The Compendium of Kāśyapa 8.2

Now we shall expound the chapter entitled 'Teaching on Specifics'.

Thus spoke the venerable Kaśyapa.

To the great sage, the aged Kaśyapa, who had crossed to the far shore of the Vedas and Vedāṅgas, / seated comfortably and unhurried, Vṛddhajīvaka asked:

"Of intermittent fevers, with their distinctions and in detail, / whatever was properly and fully taught by you should be stated from the beginning.

Also in general for all fevers, O free from fever, / you ought to declare completely the remainder beyond this."

Thus impelled, Prajāpati [Kaśyapa] uttered these words:
"What was stated in summary and what beneficial [matter] was not stated,

concerning fevers and the feverish, I shall declare that again: listen! / In the order of stages, indications, concise accounts, and specific treatments:

Medicament administered at the inappropriate stage, even if suitable, / produces no benefit whatsoever, but tends solely toward aggravation of humours.

Employed at its proper stage, it proves to be like nectar. / In fever arisen from external wind, physical trauma, anger, grief, fear, emaciation,

exhaustion, assault by seizing spirits, and suppression of natural urges, / one should not administer emesis to the creature.

If employed, it quickly produces severe fever accompanied by complications. / But in fever arisen from over-filling, one should resort to [treatment] without improper measure.

When the humour is excessively increased and likewise stirred up, / the physician should promptly induce vomiting out of fear of fever from combined humours.

Once he has vomited, one should then treat him with the regimen beginning with fasting. / And immediately following emesis, one should perform head-cleansing for him.

Thereby headache and heaviness quickly subside, / obstruction of the eyes and other senses ceases, and anorexia disappears.

Even in chronic fever, one should administer in these disorders: / a strong measure when there are abundant humours, a middling one when humours are moderate,

and when fever has slight humours, a gentle therapy should be performed by the discerning [physician]. / When especially in a disease its own characteristics appear completely

severe, and one observes distress of the body, / then one should know it to have abundant humours; otherwise, to have slight humours.

Likewise, when these are of middling strength, one should determine it to have moderate humours. / Obstruction, anorexia, thirst, fainting, aching of limbs, headache,

delirium, lethargy, nausea, stupor, burning sensation, fatigue, dizziness, / excessive urination, lassitude, and non-digestion of faeces,

nausea, and heaviness of the digestive tract: one should state these to be the signs in unripe fever. / Upon the cessation of these for the most part, when softness of the fever has arisen,

and lightness, and at the end of eight nights, one should declare it to be fever free from raw toxins. / The body heat may be perceived upon touch, and from that moment attains softness;

there is internal lightness, energy, digestion of humours, clarity [of senses], / and moderation of thirst and other [symptoms], when the fever has moved into the external channels.

In that condition, one should administer oil massages, poultices, and affusions. / A patient whose humours, whether undigested or digested, have not been eliminated,

and whose disease does not subside, and who has neither energy nor lightness, / nor excessive lassitude and emaciation, and no appetite for food,

in an unprotracted period, is one weakened by humours. / By the contrary of this, the person would be one weakened by medicine.

In one weakened by humours, one should properly bring about the pacification of undigested humours / by digestive drugs, and of digested ones by purgatives.

In the other case, nourishment of strength is desired with due regard to the disease. / When humours are suddenly excited and fresh,

whether strong or weak, preserving righteousness and renown, / one should never administer an astringent decoction or medicament.

Just as in autumn a weak front enclosure cannot withstand / the force of two great, enraged, collided elephants,

so the afflicted body of a person cannot endure the strength / of both those two powerful, agitated entities—the humour and the medicine.

The humours nourish the weak [illness], and the astringent suppresses them from this; / further increased, they swiftly destroy the life-breaths of the embodied being.

Or, thrown into agitation by the astringent, they cause prolonged distress. / When the humours have their force broken according to rule by fasting and other means,

medicament administered at the proper time will lead to the pacification of the disorder. / Fasting, fomentation, three kinds of gruel endowed with digestive stimulants, / three kinds of cooked rice, soup, decoctions of three kinds of tastes,

clarified butter, massage, enema, poultice along with bath: / this regimen beginning with fasting is declared to destroy fever.

The humours are digested in the seven bodily tissues in the course of seven nights; / therefore on the seventh day one should prescribe a digestive decoction.

Beyond that, according to the stage, a pacifying or mildly purgative [measure is given]. / Because of slight heat, stability, and heaviness, kapha-fever

attains full digestion only after a long time; therefore its regimen of medicine / is prescribed after eight days or according to its stage of digestion.

Thereby the remainder after digestion is quickly cooked, and the digestive fire is kindled; / and through digestion of humours and kindling of the digestive fire, the reduction of fever is certain.

Here one should administer meat broths processed with unctuous substances combined with those [drugs]; / then one should perform pacification to subdue the remnant of the disease,

in order to clarify the bodily tissues and to replenish strength; / and here drying therapy is employed in accordance with the habitat, the humours, the digestive fire, wholesome adaptation, and the season.

For three days, or four days, not in excess beyond that, / clarified butter that removes fever should be given to the feverish patient on account of dryness.

By this the fevered person is extinguished, like a burning house by water; / clarified butter pacifies pitta through its coldness, and vāta through its unctuousness.

Even having qualities similar [to kapha], it overcomes kapha through processing. / If, however, due to an abundance of humours, even when pacification has been performed,

heaviness in the colon and a sense of torpor are observed, / [as well as] sweating, discolouration of the faeces and urine, and a lack of desire for food,

one should administer purgation to him when he has been unctuated and his body has become lean. / When there is colic located in the colon, stiffness in the flanks, back, and hips,

and obstruction of vāta, faeces, and urine, an unctuous enema with an evacuating enema [is prescribed]; / and when the fever has moved into the external pathway, massage and the like are desired.

If a man of vāta constitution should get a fever born of vāta / in a season of vāta constitution, that [fever] of threefold confluence is difficult to cure.

Likewise for a person of pitta constitution and one of kapha constitution; / [whereas] fevers and the like belonging to opposite constitutions are easy to cure.

All diseases involving one, two, or three constitutions / are generally easy, difficult, or incurable respectively.

When the humours are stirred up, a threefold action is determined: / purification, pacification, and pacification-purification.

Among these, for men who are strong, possessed of good digestive fire, good, / and suffering from diseases with acute onset, a purifying medicament is beneficial.

For strong individuals who have slight humours, whose disorders are not excessively advanced, / and who cannot tolerate great suffering, pacification is said to be beneficial.

Likewise, for weak persons with moderate humours / who are afflicted by strong diseases, pacification-purification is beneficial.

A substance that expels humours upward, downward, and in both directions, / because of having diverse potencies, is recorded as purification.

That substance which expels neither downward nor upward, yet pacifies humours / and does not possess ferocious qualities and potency, they know as pacification.

A substance which does not excessively purify humours, and also pacifies them, / endowed there with moderate strength, is pacification-purification.

Daśamūla, śaṭī, rāsnā, vayasyā, pañcakola, / śārṅgeṣṭā, rohiṇī, pāṭhā, sarala, devadāru, / mustā, amṛtā, vṛścikālī, karkaṭā, durālabhā,

trāyantī, and the like: one should designate these as pacifying. / Sweet flag, kośātakī, neem, long pepper, the fruit of kuṭaja,

the two alkalis, along with cow urine, madana, the salts, / triphalā, āragvadha, dantī, nīlinī, saptalā, trivṛt,

and whatever other substance of this kind [there is], is called purifying. / Kāśmarya, āmalaka, grape, śītapākī, parūṣaka,

licorice, long pepper root, viḍaṅga, asafoetida, rock salt, / pāṭhā, ajagandhā, ativiṣā, pathyā, mustā, the three pungents,

rohiṇī, and the like would be a pacifying-purifying substance. / This threefold action has been designated for the subduing of humours;

and when humours are subdued, clarity arises in the bodily tissues, / and unobstructed function [occurs] in all waste passages.

Therefore, when the humours, bodily tissues, and wastes are established in their respective functions, / health arises for mortals; ill-health [occurs] when the opposite is true.

When, through proper diet and activities, wholesome adaptation is maintained as described, / the discerning physician should protect those [factors]—the humours and the rest—that are in equilibrium;

pacifying those that are provoked, increasing those that are depleted, / and reducing those that are increased: this alone is treatment.

Having carefully weighed their singleness or multiplicity, stage, increase and decrease, / as well as the strength and weakness of the humours and of the patients,

and having properly understood medicaments, which are distinct in name and form, / their tastes, qualities, potencies, and post-digestive transformations in their true nature,

having ascertained the habitat, the time, the procedure, the dosage, and the disease itself, / the physician must administer treatment without negligence.

Those formulations that have been specified for each respective treatment / are to be employed exactly in that way; there is to be no hesitation concerning them.

For indeed, who can know the combined action / of the diverse substances prescribed by seers of truth when united into one?

One substance is of one taste, another differs in quality, / another differs in potency, and another should be known [to differ] in post-digestive transformation;

yet, arriving at unity in application, it is not conflicting, / and in accordance with the objective, a different composite quality arises;

just as, although scents are individually established, another distinct fragrance / of scent ingredients, such as delightful perfume, is perceptible as an inherent combination.

Therefore, with respect to additions and subtractions in the formulations of the ṛṣis, / one should not act negligently without discerning the strength and weakness of the humours and the medicaments.

Having observed age, the strength of the body and of the digestive fire, the intelligent physician / should determine the dosage here according to superior, inferior, and middling grades.

Thus has this specific rule in the management of fevers been taught,
knowing which one will not be bewildered in various tasks.

Thus spoke the venerable Kaśyapa.

Thus ends the second chapter, titled 'Explanation of Specific Rules', in the Supplementary Section.