ABSTRACT
Some people say pregnant women smell sweet, like a melon, and that is why they attract evil spirits.1
Introduction
In the classical tradition of Indian medicine, called ayurveda in Sanskrit, disease is seen as being caused by several agencies, including the supernatural. The question of disease etiology in ayurveda is of great interest, and is far from simple. One of the central etiological ideas in ayurveda is the 'crime against wisdom' (prajfiaparadha), the idea that we fall ill through - to put it at its mildest -lapses of judgement. At its strongest, the idea proposed in the ancient medical compendia is that the immutable law of karma punishes us with disease for past abrogations of our integrity.2 In the present essay I shall discuss some of the issues surrounding demonic possession viewed as medical punishment. There is a great deal about this topic in the classical treatises on ayurveda, and it is treated by both ancient and medieval authors as an important part of the classical tradition of medicine.
