Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita

by Nayana Sharma | 2015 | 139,725 words

This page relates ‘Brahma, Prajapati and Daksha’ of the study on the Charaka Samhita and the Sushruta Samhita, both important and authentic Sanskrit texts belonging to Ayurveda: the ancient Indian science of medicine and nature. The text anaylsis its medical and social aspects, and various topics such as diseases and health-care, the physician, their training and specialisation, interaction with society, educational training, etc.

Brahmā, Prajāpati and Dakṣa

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Other than the composition of Āyurveda, there are few instances of the association of Brahmā with healing in the two texts. Both Brahmā and Prajāpati are invoked at the initiation ceremony of medical students^[1] and in rakṣoghna hymns along with host of other deities to protect the wounded from harmful beings.^[2] Prayers are offered to Brahmā and some other deities for the remission of fever.^[3] He is believed to have created celestial drug like Soma for deterrence of old age and death.^[4] Two important formulations are attributed to him: the āmalakāsaya brāhma rasāyana and the mṛta-sañjīvana-agada. The first medicine bestows longevity of a thousand years and prevents old age and disease,^[5] and the second is a powerful formulation for annihilating the effects of poisons, bhūtas, jantva, inauspiciousness, black magic, harmful spells, etc.^[6] He is said to have placed poison in mobile and immobile beings.^[7] The Atharvānukramaṇī attributes a number of hymns dealing with disease and medicine to Brahmā.^[8]

In all Indian tradition, Brahmā is regarded as the supreme creator god. He is said to have created the world, humans, gods, asuras, and even the Vedas and all religions.^[9] It is, therefore, only befitting that the composition of Āyurveda should be attributed to him. He was, however, a post-Vedic or Purāṇic god, and his cult could not have existed in the Vedic period.^[10] The precursors of Brahmā in the Ṛgveda are Brahmaṇaspati, the lord of prayer,^[11] Bṛhaspati and Prajāpati. Bṛhaspati is addressed as the progenitor of the gods, and is one of the major precursors of the epic-Purāṇic Brahman or Brahmā. He appears as the chief priest, officiating at prayers and sacrifices of the gods.^[12] Prajāpati is also the lord and preserver of creatures in the Ṛgveda, and the father of the gods, the progenitor of men, and the lord of the entire world.^[13] Gradually his position declines, and in the Mahābhārata, the name becomes a synonym of Brahman (Brahmā).^[14]

As regards Prajāpati, a hymn recited at the time of delivery calls upon him to protect the pregnant woman.^[15] There is hardly any more reference to this deity in the medical texts. However, Prajāpati takes on the role of a physician in the Atharvaveda. He is said to cook a rice mess (odāna) by which death can be conquered.^[16] He is connected with conception,^[17] pregnancy and childbirth.^[18] He is invoked to grant good sight and long life.^[19] The Atharvaveda knows of Prajāpati as the first mythical physician who was a specialist of children’s and women’s diseases.^[20] It is also interesting to note that the wife of Dakṣa Prajāpati is Prasuti (birth).

Once Prajāpati gets merged with Brahmā, the latter comes to be known as Prajāpati Brahmā and is placed above Prajāpati. The epic-Purāṇic Brahmā is, thus, derived from Bṛhaspati or Brāhmanaspati on one hand, and from Prajāpati on the other.^[21] As a deity, he has impeccable credentials-he is the chief priest, and is said to practice stiff asceticism and penance by which he overpowered death. Thus physicians may have looked upon Brahmā as the progenitor of medical science as he occupied a high position in the hierarchy of the gods, whereby they could hope to obtain legitimacy of the orthodoxy for their science. In some other context, it has been argued that Brahman as the epic -Purāṇic supreme deity must be shown to be the originator of each cult in order to give it a halo of sanctity, antiquity and authority.^[22] In the epics, he treated the gods injured in battle, and restored the dead to life with magic spells. Herein we find his connection with healing.

The personality of Dakṣa is not well defined in the Vedas. He is a solar deity symbolizing the creator-aspect of the sun.^[23] In the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, Dakṣa became a Prajāpati, the father of Umā and twenty-seven stars who were married to Candra.^[24] Therefore, by the time of the composition of the Suśruta Saṃhitā, Dakṣa had been absorbed by Prajāpati.

The Aśvins

The Aśvins are the divine physicians (devabhiṣajau).^[25] The Ṛgveda is replete with instances of their healing power. They restored eyesight to Kanva, hearing to the deaf Nṛṣad, cured Ghoṣā of leprosy, revived the intelligence and health of Kakṣīvat, and cured Vadhrīmatī of barrenness, to cite a few examples.^[26] They also revived sage Syava when he was killed by demons, and his body was cut into pieces.^[27] One of their surgical feats was to give an artificial leg to Viśpalā.^[28]

The Caraka Saṃhitā gives a short account of the medical exploits of the Aśvins to underline the importance of physicians not just to humans but to the gods as well. They reattached the decapitated head of Yajña to the body, reset Puṣan’s loose teeth, treated Bhaga’s eyes, removed stiffness of Indra’s arm, cured Candra’s rājayakṣma and restored sage Cyavana’s youth.^[29] By virtue of these and many other accomplishments the twin physicians came to be venerated by the gods themselves. Even the king of the gods, Indra, offers prayers to them, shares soma juice and rejoices in the sautrāmaṇī sacrifice in their company.^[30] The Sautrāmaṇī rite is based on the myth of Indra’s overindulgence in Soma and his consequent illness which was cured by the Aśvins and Saraswatī.^[31] As we have noticed in chapter 2, the Aśvins were not readily welcomed among the deities, for they were denied their share of the sacrificial Soma. The medical Saṃhitās seek to dispel this notion by claiming an elevated position for the twin gods by naming them along with Indra and Agni among the deities as the three gods invariably worshipped by the dvijas^[32] and reiterating that they are worshipped by means of Vedic incantations, stotra (songs of prayers), haviṣ (fire oblations) and offering of brown coloured animals (dhūmra paśu).^[33] Caraka goes on to claim that no other god is respected as much as the Aśvins^[34] and claims for them a position superior to Indra.

The divine physicians are said to have cured Candra of consumption^[35] and are implored to cure fever.^[36] They are among the deities worshipped at the initiation ceremony of students into medical studies.^[37] The Suśruta Saṃhitā makes very few references to the twin physicians. It recounts the story of the Aśvins restoring Yajña’s severed head to the body for which the gods promised a share of the sacrificial offerings in favour of the twin deities and declared them to be the foremost among the gods.^[38] The text makes no any further mention of their exploits.

We notice that Kauṭilya directs the king to set up a temple dedicated to the Aśvins in the centre of the city which is an indication of the important position occupied in the pantheon by them during the Mauryan period.^[39] Among the later literary works, the characterization of the Aśvins as divine physicians continues in the Mahābhārata and the Harivaṃśa. They are given the epithets of “deva bhiṣajau” and “devabhiṣagvarau” (excellent physicians of the gods).^[40] This is evident in Paurāṇic literature as well; the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa describes them as bhiṣajām varau (the best among the physicians).^[41] However, signs of their decline in the epics are also evident with the trend of identifying or subordinating the twin deities to Viṣṇu and Śiva. Vālmīki identifies them with Śrīkṛṣṇa.^[42] Passages in the Mahābhārata state that the Aśvins are contained in the body of Viṣṇu and that they also appear as various manifestations of Śiva. We further learn that they are his subordinates.^[43] The process of absorbing the divine physicians into the two rising deities of Brahmanism was already underway. It is also striking that the Aśvins do not figure in the iconography of the Indian pantheon, and though they are remembered in the Purāṇas, they gradually fade away.^[44]