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therefore designated as takmanâsana (V, 4, 1. 2), and the gangida, an unexplained member of the Indian flora1. In V, 22 the gods, Agni, Soma, Varuna, the Adityas, and the deified press-stones (pressing the soma) are appealed to for help. Cf. in addition to the authorities mentioned above, Edmund Hardy, Die Vedisch-Brahmanische Periode, p. 198, and, for detailed descriptions of fever and its treatment in the medical Sâstras, Wise, Hindu System of Medicine, p. 219 ff.
V, 22. COMMENTARY.
The treatment of AV. V, 22 in the ritual, Kaus. 29, 18. 19, is as follows: '(The priest) gives (the patient) gruel made of roasted grain to drink. The dregs (of the gruel) he pours from a copper vessel over the head (of the patient) into fire derived from a forest-fire".' The treatment is intensely symbolical, being based upon the attractio similium, with a touch of homoeopathy. The roasted grain represents heat and therefore fever; the copper vessel (lohitapâtra), with the other meaning of lohita, 'red,' in mind, again suggests heat and fever, and the forest fire, dâvâgni, figures in preference to ordinary fire because it is occasioned by lightning, and lightning is conceived as the cause of fever and its related diseases. See our treatment of AV. I, 12, and cf. Seven Hymns of the Atharva-veda, Amer. Journ. Phil. VII, 469 ff. (p. 4 ff. of the reprint). Note also the very parallel treatment which the fever patient undergoes at the hands of Kausika in 25, 26, in connection with AV. I, 25.
The hymn has been translated many times, either entirely or in part. See Roth, 1. c., p. 38; Grohmann, Indische
1 Dârila at Kaus. 8, 15, gangido-rgunah akala iti dâkshinâtyah. Kesava, ib., gangido vârânasyâm prasiddhah. It is the name of a tree in any case; see XIX, 34 and 35.
• Kausika's language is of the most concise Sutra sort: 18... lâgân pâyayati. 19. dâve lohitapâtrena mûrdhni sampâtân ânayati. The translation above is with the help of Dârila. The employment of the dregs after the act of âplavana is technical; see the Paribhâshâ-sûtra Kaus. 7, 15. For the sampâta, see also Grihyasamgraha 1, 113.
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