Ashtangasamgraha 30

English (machine translation) 30

Language: English

30.1

Now we shall explain the chapter named "The Procedure of Smoking Therapy [dhūmapāna]".

Thus spoke Ātreya and the other great seers.

Thus spoke Ātreya and the other great seers.

Smoke is indeed administered to pacify disorders of vāta and kapha located above the clavicles, such as headache, pain in the eyes and ears, ophthalmia, heaviness, hemicrania, catarrh, cough, dyspnea, bad taste in the mouth, excessive salivation, loss of voice, foul smell from the nose and mouth, hiccough, throat disorders, toothache, weakness of teeth, anorexia, lockjaw, stiff neck, worms, itching, paleness of skin, hair disorders, loss or excess of sneezing, drowsiness, excessive sleep, and respiratory distress.

And likewise for nourishing and clarifying the head, skull, sense organs, and mind.

There, depleting therapy is indeed foremost at the beginning.

Moreover:

30.3

Even when made of cooling substances, because of heat through contact with fire, it is contrary to pitta and blood.

It is of three kinds:

pacifying, nourishing, and purifying;

likewise, cough-destroying, emetic, and wound-fumigating.

Among these, pacifying, habitual, and moderate are synonyms;

nourishing, unctuous, and mild [are synonyms];

and purifying, purgative, and sharp [are synonyms].

Considering the body, vitality, and other factors, depleting therapy should be performed.

30.4

Those unfit for smoking, however, are: one who has been purged, one given an enema, one who stayed awake at night, one with head trauma, one who has drunk honey, curd, milk, liquor, fat, barley gruel, poison, or milk, one who has eaten fish, those with anemia, urinary disorder, abdominal disease, tympanites, upward vāta, cataract, rohīṇikā, or bleeding disorder, and those afflicted with excessive heat, as well as others [of similar condition].

For smoking produces in these individuals dizziness, fever, burning in the head, injury to the sense organs, dryness of the palate, suppuration, sensation of smoky fumes, vomiting, fainting, bleeding disorder, facial paralysis, or even death.

And it does so if taken in excess even in others.

In those who are purified, wounds and swellings are pacified immediately.

30.5

There, observing pitta combined with either vāta or kapha, one should employ, according to the condition, ghee, decoction for drinking, nasal drops, mouth washes, collyrium, and sprinklings that are unctuous, dry, or cold.

By this, the treatments for complications caused by all kinds of smoke are explained.

Just as fire, when sprinkled with water, reaches pacification,

so the fire of the doṣas is swiftly pacified by applied pastes and the like.

30.6

Particularly, when the smoke enters all the bodily channels, there arise internal burning, tympanites, eye disease, dyspnea, cough, catarrh, exhaustion of the limbs and voice, and sour eructation.

There, one should use ghee, milk, sugarcane juice, grape juice, and sugar, and emesis with substances of that kind,

as well as nasal drops and gargles with pungent and bitter substances.

For thus the medicine remains properly,

and penetrates the hair follicles;

but it must not be ignored when drying, except when it is to be expressed [by compression].

For when dry, it increases burning, heat, redness, lividity, and pain.

30.7

The times for drinking the ordinary smoke are eight, ending after: night, urination, defecation, cleaning teeth, sudation, nasal drops, food, and surgical operations.

For mild [smoke], eleven, ending after:
sneezing, sexual intercourse, laughing, sitting for a long time, yawning, urination, defecation, cleaning teeth, nourishing treatments, ocular steaming, and surgical operations.

For sharp [smoke], five, ending after: nasal drops, collyrium, vomiting, bathing, and daytime sleep.

For in these times, the agitation of vāta and kapha takes place.

The paste, however, is either hot or cold, and thick, pacifying vāta and śleṣman; its application is on wounded and unwounded [parts].

That which is applied to wounds is largely called by the name of paste.

30.8

The pipe, made of the materials of an enema pipe, cow-tail shaped, having the circumference of the little finger and thumb at tip and base [respectively], having an orifice carrying a large black-gram and admitting the smoking stick, straight, three-chambered, smooth, having a loose probe inside, should be made forty, thirty-two, and twenty-four aṅgulas in length according to the patient's own finger measurement, sequentially for pacifying and the other types.

For the cough-curing and emetic types, ten aṅgulas.

For the purpose of wound-fumigation, eight aṅgulas, round like a pea, having an orifice carrying horse-gram.

For thus the smoke, starting from afar, rising beyond the segments of the pipe, and becoming thin, gradually adhering, does not cause injury.

They are as follows:

oleating, quenching, soothing, astringing, liquefying, ripening, compressing, cleansing, healing, and restoring normal color.

30.9

In the absence of a pipe for the cough-curing and other varieties, one should use any tube made of reed, bamboo, castor-plant, or the like.

In pitta, and in swelling predominantly of pitta, and when burned by poison, fire, or caustic alkali, the quenching [paste] with cold [drugs] is used.

That same one, when blood is inwardly vitiated, is the soothing one.

And that same one, upon excessive flow of blood, is called the astringing one.

When śleṣman and fat predominate, with cold drugs, and when unsuppurated, hardened, or knotted, the liquefying one is made with dry drugs.

And with those very ones, when suppurating, it is the ripening one.

On a wound with a narrow mouth, the compressing one is used with dry and slimy drugs.

On an unpurified [wound], the cleansing one is used with individually prescribed drugs.

On a purified one, the healing one.

And when healed, the color-restoring one.

Their very nature is declared by their names.

30.10

And according to each type, having taken a smooth paste of smoking ingredients the size of an akṣa seed, one should smear it on a reed twelve aṅgulas long that has spent a day and night in water.

There, making a stick having nine aṅgulas of core, smeared five times, as thick as the thumb, shaped like a barley grain in the middle, and dried in the shade, and removing the reed, smearing it with fat, lighting it on charcoal, and placing it into the hole at the base of the pipe, one should bring it near for smoking as appropriate.

Lest there be an increase of disorder from the non-emergence of heat covered by cold.

30.11

Now, the person fit for smoking, cheerful, seated upright, having previously inhaled and exhaled, with lips and teeth open, eyes fixed on the tip of the pipe, should close one nostril after another, draw in through the other, and discharge through the mouth.

Through the mouth, however, [one should draw in] only through the mouth,

not through the nose, for fear of injury to sight.

30.12

There, for the ordinary [smoke], two or three puffs each, and three turns.

When the doṣa is agitated above the throat, first through the nose, then through the mouth.

In the throat, however, first through the mouth.

And at the most, one should smoke twice in a day and night.

Even without paste, [the heat] escapes; therefore one should not apply paste at night.

30.13

For the unctuous smoke, three or four puffs each until the occurrence of tears, and once in a day and night.

For what is kept overnight becomes sour, and likewise the other loses its potency.

30.14

For the sharp smoke, only through both nostrils, four puffs each, or until lightness of the channels [occurs];

and three or four times in a day and night.

There, inhalation and exhalation are called a puff.

Particularly in the case of poison, one should remove blood using leeches and the like,

for the pacification of pain and to prevent suppuration.

30.15

For cough-curing [smoke], however, throwing powder or a pill into a well-placed earthen saucer filled with smokeless, burning, steady charcoals, covering it with another saucer that has a hole in the top, placing the pipe into that orifice, one should inhale the smoke through the mouth only;

and having reached the chest, one should expel it through the mouth only.

And when the smoke has ceased, one should throw [more medicine] in again.

And one should drink until purification of the doṣa or lightness [is felt].

One should apply thick pastes, sprinklings, and the like, with ghee, milk, and sugar.

30.16

Likewise, for emetic [smoking] also, one should smoke after drinking not overly thick khichdi.

Likewise also, one should fumigate a wound for clarity, and for pacifying moisture and pain.

A thick paste with abundant ghee is best for quenching swelling;

likewise a thick paste with sugar, parched barley meal, liquorice, and ghee.

Commentaries (1)

Śaśilekhā — Indu, Sanskrit

Linked texts (1)

Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha — Vāgbhaṭa, Sanskrit