LESLIE HAMILTON SHIRLAW 5
pupil's head in case of any infringement of the compact. The Aśvins anxious
to learn the science hit upon the following plan. They, undertaking to pre
serve him from the wrath of Indra, prevailed on the sage to communicate
his knowledge. Then, with his consent, they took off his head and replaced
it with that of a horse and acquired the wished-for knowledge. Indra, when
he learnt that Dadhyanchi had broken the contract, struck off the sage's
equine head. The Aśvins then rejoined the original head that had been care
fully preserved ' (Gondial). It appears moreover that the economically
minded sage did not waste the horse's head but used it to give practical de
monstrations of his teaching.
References to the actual veterinary skill of the Asvins, are, however, neither
detailed nor very convincing. The Rigveda mentions only two achievements.
' You filled the milkless, barren and emaciated cow of Sayu with milk ', and
' You gave to Vispala a leg.' Macdonell and Keith identify Vispala as a mare
provided with an iron leg, after breaking her own in a race, but maintain that
this is not proof of the Vedic Indian's surgical skill. The gods were recognized
as possessing supernatural powers, Indra once sportively making a mare
bring forth a calf.
The Aśvins did, however, succeed in handing on their ' flair ' for veterinary
science to their natural born sons by Madri, the second wife of Pandu, the
fourth and fifth Pandava princes, Nakula and Sahadeva. These two were
devotedly attached to the profession of their parents, Nakula learning the art
of training and managing horses, while in the Birat Parva, Sahadeva speaks
of his scientific knowledge of cows. In the Brahmavaivarta Purana, two veter
inary books by these brothers are mentioned, Vaidyaka Sarasva by Nakula
and Vyadhi-Sindhu-Vimardana by Sahadeva. Neither of these works is now
extant, but several manuscripts of a writing called 'Asvacikitsita' ascribed to
Nakula are to be found today and this work, edited by Umesh Chandra Gupta
Kaviratna, is printed in the Bibliotheca Indica (1887). According to Mitra,
the language is ' archaic and enigmatical '.
To one other human is attributed the knowledge of ' everything regarding
horses ', to Nala, a remote ancestor of the Pandavas. Whence he acquired this
knowledge is not clear, but he, like the two youngest Pandu princes, turned it
to good account during his exile, when he became horse trainer to the King of
Ayodhya. A manuscript purporting to be his work is mentioned by Bhandar¬
kar in his ' List of Manuscripts in Private Libraries in Bombay Presidency '.
On the evidence of this legend, Sarkar claims that ' veterinary science seems
to have been highly cultivated long before the Epic period (1000 B.C.) '
The specialization of veterinary knowledge noticed in the Epics by divi
sion under three main heads, that of horses, of cattle and of elephants, is
further amplified when one turns to the mythological origins of the works of
the great masters. The Sâlihotraśastra opens with the story of how Indra,
unable to control his winged horses, requested the great sage, S'álihotra, to
lop off their wings. This done, the poor, suffering animals waited in deputation
upon the powerful rishi, who had reduced them to this plight. Then, moved
with compassion, as he himself puts it, ' out of kindness to the equine race,
I performed austerities and learned the science of their treatment from Brahma
himself ' and he thereupon composed a treatise on equine medicine.
B