The Compendium of Kāśyapa 8.10

Now begins the tenth chapter on the treatment of pregnant women. / Now we shall expound the chapter on the treatment of pregnant women,

as the venerable Kaśyapa spoke.

I shall explain in detail the subtle treatment of pregnant women, / so that both the foetus and the woman flourish and are also protected.

Fever among all diseases of pregnant women is grievous, O king; / scorched by the heat of fever, the foetus indeed undergoes deformation.

Therefore, first of all understand from me the treatment of fever. / From hunger, exertion, massage, dryness, heat, and suppression of raw [digestive waste],

from irregularities of unction, sweating, and medicines, and also of bodily fire, / from mental distress, and likewise from [the heat of] mountains,

and from the scent of grasses and flowers, fever arises in a pregnant woman. / One should make a pregnant woman afflicted with fever fast for one day.

Then one should give salt-free rice water, free of unctuous substances; / but sharp food and drinks, sweating, and physical exertion

a feverish woman should avoid; she should drink only barley gruel. / When the humour has diminished through barley gruel, one should have her given foods with vegetable broths.

When the humour has diminished through vegetable broths, the wise and intelligent [physician] / should have her given meat broth or milk; but the administration of strong medicaments is not beneficial.

However, if the humour persists and with due regard for the gestational stage, / from the fourth month onward the physician may administer medicaments.

Having recognized a bodily fever as arising from vāta, pitta, or kapha, / one should apply a moderate intervention, carefully weighing what is heavy and light.

Having recognized the strength of complications, examined mental constitution, / and known the stage of pregnancy, one should administer scraping therapies.

When thirst has arisen, she should not drink excessively hot water; / for in a fever arising from vāta and kapha, [cold] water acts like poison.

Now, in that caused by pitta, [water] boiled and cooled is praised; / boiled with well-stones and cooled, it destroys thirst.

This procedure is especially observed in acute fever; / but when the paroxysm is broken, [water] boiled with thirst-quelling herbs must be prepared.

Approaching each fever according as it is cold or otherwise: / in head-disease, the medicinal course should be performed properly; / when the entire paroxysm of fever is broken, heavy [food] is never praised.

In acute fever of a woman, body massage is not praised; / and applied during early pregnancy, it leads to the destruction of the foetus.

One should not instill nasal medication through the nose of pregnant women; / through the giving of errhines to a pregnant woman, her vital breaths are diminished,

or [the child] is born with a deformed arm, blind, or with weak sense faculties. / By the pregnant woman's smoking, severely damaged by the smoke and heat,

the foetus becomes discoloured or falls, O ruler of subjects. / In nasal purging of a pregnant woman, due to agitation or fright,

the vāta provoked in her body leads to the destruction of the foetus; / or else the foetus becomes afflicted with a vāta disease, O king.

Through sweating in early pregnancy, pitta, severely provoked, / quickly expels the foetus; therefore one must avoid sweating.

Sweating applied when [the foetus] is firm causes discolouration of the foetus. / Emesis in early pregnancy destroys the foetus by its inherent qualities,

especially because it compresses the navel and causes agitation. / Purgation is not praised in a pregnant woman during early pregnancy;

because of its heaviness, hotness, sharpness, and downward movement, it destroys it. / A non-unctuous enema is not praised for a woman in early pregnancy,

nor an unctuous enema, O wise one; this is the definitive conclusion of the treatises. / A non-unctuous enema accompanied by an unctuous enema, by its own energy,

renders the foetus deformed in limbs or aborted; this is the certainty. / Therefore, a wise man should not administer these to a pregnant woman.

The physician, discerning the particular stage of the disease, should prescribe these after reflection: / vidārigandhā, kalaśī, likewise castor,

liquorice, and deodar—a decoction [of these] combined with sugar, / flooded with citron juice, should be given to dispel vāta-fever.

The Vidārigandhādi group, boiled down and not too cold, / combined with deodar, is considered to dispel vāta-fever.

Castor, three-leaved caper, the two bṛhatīs, and liquorice— / this decoction, combined with a paste of rāsnā, dispels vāta-fever.

A decoction of the two pañcamūlas, lukewarm or cold, / combined with a paste of rāsnā, is considered beneficial in vāta-fever.

When food has been digested, thin rice water free from salt [should be given]. / Costus, with liquorice, rāsnā, hill kadamba,

dill, padmaka, Indian sarsaparilla, khus grass, blue water-lily, / nut grass, śṛgālavinnā, karavindī, and sweet flag,

payasyā, haṃsapādī, and likewise punnāga— / these, in the measure of a karṣa [each], one should grind with curd-whey.

Then the physician should boil a decoction of these parts; / and parts of Daśamūla should be made measuring two palas [each].

The physician should make half a pala of both balā and atibalā; / koraṇḍa, red horse-radish, and henna—these three

The portions of barley, jujube, and horsegram should be one prastha each. / Having boiled these down in a droṇa of water until an āḍhaka remains,

There one should add the pasty additive that was previously prepared, / milk, cow's urine, vāruṇī wine, and excellent curd,

Measured as one kuḍava each; the physician should combine [them] with sesame oil. / Having taken it down when cooked over fire, if it is slightly boiling,

With this warm oil he should smear all her limbs. / This destroys fever from vāta with just three applications of smearing.

This massage is duly praised when the fetus is stable. / Milk, milk gruel, or wild meat broth is wholesome,

Boiled with vāta-destroying medicines, always for a woman in chronic fever. / And then, in that caused by pitta, a decoction of the sārivā group,

Combined with sugar and honey, he should make her drink upon rising in the morning. / Payasyā, kṣīrakākolī, raisins, and licorice,

Combined with sugar and honey, is a cooling drink in fever due to pitta. / Blue water lily, payasyā, sārivā, licorice, honey,

Long peppers, black pepper, uśīra, lodhra, puffed rice, with sugar— / Combined with milk and churned with a churning stick, she should drink this.

A feverish pregnant woman quickly finds relief from pitta through this. / One should take the roots of reed and water cane, and roots of gundrā,

Sahā, sahadevā, eclipta, and pāṭalī, / and shoots of latex-bearing trees, as well as of rose-apple and mango,

Water lily, sārivā, uśīra, sandalwood, and lotus petals. / These, ground smooth, should become a cool poultice,

Combined with ghee, which removes fever from pitta and is nourishing for a woman. / One kuḍava of barley meal, and half a pala of madder;

One should cook one prastha of oil in a hundred prasthas of sour gruel. / This oil destroys burning fever and is praised as a remover of fever.

Now in fever from kapha, one should make the woman drink a cool decoction of rāsnā / combined with honey; so says Kaśyapa.

A decoction of deodar combined with rāsnā and honey, / or a decoction of sandalwood combined with long pepper and honey,

Boiled with rāsnā, vāsā, and amṛtā, should be drunk to destroy fever from kapha. / But a decoction of śrīparṇikā and amṛtā combined with honey,

Along with licorice, should be drunk in fever from kapha and pitta. / A decoction of the greater five roots in that from kapha and vāta,

Combined with paste of rāsnā, should be drunk in the morning; such is the rule. / A decoction of the vidārigandhā group, combined with sugar and honey,

Should be drunk in fever from vāta and pitta; so declared Kaśyapa. / In fever from pitta, a cold rice gruel, chebulic myrobalan, or milk,

And when chronic, soup cooked with chickpea and substances that remove pitta [is beneficial]. / But in fever from kapha, a pleasantly warm rice gruel is recommended for a woman,

Likewise mung bean soup, and radish juice. / And wholesome adaptation should especially be provided in this disease.

When [doshas are] combined, however, the wise physician should administer according to strength. / When originating from a combination of all three humours, pacification of the three humours is wholesome.

Now, listen to the treatment of a woman who is a wine-drinker, / in [fever] due to vāta, due to pitta, or due to kapha, O lord of people!

In fever he should give surā wine combined with half as much water to the woman. / Having scented her with surā wine, he should then administer the treatment:

With the broth of peas, mung beans, and cuccū, and of cucumber, / [or] with slightly sour broth, he should feed her light foods,

Devoid of salt and unctuous substances, soft and fragrant. / Once the disease is broken by diet, when wine has been ceased,

The beneficial procedure described above [applies] according to its own nature; so says Kaśyapa. / When diarrhoea arises in a pregnant woman, the treatment,

In that due to vāta, due to pitta, and due to kapha, will be expounded. / From incompatible foods, eating before digestion, indigestion, and likewise from excessive eating,

From fear, distress, physical injury, compression, excessive filling, depletion, / from raw tubers, roots, and fruits, from consuming polluted water,

From dryness, hunger, grief, heavy and channel-blocking foods, / and from the excess of the water element, diarrhoea arises.

When raw diarrhoea arises, one should administer digestive stimulants: / seeds of kuṭaja, nutgrass, and likewise pāṭhā,

Celery seeds, then turpentine pine, and auspicious ativiṣā— / this, ground with warm water, should be drunk in raw [diarrhoea] accompanied by kapha.

A portion of pāṭhā and sandalwood, and fruits of kuṭaja, / and excellent ativiṣā—this, ground with wholesome water,

Should be drunk in raw [diarrhoea] accompanied by pitta; so declared Kaśyapa. / Asafetida, rock salt, dry ginger, the two bṛhatīs, fruit of kuṭaja,

Likewise long pepper root, and excellent ativiṣā, O king— / this, ground with warm water, should be drunk in raw [diarrhoea] arising from vāta.

The [decoction] of the bṛhatī group should be drunk in that originating from a combination of all three humours. / In binding the ripe [stool], it is beneficial for all; such is the certainty.

In that from kapha, combined with honey and combined with rice water, / the ambaṣṭhā group should be drunk to arrest broken stools.

Or having ground kuṭaja fruit combined with honey, / dhātakī, black pepper, lodhra, kaṭvaṅga, and deodar,

Combined with rice water, destroys diarrhoea from kapha. / Or filaments of the lotus ground with rice water,

Combined with honey, a woman should drink to destroy diarrhoea from kapha. / But an extract of the nyagrodha group sweetened with honey

Is declared by the skilled to pacify diarrhoea from pitta. / Long pepper, dhātakī flower, licorice, unripe bael pulp,

Combined with sugar and honey, destroys the increase of pitta. / Lotus, samaṅgā, mango stone, licorice, lotus filaments,

Lodhra, and silk-cotton tree gum, combined with sugar and honey: / this formulation is prescribed to pacify diarrhoea from pitta.

The lesser five roots without castor, boiled, is wholesome; / combined with kālā and kaṭvaṅga, it destroys diarrhoea from vāta.

Lotus, samaṅgā, mango stone, bṛhatī, and unripe bael pulp, / ground smooth, one should drink with curd to destroy diarrhoea from vāta.

Long peppers, dhātakī, lotus, samaṅgā, and gum from the silk-cotton tree, / candied sugar, and kurchi seed, ground together, O best of kings,

Combined with rice water, is wholesome in [diarrhoea] from vāta with colic. / Nutgrass, unripe bael fruits, anantā, and likewise licorice,

Ground smooth, one should drink with curd, combined with clarified butter and jaggery, / properly for the relief of diarrhoea from vāta; so says Kaśyapa.

Long peppers, dhātakī, lodhra, samaṅgā, lotus filaments, / lotus, gum from the silk-cotton tree, bark of the trumpet flower tree,

And stamens: one should reduce these into fine powders. / Formed into an electuary with ghee, candied sugar, and honey, she should lick it.

This auspicious electuary destroys all kinds of diarrhoea. / Paste of kāśmarya root bark and likewise śyāmā root,

one should drink in gruel prepared with curd scum and a little clarified butter; / thus she who constantly suffers from dysentery attains well-being.

Kirātatikta, lodhra, and liquorice, / treacle, and sesame paste, combined with sugar and honey,

along with rice-water: this cures dysentery. / Pastes of kapittha, bilva, and māṣa, each equal to an akṣa,

likewise tender banana, and long pepper and ginger: / half a prastha of curd turned into a sour drink with spirituous molasses liquor,

taken together with clarified butter and honey, destroys chronic / dysentery in a woman whose food has digested, and increases her vitality and strength.

A decoction of bāṇa root combined with trapuṣī seeds, / mixed with sugar and honey, cures blood-diarrhoea.

Lotus, samaṅgā, liquorice, sandalwood, and lotus filament, / taken with milk and honey, cures blood-diarrhoea.

Black sesame, samaṅgā, liquorice, and blue lotus: / one should drink these with raw milk; it cures blood-diarrhoea.

Banana exudate, sesame, lodhra, blue lotus, and water-lily: / one should drink these mixed with milk; it cures blood-diarrhoea.

Payasyā, sandalwood, lodhra, and lotus filament: / she who suffers from blood-diarrhoea should drink these with milk mixed with honey.

As long as blood is expelled with difficulty and with pain in the rectum, / she should be fed with milk heated by throwing in heated stones;

then one should administer an unctuous enema with liquorice and clarified butter scum. / For a pregnant woman in whom vāta-type cutting rectal pain arises,

one should prepare a soup with bṛhatī, bilva, and anantā, and feed her. / In the pitta-type cutting rectal pain of a pregnant woman, this is beneficial:

liquorice, haṃsapādī, and vitunnaka: / one should have her drink these, well ground with rice-water and mixed with honey.

Now learn what should properly be done in the kapha-type [cutting rectal pain]: / kaṇṭakārī, gokhru, and aśvattha in equal parts,

seasoned with salt, one should give to eat and drink. / Śālaparṇī, pṛśniparṇī, bṛhatī, kaṇṭakārī, / bilva, agnimantha, śyonāka, kāśmarya, and pāṭalī:

preparing a rich soup [from these], one should give it to eat and to drink. / Now, if here a pregnant woman develops stomatitis,

Then he should have her hold a gargle of a decoction of turmeric and deodar cedar; / then using unctuous substance, and then there should be sugar-water.

Then having done so with water of lodhra, he should perform rubbing [on the gums]. / Then anantā, samaṅgā, ghṛṣī, and mocarasa—

she should eat together with honey; thereupon she becomes comfortable. / When convulsion arises, and likewise convulsive seizure,

citron juice combined with biḍa and rock salt should be drunk, / or a decoction of agnimantha, or boiled [decoction] of varuṇa.

Or the broth of quail or partridge, unctuous, is commended; / for drinking, a broth pacifying vāta, and also vādūla broth.

When [the disease] is uncomplicated [by other humours], this procedure bringing ease is to be performed; / but when it is afflicted by pitta, sweet meat-broth of wild animals is beneficial,

boiled with all the sweet herbs, and combined with sour pomegranate; / but in that arising from vāta and kapha, a pungent broth made sour,

combined with barley-alkali, of wild animals, is constantly beneficial. / Gentle hand-warmings are also beneficial, when free from pitta.

Or irrigation with medicated ghee should be performed, especially when the pregnancy is mature, / hot or cold, having properly diagnosed the disease.

Now hear the treatment of vomiting as it is being declared: / citron juice, parched grain, jujube pulp, and collyrium,

likewise pomegranate extract, sugar, and honey— / this electuary especially destroys vomiting of vāta origin.

Cooked juice of sour pomegranate, pleasing to the heart, devoid of salt, / relieves vomiting of vāta, O king, or well-seasoned buffalo meat-juice.

Combined with sugar and honey, mixed with powder of parched grain, / with paste of four aromatics, pleasing to the heart, fragrant with flowers,

beneficial in rice-washing water, pacifying vomiting of pitta. / Thin gruel made of parched grain, combined with sugar and honey, is beneficial;

or meat-broth of wild animals sweetened with sugar is wholesome. / Tender young sprouts of mango and jambu, boiled well with sugar,

combined with honey, should be drunk, especially in vomiting of kapha. / For meals, soup of green gram cooked with pomegranate extract is beneficial,

free from unctuous substance and salt, pleasing to the heart, destroying vomiting. / In that arising from a combination of all three humours, one should apply mixed [treatments].

In that caused by parasites, however, one should do what will be stated hereafter. / One should administer a decoction of the root of spreading hogweed with deodar cedar;

the woman should drink that combined with honey, along with the former, for swelling. / Long pepper, roots of aṅkoṭha, and horse dung juice,

buffalo curd—this is the treatment for jaundice. / Citron juice combined well with rock salt should be drunk;

it is definitely foremost in chest pain born of vāta. / Priyaṅgu, long pepper, bhadramustā, hareṇu,

honey, and powder of jujube she should drink when the heart is afflicted by pitta. / Paste and powder of long pepper, leaf, cinnamon, priyaṅgu,

and citron juice is an electuary for the heart afflicted by kapha. / Kulīraśṛṅgī, śaraṭa, bhārgī, and long pepper—

steeped in citron juice, is an electuary that destroys cough born of vāta. / Madhūlikā, cow’s milk, long pepper, and sugar,

combined with grapes and honey, is an electuary that destroys cough born of pitta. / Long pepper, triphalā, rāsnā, deodar cedar, with honey—

this electuary is proclaimed by the skilled to destroy cough born of kapha. / Licorice, conch powder, jīvalākṣā, and honey—

the electuary combined with sugar destroys cough caused by chest injury. / Feathers of a peacock, and [quills] of a porcupine and hedgehog,

rice grains of long pepper, and an equal part of jujube root, / powdered, one should lick with honey and clarified butter; it removes asthma and kapha.

Jaggery, rāsnā, long pepper, grapes, with black pepper, / turmeric, and equal parts of these powders, one should make her lick

with oil; it is revered in asthma, coughs, and bronchial asthma. / Or chebulic myrobalan and emblic myrobalan, with the skin of a hedgehog,

soot from inside the house, along with camel bone, one should make her lick with curd and oil. / Long pepper, emblic myrobalan, mustā, likewise treacle, sugar,

and chebulic myrobalan—these powders one should make her lick with honey and oil; / it is commended for pacifying all coughs and asthmas.

Deodar cedar, chebulic myrobalan, rock salt, and costus, / medicated ghee, and treacle—this electuary removes upward-moving vāta.

Long pepper, red ochre, bhārgī, asafoetida, and karkaṭakī / in equal parts makes an electuary pacifying hiccups for a woman.

Long pepper, root of long pepper, mustā, and tagara / with milk and honey serves as a digestive fire-kindler.

Śatāvarī, darbha root, licorice, kṣīramoraṭa, / pāṣāṇabheda, vetiver, and fruits of clearing nut tree—

their decoction, paste, or milk the physician should have her drink. / Kaśyapa says: this is proven in all cases of urinary retention.

The medicine for abdominal lump of vāta and lump of the vaginal tract / has been properly stated before in brief as treatment.

Especially in that of vāta, of pitta, and of kapha, / in the fourth month, one should perform this treatment for women:

with clarified butters, or food and drinks, with milk, or with sugarcane juice / mixed with emetic nut, one should induce vomiting properly—so says Kaśyapa.

Or with juice prepared with caturaṅgula, or with milk, / the wise physician should purge her who desires ease for herself.

Or with fried pūtīka leaves, or with flowers of vāṭyālaka, / she should drink sour gruel so that it does not become excessively violent in urge.

Afflicted with a disease of vāta, she should drink castor leaves with milk; / or when retention of vāta and urine or colic has arisen,

in the fifth month of the pregnant woman, a non-unctuous enema with distinct sour and salt is beneficial for the woman, / and a sweet unctuous enema.

For nodules and boils, and for swelling, O ruler of people, / in diphtheria or an abscess, especially in the sixth month, / the master of medical science should administer the appropriate severe medicine.

Alleviation of overgrown flesh, caustic therapy, cautery, / setting of fractured bone, and likewise surgical procedure—

in the seventh month one may apply all this to women. / A pregnant woman who is bitten by a snake or has drunk poison, O king,

the intervention should be vomiting and so forth, combined with antipoisonous measures. / Pāṭhā, amṛtā, somavalka, the two sahās, and kuṭaja—

boiled in milk, this is to be drunk by the woman, removing poison. / Siris, root of pāṭalī, and taṇḍulīyaka,

root of sinduvārita, and root of sahacara— / having decocted [these], one should prepare a small thin gruel destroying poison.

Food eaten with spiced curd broth and so on is also beneficial when applied skillfully. / And what is stated in the second section, that too one should carry out.

The pregnant woman who appears emaciated while being [properly] rested, / and whom fever assails: her fetus perishes.

She who eats exceedingly much and faints repeatedly: / the pregnancy of such a pregnant woman will miscarry, without doubt.

She whose eyes look like musta grass tubers, whose ears and feet are cold, / and whose hair is matted: her fetus perishes.

The fetus that remains above the navel, or occupies both flanks, / or stays in the middle in a woman: that fetus also perishes.

She who feels pain when joints are loosened, who has anorexia for delicate food, / and who desires inactive sleep: her fetus perishes.

She who has joint-swelling, tissue-suppuration, and whose gait becomes heavy: / the son born to her dies, there is no doubt in this.

Of a woman who grieves, wails, constantly broods, / and has the habit of cracking her knuckles, the son born does not live.

She whose milk is foul-smelling, and whose hair is matted / and dirty: the son born to her does not live.

She whose mouth has a putrid odour, and in whom colic arises, / or whom deep stupor assails, being afflicted by obstructed labour, does not live.

She who perceives fire to be like the neck of a peacock, / and whose feet and face are swollen, being afflicted by obstructed labour, does not live.

She who has flank-pain, thirst, loss of consciousness, / dyspnoea, and obstruction of bodily passages: she too does not live.

Stiffness of the hips, vaginal pain, a foul-smelling mouth, / loss of consciousness, or delirium in a pregnant woman: she does not live.

She whose nose is like a crow's, whose eyes droop, / and who smells like a bird: the fetus is delivered by surgical instruments.

She who smells of goats and horses, is pale, and craves peacock meat: / the fetus of this woman too, O king, is extracted by surgical instruments.

She who, clad in red garments, smeared with red unguent and wearing red garlands, / smiles while lying down, or ascends a cremation ground,

that pregnant woman, whether with obstructed labour or carrying a fetus, perishes. / She who, in a dream, mounts a donkey, a boar, a buffalo,

a dog, or a camel, / while carrying a fetus, perishes. / Ever bathed, cleansed, wearing white garments, pure,

devoted to gods and brahmins, gentle—such a pregnant woman should always be. / Bahuputrā, anantā, īśvarī, muditā,

brāhmī, sahadevā, indravāruṇī, / jīvaka, ṛṣabhaka, bhārgī, samaṅgā,

aerial roots, banyan sprouts, kapikacchū, / ariṣṭa, pūtanā, keśī, śatavīryā, O ruler of the earth,

and sahasravīryā: one should gather these under the asterism Rohiṇī, / compound them under Puṣya, and have them worn under the Uttara asterisms.

Having made an amulet of three threads, the pregnant woman should wear it on her hips; / once delivered, O king, she should have it placed on her head and wear it.

For a puerperal woman, especially, demon-destroying substances are beneficial. / Wherever in this work the symptoms of disorders such as fever

are described for food-eating children, that should be understood as applying to pregnant women as well. / Thus spoke the venerable Kaśyapa.

Thus ends the tenth chapter, titled 'Treatment of the Pregnant Woman', in the Supplementary Section.