10), the pungent drug.
Sandal-wood was very commonly used for curing men who fell in swoon. Its water was sprinkled (30.14) or its paste was applied on the body (64.37) for the same.
The very name of Višalyā indicates that surgery was prevalent in those days. Višalyā cured Lakşmana who was wounded in the battlefield. Many other wounded soldiers also were healed by her treatment (64.63). .
On the sudden death of Lakşmaņa, Rāma became quite mad. He used to do incoherent work just as carrying the dead body of Lakşmaņa on hls shoulders, feeding him etc. This madness was cured by showing to him the same type of incoherent works. This is an instance of psychological treatment. (Ch. 113).
Besides the administering of drugs, two other practices were in vogue for curing the diseased persons. One was the enchanting of some spell or charm (manta-mantra 32.64; 81.12; 110.27). There is a reference to the charmers who used to acquire charms on the cemetery ground. They are called Janguliyātāra (105.57). The
