The Compendium of Bheḷa 6.28

All tastes except salt are present in liquor. / It is sharp, hot, penetrating, quick-acting, and diffusive,

appetizing, beneficial to the heart, beneficial to all living beings, and light. / It dispels worry, sorrow, and fatigue, and increases pleasure and delight.

It produces joy when there is cause for joy, and dispels fear when there is cause for fear. / It produces erotic pleasure and recreation, and brings supreme luster and valor.

It reaches all limbs of the body, even the minute ones. / Through its sharpness it confuses the mind, and through its heat it produces pitta.

It is beneficial to the heart through its non-viscid quality, and provokes vāta through its dryness. / It destroys kapha through its sharpness, and because it brings exhilaration it is called an aphrodisiac.

From the intake of liquor, his aggravated pitta and vāta / dry up the chyle-carrying vessels, the kloman, and the palate.

Overcome by thirst, he greatly delights only in drink. / As it is drunk again and again, the internal fire and vāta in his body dry it up.

It quickly undergoes digestion in the body, like water in sand. / Therefore, even though he drinks day and night, indulging in drink,

his thirst is not pacified, and the drink digests rapidly. / For the person made to wander by liquor, pitta and vāyu,

when intellect and mind are impaired, thereupon torment the intellect. / He weeps, strikes out, loses control, and runs about excessively.

He falls down, jumps up, slaughters, and babbles much disconnected speech. / He approaches an forbidden woman or another, and does not understand what should and should not be done.

Likewise, he falls into a pit, and lies down as if dead. / Naked, he may enter into unconsciousness, or he wanders about bereft of consciousness.

Such may become the intoxicated person whose sense faculties are agitated by drink. / A wise man should drink liquor in measured quantity and not indulge in excess.

Used with proper method, that drink is declared to be ambrosia; / and that drink creates abundant relish for food,

and produces joy with women. The physician / should pacify disease born of it with drink alone; there is no other treatment for it.

Therefore, one should indulge in liquor and bright words; / one should enjoy light foods and arid-zone game animals and birds.

Bathing with fragrant bath-preparations, applying unguents to the skin, / listening to pleasing sounds together with agreeable friends,

in an exceedingly comfortable house, one should do this with increasing measures. / Beautiful women of middle age, slender-waisted, with bright smiles,

delighting the heart like rays of the moon, adorned with variegated garlands and garments, / clever, clad in linen, adorned with pearls and jewels,

their limbs anointed with red sandalwood, charming, wearing jeweled girdles— / embracing those peerless women, he should lie on the bed.

Women indeed are paramount, cool of touch by nature; / and by nature women increase the joy of men.

For Soma, the cool element in the heart, increases from joy; / therefore, with conversation, casual talk, massage, and amusements,

one should quickly resort to a woman who produces delight in intoxication. / There, sounds of song and instruments, and friends flushed with intoxication,

singing in tune with what is pleasing, should produce joy in intoxication. / And wholesome liquors, combined with cool water,

together with auspicious meats, should be given to drink with side-dishes, / as well as superior syrup beverages, ṣāḍavas, and refreshing drinks.

He should take bamboo manna and sorrel in intoxication. / Buttermilk, grape juice, sīdhu, francolin partridge broth, honey,

āranāla vinegar, fermented gruel, broths of jujube and pomegranate, / roasted paddy drinks, and fine barley refreshing drinks,

sauvarcala salt, cumin, and rock salt— / one should drink this refreshing drink like liquor, with cool water.

And a side-dish of citron destroys alcoholism in men. / Lac juice, francolin partridge broth, pomegranate juice, honey,

should be drunk according to the previous recipe when drunkenness has developed. / One should well pound a prastha of karkandhu and badara fruits,

straining them again and again seven times in two prasthas of water. / Then one should place it well concealed in an earthen vessel,

and add two palas of jaggery, a pala of sugar, / a fine karṣa of black pepper, a fourth [of a karṣa] of saffron,

two dharaṇas of cinnamon bark and leaves, a karṣa of fine cardamom, / and half a karṣa of fragrant roots; one should make fine powders [of these].

This syrup drink, endowed with the scent of jasmine, in drunkenness / quickly destroys [the disorder] with drinking, just as wind [destroys] scattered clouds.

It destroys vomiting, thirst, burning sensation, diarrhea, dysentery, / anorexia, dysuria, and alcoholism in men.

Kāśmarya, pomegranate, grape, madhuka with parūṣaka, / and kuṭaja seeds—having crushed these, one should throw them into an āḍhaka of water.

Fine cardamom, madhuka, lodhra, mañjiṣṭhā, and pippalī— / one should add fine powders of these in appropriate measure.

And saffron should be given here, and the flower of blue water-lily. / This should be given in alcoholism to ward off thirst and vomiting.

Two palas of guḍūcī, two of balā, / two palas of lāmajjaka and lotus stalk, madhuka, and utpala—

having crushed these, they should be placed in an āḍhaka of water in a new vessel; / and one should add eight palas of jaggery, as well as blue water-lily.

This syrup beverage combined with saffron should be given in alcoholism; / it relieves fever, burning sensation, thirst, dyspnea, vomiting, and hiccups.

If drunkenness does not subside with these pacifying measures, / one should administer trivṛt powder combined appropriately with liquor.

He should drink a purgative powder or a great refreshing drink, / or, having eaten the previously described modakas, he should drink surā.

When the physician knows him to be fit for emesis, he should then cause him to vomit / with emetics combined with liquor or with digestive powders.

And the physician should administer a regimen with barley alkali to him; / for thin gruels are not praised for men suffering from intoxication.

In intoxication, gruels that destroy doṣas are not recommended; / due to sluggishness, they generate once again the surge of the ingested drink.

That remaining liquor, aggravated, would cause dreadful complications; / therefore, unctuous substances, thin gruels, and thick gruel are unwholesome in alcoholism.

Liquor runs along the subtle channels of the body; / and it remains with its components even in the irregular channels.

It violently agitates the vāta and other doṣas situated all around in the gut; / those tissues, become rough, aggravated, and corrupted by drink,

mingled with the drink, produce many diseases. / Liquor is described by the wise as especially pervasive.

The subtle and other spheres that follow after liquor and the like— / no other taste is able to hold back those spheres.

Therefore, liquor itself is the supreme medicine for those afflicted with alcoholism; / indeed, its own origin is that drink, dissolved and residing in the gut.

Brought under control with effort, it enters the great channel; / medicines combined with liquor in every way [are given] to the afflicted person.

In intoxication, one should employ cold measures in every way; / and therefore refreshing drinks combined with liquor should indeed be given to the embodied person

who has been excessively purged, and for the purification of the channels. / Because of heat, sharpness, expanding action, pervasiveness, and dryness,

liquor is declared equal to poison in taste and potency; / therefore, one should treat all its respective procedures like poison.

Moistening, sharp, hot, burning collyrium and nasal medication; / therefore, hot water, fomentation, smoke, and drinking ghee,

blazing fire, and gruels must be avoided in all [cases]; / curds, milk, leafy vegetables, domestic, marshland, and aquatic animals,

and preparations made of sesame paste should be avoided by the alcoholic patient. / Śāli rice, ṣaṣṭika rice, mung beans, wild quadrupeds and birds

physicians praise as foods in alcoholism. / When the aggravation of the tissues is equal and when distinct, hear from me:

When excessive drink, having been consumed, aggravates vāta, / having observed the vātika symptoms, one should perform his treatment.

Liquor combined with black salt and three pungents, mixed with honey, / [or] vinegar combined with pomegranate, is wholesome in vāta-alcoholism.

Water, liquor, sour gruel, sour curds, and kāñjika— / this refreshing drink, with honey, is wholesome in vāta-alcoholism.

Massage, rubbing, bath, and drinks mixed with half water; / he should habituate himself to vrīhi rice and broths combined with distinct sourness and three pungents.

Goat, partridge, demoiselle crane, chicken, and peacock [meat] / are wholesome for food for men afflicted with vāta-alcoholism.

Mango, hog plum, bhavya, wood apple, and karamardaka— / a syrup beverage of these should be drunk according to the previous recipe by vāta patients.

Cavya, black salt, asafetida, citron, and dried ginger, / as well as powder of ajamodā, one should cause him to drink with liquor.

In alcoholism caused by pitta, a syrup beverage mixed with sugar, / combined with honey and flooded with half-water, should be drunk.

Some condemn drink for men in pitta-alcoholism; / yet without that liquor, it is not possible to treat [them] with others.

For liquor itself, combined with pitta-dispelling substances, is to be used, / or with the juices of vidārī and āmalaka, or with sugarcane juice.

Madhūka, madhuka, kāśmarya, dates, and blue water-lily— / one should prepare a syrup beverage combined with liquor according to the previous recipe.

Clothed in wet linen, adorned with pearls and jewels, / youthful women with limbs smeared with sandalwood—embracing them he should sleep.

He should drink liquor with date paste or with sugarcane juice, / or ripe pīlu juice, or eggplant juice.

Juice of grapes and vidārī, liquor, sugarcane juice, honey— / this drink is wholesome for men afflicted with pitta-alcoholism.

Afflicted with pitta-alcoholism, he should sleep in his house embracing / a water skin filled with icy water and adorned with fragrant garlands.

Lakes, forest groves, a lotus pond with blooming lotuses, / and a bed made with lotus leaves and sprinkled with sandalwood should be [provided].

Embracing lotus stalks and white water-lily blossoms, / he should sleep, fanned by fans moistened with water.

In alcoholism caused by pitta, which is like a weapon, lightning, or poison, / one should feed him red śāli rice with wild meat broths combined with ghee,

or cold, soft cooked rice with mung bean soup; / or he should drink a decoction of triphalā combined with liquor,

or sugarcane juice with honey, or again with trivṛt paste. / Triphalā bark, madhūka, padmaka, lotus filaments,

blue water-lily, lotus stalks, nalada, sandalwood, and balā— / a cold decoction prepared with these, combined with sugar and honey,

mixed with a little liquor, is wholesome in pitta-alcoholism. / Grapes, ripe pīlu fruits, dates, parūṣaka,

bhavya, jackfruit pulp, and pulp of palmyra fruit— / having crushed all these, one pala each, in an āḍhaka of water,

one should pour it, reduced to a fourth part, into a new pot, / having added eight palas of sugar and one pala of blue water-lily.

Afflicted with pitta-alcoholism, he should drink that syrup beverage properly. / And in alcoholic disease of phlegm, vomiting with liquor is wholesome.

Paṭola, picumanda, sprouts of madana, / guḍūcī, āṭarūṣa, triphalā, and pāribhadraka—

One should have him drink this decoction cold, mixed with honey. / He should constantly consume bitters, astringents, and pungents,

and consume the meat of wild deer and birds. / He should drink kuṭannaṭa powder mixed with the juice of triphalā,

and constantly consume digestive-stimulant formulations along with drink; / for liquor is indeed mostly beneficial in a disorder of phlegm.

Therefore we prescribe liquor in phlegm-induced alcoholism. / This treatment in phlegm-induced alcoholism has been declared according to measure.

In sannipāta, however, one should always treat in every way. / Seven or eight days are traditionally considered [the duration] in alcoholism for men;

for beyond this, chronic drinking takes an aberrant pathway. / The disease which does not subside within this course of time,

one should treat following the order of [excessive] drinking. / Whatever diseases have arisen, such as hiccup, dyspnea, and others,

one should administer treatment for them according to each of their own treatments. / Thus has the treatment for those afflicted with alcoholism been described in detail,

declared for the benefit of living beings, for the accomplishment of the students' aims. Thus said the venerable Ātreya. Thus the twenty-eighth chapter in Bheḷa. Thus ends the Cikitsāsthāna in the Bheḷasaṃhitā. Kalpasthāna. First Chapter. Now we shall explain the procedure for madana; thus said the venerable Ātreya.