The Compendium of Bheḷa 6.20

Five coughs are declared, consisting of vāta, pitta, and kapha, / injury-born, and consumption-born; I shall state their characteristics:

From upward wind, trauma, physical exercise, emaciation, / excessive eating, sleeping by day, rapid drinking, dangling down,

and of those emaciated by diseases, from wasting caused by unwholesome doshas, / and from partaking of sharp, hot, and heavy [substances], these coughs arise in men.

I shall state their symptoms and distinct modes of treatment: / From wind, one coughs dryly, as if his throat were filled with bristles;

and he spits dryly, and once that is expelled, he does not cough; / while coughing he faints, and his heart is dragged down;

and both flanks ache exceedingly, and he groans with dyspnea; / pain arises in the temples, and likewise dryness of the palate;

and his eyes are seen to be dark; his voice and complexion break down; / and especially when his belly is empty, afflicted by vāta, he coughs.

From partaking of sour and unctuous food and drink, physical exercise, and heat, / from partaking of pungent, alkaline, and dry food, and sharp liquor,

pitta cough proceeds, accompanied by burning sensation and fever; / and he spits excessively turmeric-colored, pungent, hot, and yellow [phlegm];

bitterness of the mouth arises, and he gets thirst; / and the two eyes of the person coughing from pitta are observed to be turmeric-yellow.

In one who partakes of channel-blocking, heavy, unctuous, cold, and fat-increasing food, / who is devoted to sleeping by day, and who checks urges,

there arises a thick flow of kapha and cough; / extreme heaviness of the head, and sweetness of the mouth;

the heart is stiffened by kapha, a lack of desire for food, / rigidity, and indigestion: this is the characteristic of kapha cough.

One whose chest is struck from physical exercise, carrying loads, / or restraining horses and elephants, is said to have injury cough.

Afflicted by cough, he spits an accumulation of doshas that is bloody, like foul pus, and knotted; / and he suffers fever and diarrhea;

and he feels his chest being torn apart, and he breathes hard; / and coughing, he swoons; thirst and dryness of the mouth [occur];

his throat swells up repeatedly, and hoarseness of voice arises; / and he coughs with a noise, abnormally, cracked, and out of tune;

and likewise in injury cough he emits foul-smelling eructation. / And from the combination of all [three doshas], consumption cough sets in:

He has fever, flank pain, and his hands and feet burn; / and coughing, he spits blood preceded by kapha;

both strength and complexion waste away, and his body deteriorates; / food does not taste good to him, and what is eaten is not digested;

diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and fainting arise in him; / this is declared as consumption cough, and it is proclaimed incurable.

Injury cough, however, may be manageable; hear the treatment for the curable ones: / One should treat one who is strong and unctuated with cleansing therapies.

And when cleansed, one should feed him aged śāli and ṣaṣṭika rice, / and he should consume meats of wilderness deer and birds.

He should avoid aquatic and wetland meats, and heavy things. / Or else [he should take ghee] prepared with the ten pastes, or Kalyāṇaka,

and he should partake of rasāyana ghee, ghee-jaggery preparations, / or the compound of ghee sweets, and likewise the rasāyana regimen.

Whatever was taught previously in [the chapter on] blood, that too one should employ in coughs: / Pippalī, āmalaka, grapes, bamboo manna, and sugar,

parched grain, ghee, and honey: a linctus destroying cough. / Pippalī, āmalaka, and rāsnā: a linctus combined with honey.

Powder of harītakī with pippalī, combined with honey; / there may be a lambative with honey and ghee, combined with honey and sugar.

Three pungents, triphalā, padmaka, and devadāru, / rāsnā, balā, and viḍaṅga: one should make fine powders [of these].

One should cause him to lick the powder combined with sugar, along with honey and ghee: / this linctus dispels the five coughs that have arisen.

Yavakṣāra, viḍaṅga, asafoetida, bhārṅgī, ginger, / rock salt, pippalī, and rāsnā: one should powder equal parts of these.

He should drink the powder combined with an appropriate dose of ghee, destroying cough; / it pulls down weak digestion, darkness-dyspnea, and hiccup.

One should crush kaṇṭakārī together with roots, fruit, and branches; / one should boil it in a droṇa of water until reduced to one-fourth.

Having strained that decoction, one should place it on the fire again; / and ghee should be added properly, and one should add these pastes:

durālabhā, chinnaruhā, three pungents, citraka, / rāsnā, what is called karkaṭaka, and pippalī root:

half a pala of each of these, and having added twenty palas / of treacle and sugar, one should remove that thick linctus.

When cold, one should add a measured kuḍava of pippalī powder, / a kuḍava of tugākṣīrī, and likewise a kuḍava of honey.

One should lick that linctus in proper measure; it destroys the five kinds of cough, / and it removes heart diseases, hiccup, and dyspnea.

Just as a snake cannot transgress an accomplished mantra that has been uttered, / even so cough cannot transgress this linctus in embodied beings.

Daśamūlī, apāmārga, śaṅkhapuṣpī, śaṭhī, vacā, / citraka, ātmaguptā, and pippalī root,

balā, puṣkaramūla, and likewise gajapippalī— / one should add two palas of each separately, and one hundred fresh abhayās,

and an āḍhaka of barley with these; one should boil them in five āḍhakas of water. / Taking it down once the barley is cooked, one should remove the harītakīs.

Then, a piercing should be made in them with a bamboo splint. […] / Chapter Twenty-One. […] / This paste should be applied; it destroys śaṅkhaka. / And one should consider a decoction made of all these same [herbs];