The Compendium of Bheḷa 6.8

The five insanities have been declared in detail in the [Section on] Pathology, / along with their symptoms and origins; listen to their treatment.

Indeed, of mind, intellect, and senses too is their disordered activity. / The mind, situated between the head and palate, is superior to all the senses.

Abiding there, it indeed knows the nearby objects of the senses—taste and the rest— / and governs the three states.

And the strength originating from a wholesome mind consists of all the senses. / The mind, located in the heart, is the cause of all cognitions.

And the mind is everywhere the cause of other actions. / Those of good mind take the right path, but those of wicked mind go astray.

The mind having apprehended what is perceived by the mind, [action] arises therefrom. / Therefrom arises the intellect, which deliberates upon what should and should not be done.

The intellect is held to bring about awareness of good and bad; / and because of awareness of what is to be understood, a person is here called wise.

That intellect is the supreme self, and it is proclaimed within the body / just as a skillful laborer directs action among men.

These are the locations and function of the mind, thought, and intellect. / Now, listen next to the cause of their becoming corrupted.

The humors, provoked upwards and situated between the head and palate, / quickly corrupt the mind; thereupon thought is ruined.

When thought has suffered ruin, the intellect undergoes destruction. / Then, upon the destruction of the intellect, one does not understand what should and should not be done.

Thus arises the dreadful disease named insanity. / Therefore I shall declare the distinction between insanity and intoxication.

From grief, from anger, likewise from joy, and from the loss of possessions, / when thought and mind are agitated, one quickly incurs intoxication.

He broods, sleeps excessively, weeps here without cause, / laughs unexpectedly, is drowsy, speaks little, and is always restless.

Terrified, bodily pained, prone to anger, shameless, / staring straight ahead, and no longer acting properly,

as well as roughness of the body hair and cloudiness of the eyes— / the one in whom these are the symptoms is called intoxicated.

When growing worse, however, intoxication turns into insanity. / The symptoms born of wind, phlegm, and bile,

as well as those consisting of a combination of humors, are called insanity by the wise. / This characteristic of insanity has been designated according to definition.

As previously indicated in the [Section on] Pathology, hear their treatment: / Having unctuated and fomented [him], one should treat him with the fivefold therapy.

Or he should drink curd-ghee, or siris oil, / hundred-times-cooked balā oil, or Mahāpaiśācika ghee.

And the insane person should likewise partake of curd-ghee and Mahākṣāra. / Whatever treatment has been declared to destroy epilepsy,

all that one should administer in all types of insanity. / He should have him flogged with whips, and should bind and beat him.

Or he should terrify him with an elephant, or with a horse, or with a serpent; / or again, one should scatter grass-fire around him on all sides;

or having strewn him with blazing embers of coral-tree wood, / one should sprinkle the afflicted one again with cold water.

Or one should cast him into a river, or confine him in a water-channel, / or the man should waste him with hunger having thrown him into a dry well.

Unknown men with weapons in hand should terrify him; / and physicians should frighten him with terrors of various kinds.

For sharp shocks produce a change of mind through fear; / indeed, only fear is called the undoing of a person's mind.

If with ruined mind he wanders about, even when terrified by weapons, / followed by a crowd of children, one should declare him incurable.

And with warm collyria, errhines, alkalis, and alkali-antidotes / declared to remove epilepsy, one should treat insanity.

And one should have him drink aged ghee that destroys insanity; / that which has stood for a hundred years is best, and is called vessel-ghee.

In drinks, inunctions, and errhines, it is always beneficial for the insane. / Fermented gruel and garlic one should grind with goat's urine;

this recipe, combined with aged ghee, is for the insane. / The internal medicine physician should employ these procedures;

the demon-physician should perform pacification rites and fire-oblations. / Sacrifices, pacification rites, oblations, and auspicious recitations, / ritual procedures declared in the Vedas, should be performed to destroy insanity. / Thus spoke the venerable Ātreya. / Thus ends the eighth chapter in the therapeutics of Bheḷa. / Ninth chapter. / Now we shall explain the treatment of epilepsy; thus spoke the venerable Ātreya.