The Compendium of Bheḷa 6.17

A person whose flesh is wasted, whose digestive fire is weak, who is afflicted with disease and very weak, / who indulges exceedingly in heavy foods and those that cause acid indigestion,

or who, having just vomited or purged, partakes of heavy foods, / and who, after fasting exceedingly, eats vegetables, roots, and fruits,

who eats fish, curd, and milk, and delights in sleeping by day, / and a person who eats unwholesome and undigested food and engages in physical exercise,

and who indulges exceedingly in bitter, astringent, / alkaline, sour, and pungent foods that are light, but especially dry—

his aggravated vāta resorts to the external vessels; / it quickly provokes pitta, blood, and phlegm as well.

Those dreadful vessels, filled with the doṣas, spread out, / gathering either in one part of the body or over all the limbs.

Thus arises that dreadful disease called swelling. / Through those doṣas residing in the colon, that swelling arises in the lower part.

Swelling beginning in the feet destroys the life of men; / in women, that arising in the face; and in both, that arising from the genitals.

Mostly here, swelling arises from a combination of the doṣas; / whichever of them is predominant, that one manifests its own form.

Vāta swelling is dry, black in color, and painful; / when pressed, it makes a depression, and it disappears without apparent cause.

Swelling born of pitta is dark blue, red, or yellow, / accompanied by pain and burning, ripens quickly, and is accompanied by fever.

Appearing white, dense, whitish-yellow, and firm, / sagging, and not disappearing quickly—such is kapha-born swelling.

In sānnipātika [swelling], the signs of vāta, pitta, and kapha appear. / Incurable is that which is secondary, and the swelling that is widespread.

If a blue, yellow, or reddish luster is seen in the swelling, / [and] some watery fluid oozes out, one should declare it incurable.

From blows with weapons or sticks, from falling, or from bone fracture, / a fifth swelling is observed, which arises mostly from blood.

And in those caused by trauma, the bruised flesh and bone / quickly vitiate the vessels, and thereupon the blood is vitiated.

It grows with intense burning and redness, accompanied by severe pain. / The physician should perform the treatment for erysipelas from wounds for it.

Thus the characteristics of swellings have been indicated according to rule; / I shall now set forth the treatment properly in due order.

One should drink Kalyāṇaka ghee or Mahātiktaka [ghee], / or the great Pañcagavya; then one should purify the person.

One should have him lick harītakī with madhuka and honey, / or lick long pepper with honey, or drink it with milk.

Harītakī, ginger, and devadāru in equal parts— / this, drunk with warm water, wards off swellings.

Iron filings, the three pungents, trivṛt, and tiktarohiṇī, / drunk with triphalā juice, wards off swellings.

Ginger, devadāru, sudhā, and varṣābhū— / milk prepared with equal parts of these is the best destroyer of swelling.

Or the administration of cow's urine is the best destroyer of swelling; / or one should drink urine with milk, or buffalo's urine alone.

And one should drink camel urine, or that camel's milk, / according to strength and according to the doṣa, the best destroyer of swelling.

A person should eat cooked radishes when vāta is present, / and should perform effusion with the juice of radishes.

The decoction of naktamāla, arka roots, vṛṣa, and āragvadha, / used for effusion, wards off swellings.

Suvarcalā, tiger's claw, kuṣṭha, kaṭukarohiṇī, / black nightshade, ṛṣabhaka, rāsnā, mūrvā, punarnavā,

eggplant, root of nicula, triphalā, citraka, vacā, / kuṭheraka, the two turmerics, śyāmā, mūṣakaparṇikā,

viḍaṅga, bark of moringa, naktamāla, and ginger, / ground with cow's urine, is the principal paste for rubbing in swelling.

Dantī, viḍaṅga, triphalā, the three pungents, kaṭurohiṇī, / citraka, devakāṣṭha, trivṛt, and hastipippalī—

these powders in equal parts, and iron filings double in quantity, / stirred into milk and drunk, are the best destroyer of swelling.

A kuḍava of triphalā, and a kuḍava of long pepper, / and two palas each of viḍaṅga and black pepper are prescribed,

and one pala each one should take of dantī and citraka, / and a pala of pippalī root, and likewise a pala of […],

and two palas of ginger, and five palas of cow's [ghee/urine?]; / learn from me those remaining ingredients of half a pala each:

Rāsnā, balā, gokṣuraka, madhuka, and devadāru, / vacā, with ativiṣā, pāṭhā, mustā, and kaṭukarohiṇī.

kaṭphala, both sāribās, śyāmā, bhallātaka, / punarnavā, tejohvā, tvak, patra, and śatāvarī,

nidigdhikā, vyāghranakha, mañjiṣṭhā, kuśa, śambhalī, / the three fruits, trivṛt, bhārṅgī, and the fruit and bark of kuṭaja—

collecting this supply, there should be twice as much iron filings; / combining that properly, one should have [the patient] lick it with honey and ghee.

And one should properly drink milk afterwards, partaking of milk without grain-food. / This is known as 'Ayorajīya', an established rasāyana.

By use for one year, one lives for a hundred years; / by two years, a man would live two hundred autumns.

It destroys terrible swelling, like Indra's thunderbolt a tree, / and anemia, hemorrhoids, sluggish digestion, and worms,

fistula-in-ano, jaundice, dermatoses, abdominal enlargements, / [splenomegaly] with plīhodara, epilepsy, colic pains, dysenteric tenesmus,

diarrhea, urinary disorders, chest-wound cough, and consumption; / for whatever disorder this formulation is employed,

that very disease it indeed destroys, as Keśava destroys the enemies of the gods. / The subsequent administration is roasted grain-flour along with honey;

with a milk vehicle, this electuary should be licked for five or seven days. / In hemorrhoids and acute diarrhea, it would be the rule in rectal cutting pain,

likewise in consumptive coughs and in irregular fevers; / swelling even of a year's standing subsides from it within a month.

And after the administration of the rasāyana as prescribed beforehand, / śāli and ṣaṣṭika rices, and preparations of freshly harvested grain,

alkalis, sours, and salts, and smoke one must always avoid. / Swelling whether exogenous or arisen from doshas,

subsides by fastings, applications of pastes, and bloodletting irrigations. / Indigestion, fever, vomiting, weakness, cutting pain, / dyspnea, diarrhea, and hiccup are remembered as complications of swelling. / Thus spoke the venerable Ātreya. / Thus the seventeenth chapter in Bheḷa. / / Eighteenth chapter. / Now therefore we shall expound the treatment of upward wind, as the venerable Ātreya said: