The Compendium of Bheḷa 3.4

Having reflected, having inspected, and having questioned, the physician should examine the patient; / first comes the diagnosis of the disease, and after that the treatment.

Having looked at the form, complexion, and build before disease and when diseased, / the physician should examine both what is natural and what is morbid.

The regularity or irregularity of fever, or whether the body is smooth or rough— / having seen and touched, he should indeed ascertain coldness and heat with his hand;

the customary conduct of the parents, what is wholesome, the pregnancy cravings of the mother, / the time and transformation of the disease, discoloration of feces and urine,

the onset of premonitory symptoms, the body, digestive fire, age, and strength, / the constitution, the place of birth, and customary diet,

practice of physical exercise, wholesomeness, and proper and improper quantity in eating— / these and whatever else is of that kind he should learn through questions spoken.

Some sages here wish for one predominant doṣa; / because the disorder is not distinct, and that cause is undesirable.

The man who cannot tolerate dryness is remembered as wind-constitution; / one of bile [constitution] tolerates water; and from phlegm one cannot tolerate sweet and sour.

For this acquisition of qualities arises from nature and is produced simultaneously [at birth]; / one should know it indeed as constitution; I shall describe its characteristics.

The unmanifest, the great [intellect], and the five great elements: / the supreme original principles are seven, along with inherent nature and time.

From them beings arise, and to them alone they return; / the sense faculties, the objects of the senses, and the five intellects likewise.

When at the fertile period a woman resorts to dry foods, / and likewise here, when upward movement of wind [occurs], she engages excessively in activity,

then the blood situated in the womb, thus vitiated by wind, / when it enters into union with semen of the same kind,

then, by the semen and blood vitiated by wind, / the embryo arrives at a wind-constitution from its prior embodied state.

In the very same way, for a woman resorting at the fertile period to [foods] of phlegm or bile, / a phlegmatic or biliary constitution is born therefrom.

Short, swift, lean, small, talkative, fond of harsh things, / stiff-limbed, disjointed, having constancy [only] in a group among group members,

enduring of hardship, trusting, dry-skinned, unsteady, / having rough head-hair and body-hair, grasping quickly—thus is he remembered.

And in dreams he comes on a camel or travels in the sky; / he for whom very unctuous [substances] are wholesome—that man is of wind-constitution.

Loose-limbed, smelling of agallochum, fierce, swift, a big eater, / with wrinkles, premature graying, and baldness, quick in digestion, impatient,

round-eyed, irascible, weak, with weak sense organs, / not eating sours, eating cold things when cold, having few offspring, fond of cool things,

with excessive complexion, highly intelligent, seeing fire in dreams, / drying quickly when bathed—[such] a man is of biliary constitution.

Very unctuous, smooth- and compact-limbed, fortunate, pleasant to look upon, / of firm memory, slow to comprehend, devoted to steadfast loyalty,

fond of meat, warm, and pungent things, fond of women, generous, / forgiving, strong, fortunate, sensitive to cold, fond of eating,

slow to develop severe disease, of measured speech, eating little, / far-sighted, very energetic, resolute, and enduring hardship,

with abundant and firmly rooted body-hair, teeth, nails, and head-hair, / drying slowly when bathed, and seeing water in dreams,

and who tolerates dryness—that man is of phlegm-constitution. / One should recognize a combined constitution also by the combined signs.

A single [dosha-balanced] constitution is fortunate; a dual one is middling; / but that which consists of all three doshas is said to be the lowest. Thus said the venerable Ātreya. / Thus the fourth chapter in Bheḷa. / Fifth chapter. Now we shall explain the chapter on the appearance of the diseased, thus said the venerable Ātreya.