The Ashvins are mentioned in the Rigveda, the Mahabharata and the Puranas as divine physicians who restored eyesight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, blessed children to the barren and revived life of the dead, cured leprosy, knew the art of rejuvenation and midwifery and possessed the skill of surgery. The Ashvins are historically considered the original expounders of medicine during the primitive period of Ayurveda.
The Ashvins are known in the Rigveda to be offsprings of Vivasvan and Saranyu. Sometimes they are called Nasatya and in later Vedic literature the two are differently referred to by two individual names, Nasatya and Dasra. The name of Ashvins as Nasatya is mentioned in the Boghazkoi inscription dated 14th century B.C. along with other Vedic gods like Indra, Varuna and Mitra.
The Ashvins may have been human first, physicians and surgeons in whom their admiring patients looked upon as persons possessing supernatural powers and then were deified in view of their benevolence and the efficacy of their aids. By the time the hymns of Rigveda were composed they had fully attained the status of gods. In terms of hymns dedicated to them they rank next to Vedic gods, Indra, Agni and Soma having 54 entire hymns and several others in part addressed to them.
Among the Vedic gods Rudra is appealed to remove sickness and is called the greatest physician among physicians and appears superior to Ashvins. But there is no instance cited in the Rigveda in which Rudra is shown to have administered his medicine, while there is a large number of such illustrations on the side of Ashvins. Even in the case of other gods like Surya and Varuna who are referred as healers, the Ashvins stand unique among all of them by virtue of the practical instances which they have to their credit. One speciality of the Ashvins was their followers could approach them directly and without the help of intermediaries for remedial measures unlike other Vedic gods where the intervention of the priest was found necessary to gain their favour.
Founders of Chavanaprasha
In Ayurveda there is an invigorating tonic known as Chavanaprasha, a tonic for regaining vigour and strength. It was this tonic which the Ashvins gave to sage Cyavana and this was later prescribed by Cyavana to others. The Ashvins were said to be fond of Madhu (honey) and said to have learnt the secret of honey-lore (madhyvidya) from Dadhyanc. Honey has an important place in the science of medicine and it possesses valuable healing properties and is used as a soothing drug. The constant association of the Ashvins with Madhu shows that it may have been a popular drug which they administered.
Originally the Ashvins were benevolent kings
Yaska says that originally the Ashvins were beneficent kings. They may actually have gone about healing the sick, rescuing men in distress or salvaging those in shipwreck. They may have been kings who were fast riders and fond of their horses so that they came to be inseparably connected with them. Later after their death, people wishing to cherish their memories and remembering their innumerable kind acts deified them. Naturally there was opposition and violent resistance by the worshippers of the orthodox pantheon, devotees of respectable gods like Indra on the ground that these (Ashvins) were mere men with no sanction of tradition or antiquity to their credit, whose human history was recent and still fresh in men’s mind and whose achievements (viz., healing the sick and helping those in distress) were unworthy of bona fide divinities and hence unfit for Soma offerings.
The social taboo against the Ashvins is understood better if we remember the position of doctors in ancient Indian society. A passage from Mahabharata says that offerings to a Brahmin who practices medicine become pus and blood. Manu also lays down that a physician should be avoided in a sacrifice. The Vasishta Dharmasastra says that a doctor may not be invited in sacred ceremonies. The Apastamba Dharma Sutra prohibits the partaking of a physician’s food. This resistance was overcome gradually; a section of the people started worshipping the Ashvins and others followed them and later they received their due share of the Soma libation.
The episode of Ashvins replacing the original head of Dadhyanc with that of a horse and finally putting back the original also betrays their human origins. If they had been gods they could have brought back the human head to Dadhyanc even after it was cut off by Indra. But the Ashvins did not do so. It is also possible to imagine that they had placed an artificial horse head, looking like a mask above the original head of Dadhyanc. So when Indra came and took off the head, it was the artificial horse head which stood over Dadhyanc’s original head that was removed.
The dual nature of the Ashvins may have been a later addition and that the Ashvins originally may have been only one. The circumstances that gave rise to the duality may have taken place in this way. The human Ashvin, after he was deified, became a divine being. So he appeared, first as a person who had a two fold – human and divine existence and then his two fold existence developed the conception of the Ashvins as two beings- a human Ashvin and a divine Ashvin.
Though works like Purvakaranagama, Suprabhedagama, Amshumadbhedhagama and Vishnudharmottara gives description of the images of the Ashvins, it is highly doubtful if ever they were sculptured and set up in temples, for at the present time we do not hear of the existence of such images anywhere in India as Svayampradhana deities. But their carvings as attendants of the Sun can be found on the same block of stones used for sculpturing of the image of the Sun.
Reference
Ganesh L Chandavarkar - Ashvins as Historical Figures, Journal of the University of Bombay, vol iii, part vi, May 1935
Jyotir Mitra – Ashvins, The twin celestial physicians and their medical skill, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol 45, 1984
T.A.Gopinatha Rao – Elements of Hindu Iconography, vol – 2, part 2, The Law Printing House, Madras, 1916
Sukumari Bhattacharji – The Indian Theogony, Firma KLM Private Ltd, Calcutta, 1978
No comments:
Post a Comment