xxxvi
Pre-Budhistic in origin.Early Buddhist literature also furnishes us with abundant proofs of this nature. On going through the chapter on "Medicaments" in the Mahávagga, we are often reminded of the contents of the Susruta.[1] From Pánini
- ↑ One or two instances may be quoted here:—"Now at that time a certain Bhikkhu had a superfluity of humors in his body"—Vinaya Texts: pt. II. p. 60.
"The history of the interpretation of this hymn is of uncommon interest, because it illustrates forcibly the particular closeness of relation between the hymns of the Atharvan and the practices reported in connection with them. Professor Weber, Indische Studien, IV, p. 405, translated the hymn under the caption 'Gegen hitziges fieber,' and guided especially by the more immediate meaning of garáyugáh, 'the product of the placenta, after-birth,' he thought that the hymn referred to puerperal fever, or the fever of a child. Ludwig, Der Rigveda, III, p. 343, surmised that the hymn was directed aginst inflammation, and Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 390, refers to it in connection with the word vâta in the first stanza, which he would translate by 'wound;' he also identifies váta with 'wound' etymologically. The compound vátabhrâgâs in the first stanza, as he understands, means 'suffering from wound-fever.' But Zimmer's theory that the word váta ever means 'wound' has not sustained itself: váta is 'wind in the body;' vátíkritanásanî (VI, 44, 31) is 'destroyer of the disease which comes from wind (of the body);' cf. báta byádhi (vátavyádhi), 'diseases produced by wind (in the body),' in Wise's Hindu System of Medicine, p. 250, and see Contributions, Fourth Series, Amer. Journ. Phil. XII, p. 427." Bloomfield's A. V. p. 246.
