________________
V, 4. COMMENTARY.
415
he grows upon the mountains, especially upon the high peaks of the Himalaya. In fact both soma and kushtha came from the third heaven; the kushtha grew originally under that wonderful asvattha-tree (ficus religiosa), under whose shelter the gods themselves are accustomed to assemble. A pretty myth tells how a golden ship (soma, the moon ?), with golden tackle and oars, descends from heaven, and alights upon the Himavant mountains, bringing kushtha, the visible embodiment of the heavenly ambrosia. The use of the plant is varied, its effect most reliable. Hence it is designated as visvábheshaga, 'all-cure,' and visvadhavîrya, ' potent at all times.' Headache, consumption, and afflictions of the eye are cured by it. But especially it seems to have been regarded as the specific against fever (takmán) in all its forms. It seems to have been a fragrant plant since in AV. VI, 102, 3 it is employed in a love-charm in connection with salve, licorice, and spikenard. The kushtha itself must have been prepared as a salve, since in Kaus. 28, 13 the patient is anointed with a mixture of ground kushtha with butter ; cf. especially Kesava's gloss to the passage. Curiously enough in the later literature kushtha is the ordinary designation of leprosy, doubtless a species of euphemism; cf. Wise, Hindu System of Medicine, p. 258 ff. Excellent accounts of the kushthaplant are given by Grohmann, Indische Studien, IX, p. 419 ff., and Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 63 ff.
The employment of this hymn in the Kausika-sūtra is of a general character: all the stanzas of the Atharvan which contain the word kushtha are classed together at 28, 13 as kushthalingâh (sc. rikah); while they are being recited the patient is anointed with kushtha, ground up with butter, which is rubbed in without pressure (apratîhâram: see Pet. Lex. s.v. har with prati, and Böhtlingk's Lexicon, vol. ii. p. 290 c). Darila describes this, quite precisely, as a cure for fever, while Kesava sets it up for a variety of diseases, rågayakshma (a kind of consumption; see Zimmer, 1. c., P. 375), headache, leprosy (kushtha), and pain in all limbs. The Ganamala, Ath. Paris. 32, 7, counts the hymn as
Digized by Google
Digitized by
