Ashtangasamgraha 39.2

39.2

Caustic indeed, because it is produced from the combination of various medicinal substances, is the substrate of all tastes, predominantly pungent and salty in taste, sharp, hot, burning, cooking, tearing open, liquefying, cleansing, healing, and destructive of worms, ama, fat, and poison; and it is the best of all instruments and accessory instruments, since it performs excision, incision, splitting, scraping, and so forth; and in nasal piles, tumors, and the like arising in confined spaces where instruments are difficult to apply, and in vitiated wounds that cannot be cured by the knife and frequently flare up, it is employed. / It is of two kinds, by way of the division into external application and internal administration. / And in both cases, one should properly remove the doṣas, especially by purgation; / but in one unsuited for that, [one should remove them] when excessively elevated by non-unctuous enema.