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WATER TREATMENT IN THE ATHARVAVEDA
Subhash Chandra Dash Introduction : The Atharvaveda (AV.) is the source book of Ayurveda. Bhesaja 'medicine' is one of the important contributions of AV. The poet-priest of AV. is a physician who treats patients of different types by the help of his magic spells, rituals and medicines prepared out of medicinal plants. He declares that these plants have magical powers to cure a patient. So also he has taken into consideration the natural factors like, Fire, Air, Water and Earth etc. for curative purpose. The way AV. deals with it, shows us the beginning of treatment of various diseases and methods some of which are known and accepted as a science of. Āyurveda, afterwards. In fact, AV. contributes much in this regard and later on the exponents like Caraka and Suśruta have acknowledged' that they have inherited the curative process from AV. 1.0. Though it is a common belief that AV. deals with magic and magical rites only, it is only partially. The descriptions about diseases and its process of cure has some relationship which has been widely taken into consideration by Ayurveda. So the Atharvavedic descriptions have their intrinsic value apart from the magical aspect.
The Atharvanic doctor believes that there are some evil spirits which infest the human body and create diseases. So when a man falls ill, he is attacked by the demons? of diseases. To cure the disease means to remove the demon; and this is possible by means of the charms and magical spells or medicinal plants. It is
tly cured by the psychological factors and partly by the magic performed along with the medicinal qualities of plants. So also there is the importance of the natural elements which have medicinal powers to cure various diseases. The water is treated as the prime medicine by the Atharvanic priest. He probably realised that water forms one third of the gross weight of a human being, and so it does have some influence over the body as well as the mind. So realised the importance of water as a medicine. i.e. bhesaja and several times he invoked water to cure different diseases. That is why the Atharvanic poet-priest calls water as nectar and describes it as most powerful curative factor.
Not only the AV., but also the modern science has testified to the medicinal and curative power of water and accepted it as such under the branch-Naturopathy,
