The Compendium of Caraka 3.1: prathamo 'adhyāyaḥ/

Now we shall explain the specific assessment of tastes.

Thus spoke the venerable Ātreya.

Here indeed, after having thoroughly examined the specific causes, premonitory symptoms, symptoms, therapeutic suitabilities, enumeration, predominance, varieties, fractional distributions, strengths, and times of diseases, the physician with an attentive mind must subsequently ascertain accurately the measure of the doshas, medicines, place, time, strength, body, tissue excellence, diet, suitability, mental constitution, constitution, and age, because treatment depends upon the knowledge of the measure of doshas and the like.

For a physician who does not know the measure of doshas and the like is not capable of checking disease.

Therefore, O Agniveśa, for the sake of knowing the measure of doshas and the like, we shall teach the section on specific determination.

Therein, at the outset, we shall declare the specific potencies of tastes, substances, doshas, and disorders.

The tastes are six: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent.

When properly used, they sustain the body; but when improperly used, they surely lead to the provocation of the doshas.

The doshas, moreover, are three: vāta, pitta, and kapha.

In their natural state, they benefit the body; but having undergone alteration, they afflict the body with diverse disorders.

Therein, three tastes produce each individual dosha, and three pacify [it].

That is to say: pungent, bitter, and astringent produce vāta, while sweet, sour, and salty pacify it; pungent, sour, and salty produce pitta, while sweet, bitter, and astringent pacify it; sweet, sour, and salty produce kapha, while pungent, bitter, and astringent pacify it.

In the encounter of tastes and doshas, those tastes that have identical qualities or mostly identical qualities with the doshas increase them; when habitually used, those having contrary qualities or mostly contrary qualities pacify them.

For the purpose of this determination, the number six is taught for the unmixed tastes among themselves, and the number three for the doshas.

For the expansion of their combinations and fractional distributions is incalculable, because the divisions of fractional distributions are incalculable.

Therein, indeed, in substances having multiple tastes and in disorders having multiple doshas, one should ascertain the true specific potency of substance and disorder after individually examining the specific potency of tastes and doshas.

Yet this is certainly not so in all cases.

For in the case of [substances] inhering through an altered and unequal composition, manifold in nature, counteracted by one another, and differentiated by other fractional configurations, it is impossible to determine the true specific potency of the whole merely by inferring the specific potency of the parts.

For when a combination is thus constituted, one should ascertain the true specific potency of the substance and disorder after apprehending precisely the true specific potency of the whole as such.

Therefore, we shall teach the truth from the specific potency of tastes, from the specific potency of substances, from the specific potency of doshas, and from the specific potency of disorders.

Therein, this specific potency of tastes has been taught; we shall further teach the specific potency of substances.

Oil, ghee, and honey are the substances for the pacification of vāta, pitta, and kapha [respectively].

Therein, oil, being endowed with unctuousness, heat, and heaviness, overcomes vāta when constantly used; for vāta, being endowed with dryness, coldness, and lightness, has contrary qualities, and in the encounter of contrary qualities the lesser is overcome by the greater; therefore, oil overcomes vāta when constantly used. Ghee indeed overcomes pitta in the very same way, on account of sweetness, coldness, and slowness; for pitta is non-sweet, hot, and sharp.

And honey overcomes kapha on account of dryness, sharpness, and astringency; for kapha is unctuous, slow, and sweet.

And whatever other substance likewise is contrary in qualities to vāta, pitta, and kapha, that overcomes them when habitually used.

Now, one should not use three substances in excessive quantity beyond other substances; namely: pippalī, alkali, and salt.

For pippalī fruits, though pungent, have a sweet post-digestive effect, are heavy, not excessively unctuous or hot, moisture-producing, and are considered medicine immediately; they produce good and bad effects; they are agreeable on immediate intake due to the perfection of immediate administration, but their succession brings about an accumulation of doshas; for when constantly used, they irritate kapha due to heaviness and moisture-production, [and] pitta due to heat, and they are not capable of pacifying vāta due to their slight unctuous and hot nature; and they are indeed catalytic agents; therefore, one should not use pippalī fruits excessively.

Alkali, moreover, endowed with heat, sharpness, and lightness, moistens at first and afterwards dries out; it is used for digesting, burning, and piercing; when used to excess, it brings about harm to the hair, eyes, heart, and virility.

For the villages, towns, cities, and countries that constantly use it become subject to blindness, impotency, baldness, and premature greying, and suffer from cardiac distress; such as the easterners and the Chinese; therefore, one should not use alkali excessively.

Salt, moreover, is endowed with heat and sharpness, is not excessively heavy, not excessively unctuous, moisture-producing, capable of laxation, produces relish in food substances, is agreeable on immediate intake due to the perfection of immediate administration, and its succession brings about an accumulation of doshas; it is used for appetizing, digesting, moistening, and laxation.

It is used for appetizing, digesting, moistening, and laxation.

When used to excess, it brings about the development of languor, flaccidity, and debility in the body.

For the villages, towns, cities, and countries that constantly use it are mostly languid, have flaccid muscle and blood, and are incapable of enduring hardship.

Such as the people of Bahlika, Saurāṣṭra, Saindhava, and Sauvīra; for they eat salt even with milk.

Moreover, in regions of the earth that are excessively saline, annual plants, creepers, large trees without flowers, and fruit-bearing trees do not grow, or have little vigor, because of being afflicted by salt.

Therefore, one should not use salt excessively.

For even in men who are habituated to excessive salt, baldness, premature greying, and wrinkles appear prematurely.

Therefore, their gradual departure from that habituation is preferable.

For even a habituation, when discontinued gradually, becomes harmless or of slight harm.

Habituation is that which is therapeutically suitable to oneself; for the meaning of habituation is the meaning of therapeutic suitability.

It is of three kinds according to the classification of superior, inferior, and middling; but it is of seven kinds by taking each individual taste singly and by the use of all tastes. Therein, [habituation to] all tastes is superior, to a single taste is inferior, and the middling stands between superior and inferior.

Therein, from inferior and middling habituation, one should bring about superior habituation only gradually.

And even one endowed with habituation to all tastes, having examined all the factors of food intake beginning with natural constitution and ending with the consumer as the eighth, should adhere solely to what is wholesome.

Therein, indeed, these eight factors of food intake are: namely, natural constitution, processing, combination, quantity, habitat, time, rules of use, and the consumer as the eighth.

Therein, natural constitution is said to be that which is intrinsic nature; it is, moreover, the natural possession of heavy and other qualities in food and medicinal substances, such as of black gram and green gram, or of domestic pig and blackbuck deer.

Processing, moreover, is the refinement of naturally existing substances.

Refinement is indeed defined as the imparting of other qualities.

Those qualities are imparted by contact with water or fire, cleaning, churning, place, time, scenting, steeping, and so forth, as well as by length of time, vessels, and the like.

Combination, moreover, is the unification of two or more substances; it brings about a specific quality which the substances do not bring about individually, as in the combination of honey and ghee, or of honey, fish, and milk.

Quantity, however, consists of total measurement and fractional measurement, meant for determining the result of proper and improper measures.

Therein, taking the measure of the whole food as a single mass is total measurement; fractional measurement, moreover, is taking the measure of the food substances individually.

For taking the whole is called total measurement, and taking from every part is called fractional measurement.

Habitat, moreover, is locality; it indicates the origin and distribution of substances as well as suitability to the habitat.

Time is indeed both continuous and transient; therein, transient [time] relates to disease, while continuous [time] relates to seasonal habituation.

Rules of use, however, are the regulations of eating; they depend on the signs of digestion.

The consumer, moreover, is the one who consumes that food, on whom bodily habituation depends.

Thus the eight factors of food intake are explained.

Their particular varieties yield auspicious and inauspicious results and assist one another; one should seek to know them, and having understood them, one should desire only what is wholesome; nor, out of delusion or negligence, should one consume food or anything else that is pleasing yet unwholesome and of disagreeable consequence.

Therein, this is the rule for food intake for healthy persons and also for certain patients eating at the proper time what is most wholesome by nature: one should eat warm, unctuous, in proper measure, when [previous food] is digested, non-antagonistic in potency, in a favorable place, with all favorable utensils, not too fast, not too slow, without talking, without laughing, with a focused mind, properly examining oneself.

We shall teach the excellence thereof: one should eat warm [food]; for warm [food], when being eaten, is savory, and when eaten, stimulates the digestive fire of the stomach, undergoes digestion quickly, causes vāta to move downward, and reduces kapha; therefore, one should eat warm [food].

One should eat unctuous [food]; for unctuous [food], when being eaten, is savory, and when eaten, stimulates an unaroused fire, undergoes digestion quickly, causes vāta to move downward, nourishes the body, strengthens the sense organs, generates increase of strength, and produces clarity of complexion; therefore, one should eat unctuous [food].

One should eat in proper measure; for food eaten in proper measure, without afflicting vāta, pitta, or kapha, exclusively increases lifespan alone, passes easily to the anus, does not impair the digestive heat, and attains digestion without pain; therefore, one should eat in proper measure.

One should eat when [previous food] is digested; for if one eats when food is undigested, the ingested food substance, uniting the undigested chyle of the earlier food with the later food juice, quickly aggravates all the doshas; but when one eats after it is digested, with the doshas stationed in their proper places, the fire aroused, hunger arisen, the openings of the channels dilated, eructation cleared, the cardiac region cleared, vāta moving downward, and the urges of flatus, urine, and feces expelled, the ingested food substance exclusively prolongs lifespan without corrupting any bodily tissue; therefore, one should eat when [previous food] is digested.

One should eat [food] non-antagonistic in potency; for eating food non-antagonistic in potency, one is not afflicted by disorders arising from food of antagonistic potency; therefore, one should eat [food] non-antagonistic in potency.

And one should eat in a favorable place and with all favorable utensils; for eating in a favorable place, one does not suffer mental distress caused by things arising from an unfavorable place that cause mental distress, and likewise with all favorable utensils; therefore, one should eat in a favorable place and likewise with all favorable utensils.

One should not eat too fast; for in one eating too fast, there occurs going the wrong way, depression, failure of the meal to sit well, and there is no certain apprehension of the flaws or excellence of the food; therefore, one should not eat too fast.

One should not eat too slowly; for eating too slowly, one does not achieve satisfaction, eats too much, the food becomes cold, and it digests irregularly; therefore, one should not eat too slowly.

One should eat without talking, without laughing, and with a focused mind; for in one eating while talking, laughing, or absent-minded, there occur the very same faults as in one eating too fast; therefore, one should eat without talking, without laughing, and with a focused mind.

One should eat having properly examined oneself: 'This agrees with me, this does not agree with me'—for thus one's personal habituation is known to oneself; therefore, one should eat having properly examined oneself.

And on this there is [a verse]:

He who knows tastes, substances, doshas, and disorders according to specific influence,
and knows place, time, and body—he is our physician.

Here are the two summary verses:

The purpose of the section on specific determination, tastes, substances, doshas, diseases according to specific influence,
substances not to be used excessively, and the three kinds of habituation,

the eight factors of food, and the excellence of meals—
all this has been illumined in the specific determination concerning the enumeration of tastes.

Thus, in the treatise composed by Agniveśa, redacted by Caraka, in the section on specific determination, the first chapter entitled 'Specific Determination of Tastes' is complete.