The Compendium of Bheḷa 4.4

"Here indeed, sir, man comes from food. His diseases are born of chyle. That is to say: this man is born of chyle, lives by chyle, is kindled by chyle, has chyle as his foremost balance, and has chyle as his livelihood. From the improper use or wrongful use of tastes, he encounters their disorders. No one becomes healthy through wrongful use, indigestion, or unwholesome eating."

"Now, on this point a question arises: what indeed digests his food here—wind, bile, phlegm, or an after-drink?" "No," said the venerable Punarvasu Ātreya. "If these were the causes of digestion, then no one here would have weak fire, because wind and the others are present, and because of [the presence of] an after-drink. Rather, his bodily warmth and fiery energy digest the food dwelling in the body. One should know them as the body-fire."

Thereupon Bheḷa said this to Ātreya: "Venerable sir! Those bodily [fires/pittas] that are taught as fivefold, according to the division into ālocaka, rañjaka, bhrājaka, sādhaka, and pācaka—how does the distinction between these that bear five names arise?"

On this, the venerable Ātreya said: Among them, that called ālocaka is developed by rain, cold, and heat. It is of two kinds: ocularly specific and intellectually specific. The ocularly specific is that which, having stimulated the knowledge born of the contact between the self and the mind, and having brought the intellect to bear on the mind, produces ocular discrimination for the purpose of manifesting the form of each one, or two, or three, or all presented together, of the higher and lower flowers, fruits, and leaves, by means of the marks, shapes, forms, colors, and sounds of the four kinds of living beings—sweat-born, egg-born, sprout-born, and womb-born.

The intellectually specific is that which, situated at the junction between the eyebrows, grasps very subtle internal objects by means of knowledge, and reveals the knowable and knowledge for the sake of the isolation of all that is knowable. Therefore, having known the knowable through knowledge, it grasps knowledge. What has been grasped, it retains; what has been retained, it recalls; it remembers the past, and having made sense of the present, desires the future; and no sooner born, one craves the mother's breast, its nature untaught. And through application in meditation and withdrawal of the senses, it produces intellectual discrimination.

Among them, that called bhrājaka is indeed that which procures one's bodily appearance and marks, displays preeminence, and produces the distinctive excellence of luster and growth of the head, hands, feet, flanks, back, belly, shanks, mouth, nails, eyes, and hair; it is bhrājaka because it illuminates.

Through its sovereignty, or through the power of the senses, or through the state of intellect and egoity, it establishes what is accomplished by the self from among the sense objects according to what is desired. From the eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin, speech, hands, feet, anus, and genitals, it produces coloring toward one another among all objects of sense that are colored by their inherent nature. And entering internally within the seat of pitta, it produces coloration; hence it is [called] rañjaka.

That called sādhaka is that which, with respect to sound, touch, and smell, to wealth and pleasure, to gods, ancestors, and sages, and aiming at the highest good among the objects of both this world and the next, attains all things and accomplishes them by its own formulation; hence it is [called] sādhaka.

That called pācaka digests the mass of food that has been eaten, drunk, licked, and chewed, once its potency is released; hence it is [called] pācaka. It satisfies and delights its own fire according to its desire.

And on this there are [these verses]: / That which swiftly consumes the food of all embodied beings, / having its cause in apāna [wind] and wine (?), is taught as the body-fire.

Perceivable by its radiance, conjoined with it, eternal to the living being here: / in the middle of the body's navel, the lunar orb is to be recognized.

Situated within the lunar orb, one should know that solar orb; / and like a lamp, within it is the fire of men.

The meal eaten by embodied beings, seasoned with various dishes, / just as the sun standing in the sky, endowed with fiery energy by its rays,

dries up all pools and waters, / just so the stomach-fire situated in the navel of embodied beings [digests] what is eaten.

With its rays it swiftly takes [it] up, just as the sun-crystal gem / quickly and thoroughly burns cow dung and wood.

In large-bodied creatures it measures a barley corn; / in small-bodied creatures it measures a truṭi;

in worms, insects, and moths it stands the measure of a breath of air. / He who would treat it when failing through disease in embodied beings,

by means of the practice of Ayurveda, is indeed a physician of the body. / The chyle, and the blood, and also fat and flesh,

in extreme fasting of men, it consumes all these. / The entire world, stationary and moving, is of the nature of fire and soma;

all embodied beings are fourfold, composed of fire and soma. / All are composed of the sun and likewise composed of the moon.

In extreme fasting of men, it therefore does not consume the entrails. / The stomach-fire, produced from water, together with wind,

burns bright in the belly of men, or when fueled with firewood. / Just as a lamp placed in a bottle-gourd shell in still water

remains burning in darkness, but not so in moving water, / even so in the belly of embodied beings, through morbid variation again and again,

the fire attains irregularity when overloaded again and again. / And it must certainly be guarded with effort when impaired, from the observation of faults: / one vomits, is purged, and meets with disease.

Such a person dies without reaching his proper time. For the lifespan of man is a hundred years, and in order to attain it, one must be one who follows a diet that is digested, light, and wholesome.

On this he asked: Why is it that a person with alasa or viṣūcikā immediately becomes free from disease, while another dies? On this he said: Disturbed by eating over indigestion in an unctuous-depleted person, wind, bile, and phlegm do not move normally upwards or downwards; due to them being aggravated there, he dies immediately. But disturbed by eating over indigestion in an unctuous person, wind and the others, moving normally upwards or downwards, distribute into their own parts of the body; through them, he immediately becomes free from disease there.

Now, what are the ten internal cavities and the ten external attributes? They are as follows: the two eyes, the two nostrils, the two ears, the throat-channel, anus, penis, and channels of wind—these are the ten internal cavities. Ten vessels are attached to the heart. At their origin, having gone the measure of four finger-breadths, they become twenty. Thus these ten vessels become sixty. In that regard, there are three hundred and sixty networks of channels. Just as a tree covered with branches extends everywhere with fruits and leaves, just as […] is covered with stones, so is this [body] pervaded with channels. For in every hair-follicle is an opening of a channel, from which sweat flows.

On this he asked: Why does this person not have epilepsy continuously? On this it is said: Just as aquatic creatures appear at the rising of rivers, or diminish at their diminution, whenever they reach the surge of chyle, then they produce epilepsy. Therefore, they suffer from epilepsy after two days, three days, a fortnight, or an interval of a month.

Some say he is stricken by a demon, but that is incorrect. For if it were so, blows and the like would be seen on the man's body. And therefore it is not so. If one says he is possessed by a vetāla, that too is unproven. For their minds contemplate meritorious things. And if it ever happens thus, therefore that alone is to be recited: if one says he is stricken by chyle, it is just so. At the time of the distribution of chyle, tertian and quartan fevers are also seen. For is not this meaning well-settled?

On this he asked: What indeed is formed first in this fetus? Baḍiśa says the hands and the feet, because the body is supported by them. Śaunaka says the anus afterward, because the wind resides there. Khaṇḍakāpya says the navel, because the channels are rooted there. Parāśara says the heart, because it is the root of those things rooted in consciousness. Bharadvāja says the head, because the body is rooted in it. Kāśyapa says the eye. The venerable Punarvasu Ātreya said: No. Therefore, an arbuda alone is formed first in it. In that, all the bodily regions are formed, produced from the unctuous substance of the arbuda.

On this he asked: Does the fetus residing in the mother's womb eat or not? On this it is said: It does not eat. For if it ate, it would have feces whose time has passed, and this is not the case. How then? A vessel is attached to the navel, and another to it is connected to the mother's heart; through it, carrying the mother's food-juice, it nourishes and enlarges the fetus. Just as watercourses flowing toward a field saturate it, even so.

On this he asked: How does the fetus stay in the mother's belly? Śaunaka said: Upright. Bharadvāja said: Head downwards. The venerable Punarvasu Ātreya said: No. If it stood upright, it would be a slayer of its mother; if it were head downwards, it would be a slayer of itself. How then? Transversely, bent in on itself with all its major and minor limbs, it lies. […] Therefore, Punarvasu Ātreya maintains that its head [develops] first, because it is heavier for it. Now indeed, when the kidney and fat are grown heavy, they mutually enlarge one another in their development.

On this there is a verse: / The heat residing in the chyle remains in this body, holding life; / man is born from chyle, therefore chyle is called life. / Thus said the venerable Ātreya. / Thus the fourth chapter in the Section on the Body in Bheḷa. / Fifth chapter. / Now we shall explain the accumulation of the body, thus said the venerable Ātreya.