Somatic Lessons: Narrating Patienthood and Illness in Indian Medical Literature by Anthony Cerulli (review)

In this beautifully produced book the author discusses mythological narratives in the major medical compendia that describe the origins of various ailments: fever, miscarriage, wasting disease. Thus the first occurrence of fever, that is, the creation of fever, is attributed to Rudra’s wrath when he was slighted by Dakṣsa Prajāpati. It now occurs in humans at the moments of birth and death and when they act improperly. Miscarriage is the consequence of demons taking refuge in women’s bodies and being destroyed by a divinely appointed “embryo taker.” The women had unwittingly invited the demons by improper behavior such as disrespect toward gods, cows, and Brahmins and the love of meat, sleep, and sex. All miscarried fetuses are demons! The wasting disease (rāja-yak. sman, well known from Raghuvaṃśa XIX 50) is caused by “performing actions beyond one’s abilities, suppression of natural urges, drying up, and irregular diet.” In most instances the relation between the ethical lapse and the illness is not specific. However, these stories play only a minor role in physicians’ treatment of the patients (prayer to Rudra is recommended in the case of fever). They illustrate physicians’ religious and cultural attitudes that they bring to their practice and perhaps try to impose on their patients, namely, that disease is ultimately caused by some ethical deficiency or disregard of the dharma (“law,” “righteousness,” or, as I prefer, “functional identity”) as laid down in religious literature. One is reminded of the reaction to Black Death in the Middle Ages or the more recent attitude toward AIDS, as these diseases were considered divine punishment for sinful behavior. The myths suggest the reasons why a person is stricken by a disease, while the theory of the dṣa-s and dhātu-s deals with the mechanics of the illness and its eventual cure. The seventeenth-century allegorical drama Jīv ānandam tries to tie medical and political theory and ethics into an entertaining and educational performance that highlights the insight that one’s health is intimately linked with the surrounding society and one’s role in it.

The book is often repetitive and overwritten, with expressions like “rationative concern” (p. 41), “concurrently coincidental” (p. 86), “narrativization” (p. 94), “manipulability” (p. 101), “taxonomize” (p. 177n5), and the pretentious “astrophysical” (p. 112) for simple “astronomical.” Strange is the use of “the gender dyad” (p. 97) meaning “men and women” and “elided these renderings” (p. 106). When a myth is referred to in another chapter, it is called a “minimyth” (pp. 55 and 57) rather than a reference or quote. It is questionable if Caraka really redefined the karma theory as having an effect in this life (rather than after death), since the notion is also found in Manu IV 156/157 and other law texts as well as Buddhist texts (p. 71).

While the author is correct that one should not take Ayurveda as a “strictly scientific” system of medicine divorced from both social and environmental factors or the cultural context of the people’s lives, he overstates, I think, the role the myths play (p. 159) in the actual daily practice of the vaidyas as he himself seems to indicate elsewhere (p. 8).