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Xn] Practice of Medicine in the Atharva-Veda 295 cāsyopatişthanti śrir vedavākya-rūpini, vi. 3. 6). In vi. 1. 80 it is said that the rasāyana medicines not only procure long life, but, if they are taken in accordance with proper rites (yathā-vidhi), a man attains the immortal Brahman. Again in vi. 1. 3 the word prāyascitta (purificatory penance) is considered to have the same meaning as ausadha or bheșaja. 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 abandoned'. The system of simple herbs or minerals, which existed independently of the Atharva-Veda, became thus intimately connected 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. Prajāpati and Indra, the mythical physicians of the Atharva-Veda, came to be regarded in the Atreya-Caraka school as the earliest teachers of Ayur-veda3.
Bloomfield arranges the contents of the Atharva-Veda in fourteen classes: 1. Charms to cure diseases and possession by demons (bhaisajyāni); 2. Prayers for long life and health (āyusyāni); 3. Imprecations against demons, sorcerers and enemies (ābhicāri
1 The A.V. terms are bhesajam (remedy), bhesaji (the herbs), and bhesajih (waters). The term bhaişajya appears only in the Kausika and other sütras and Brāhmaṇas. 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 baeșaza and baeşazya (manthra baesaza and baeșazya; haoma baeşazya), 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 resemblances 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 folklore that had survived among the Teutons and Hindus. See Bloomfield's The Atharva-Veda and Gopatha-Brāhmaṇa, p. 58, and Kuhn's Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, xiii. 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-na tvā pūrva osadhayo na tvā taranti yā navāḥ.
3 A.V. vi. 68. 2—Cikitsatu prajāpatir dirghāyutvāya cakşase; ibid. xix. 35. 1Indrasya nāma grhmanto rşayah jangidam dadan (The rșis gave jangida, uttering the name of Indra). This line probably suggested the story in the Caraka-samhită, that Indra first instructed the sis in Ayur-veda. See ibid. XI. VIII. 23-yan mātali rathakrītam amrtam veda bheşajam tad indro apsu prāveśayat tad apo datta bhesajam. The immortalizing medicine which Mätali (the charioteer of Indra) bought by selling the chariot was thrown into the waters by Indra, the master of the chariot. Rivers, give us back that medicine!
