Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/408

304 naturally and spontaneously expiring) is called natural, while the rest are unnatural or traumatic in their origin. Physicians conversant with the curative virtues of drugs and minerals, and priests well versed in the Vedic Mantras, should jointly protect the king from death, whether due to idiopathic (Doshaja) or extrinsic causes.

The god Brahma disclosed to the world the Atharva Veda together with the eight allied branches of Vedic literature and the science of medicine. And since a priest (Brahmana) is well-versed in the aforesaid branches of study, a physician should act subserviently and occupy a subordinate position to the priest. The death of a king usually leads to a political revolution or to popular disturbances and brings about a confusion among the vocations of the different orders of society. The growth of population markedly suffers through such catastrophies.

As the external features of a king resemble those of a common person, while his (king's) commanding majesty, sacrifice, forbearance and fortune are super-human (in their nature and intensity), therefore a man should, who is prudent and seeks his own good, think reverentially of his king, and propitiate him with tokens of loyalty and allegiance as if he were a deity. A physician, fully equipped with a supply of medicine, should live in a camp not remote from the royal