Why is there no description of a pandemic in the Vedic scriptures?

Are pandemics described in our scriptures?

There are a few points to consider here.

First, the Vedic texts do not provide an exhaustive, chronological history. Instead, they offer a purposeful account of history—selecting events that illustrate how humanity rose in morality and spirituality. For example, they describe times when the divine descended or when virtuous people acted in special ways. So, they are not meant to document every historical event. Therefore, pandemics may have occurred but might not be mentioned because they did not serve a specific spiritual purpose in the texts.

Second, it is important to understand that diseases do not occur in a vacuum. The famous medical scientist René Dubos, in his book “Health and the Future of Illusion,” explains that while scientific advances may have eliminated diseases like smallpox or the Black Plague, diseases arise because of certain socioeconomic and cultural conditions. When these conditions change, diseases also decline.

For example, the plague was spread by rats. As human society urbanized and agriculture shifted to agribusiness, rats became less prevalent, so rat-borne diseases became less common. Thus, while the principle of disease is constant in human history, the specific diseases we face arise due to socioeconomic, cultural, and political factors.

Third, even if pandemics like the current one occurred in the past, today’s global connectedness—through trade, tourism, and immigration—allows diseases to spread much faster. For example, the Black Plague spread across continents centuries ago because of traders and political conquests, but it was slower due to less interconnectedness. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly worldwide because of unprecedented global connectivity.

So, the scale and speed of this pandemic are direct results of today’s socioeconomic realities. In different times and places, there were health crises, but their forms and impacts varied according to local conditions.

Fourth, our human memory and historical records are limited. Apart from scriptures, how complete are our historical archives? For example, the Saraswati River, long considered mythological in Indian history, was recently confirmed by archaeological research to have existed as a large river. Remnants of ancient houses along the now-dry riverbed show that civilizations lived there long ago.

This example illustrates that archaeological research in India is still developing, and future discoveries may reveal more about past health calamities, epidemics, or pandemics. Similarly, lost historical documents may yet come to light.

From a historical perspective, it is remarkable that Vedic culture has survived nearly a thousand years of aggression, vandalism, and persecution. India’s tropical climate means that the original palm-leaf manuscripts deteriorated quickly, and with invasions and lack of patronage, many texts were lost or damaged. Still, we have a significant body of scriptures today.

Commentators like Madhvacharya and Jiva Goswami estimate that what remains is only about 1 to 5 percent of the original vast Vedic corpus. So it is possible that descriptions of pandemics or similar calamities existed in the lost portions of the texts.