The Compendium of Caraka 6.27: saptaviṃśo 'adhyāyaḥ/

Now, we shall explain the treatment of stiffness of the thighs.

Thus spoke the venerable Ātreya:

Endowed with supreme sacred splendour and with the supreme splendour of asceticism, / like Mount Sumeru not lacking the moon and the sun,

an abode of intellect, resolve, memory, special knowledge, wisdom, fame, and forbearance, / Agniveśa, at an opportune moment, asked his teacher about a doubt:

“O Venerable One, the five procedures, both collectively and individually, / have been stated indeed as the remedy for all disorders.

Is there any humoral disease, O best of physicians, for which they / are not capable of alleviation, even though the disease is curable by treatment?”

When the teacher replied, “There is stiffness of the thighs,” he was further questioned / about its cause along with its symptoms and medicine; then the teacher spoke:

“In a person consuming unctuous, hot, light, or cold foods promiscuously during digestion or indigestion, / with liquid, dry foods, curd, milk, and meat of domesticated, wetland, and aquatic animals;

with flour preparations, defective wine, excessive daytime sleep, and insomnia, / with fasting, overeating, physical fatigue, fear, and suppression of natural urges,

āma accumulated in the alimentary tract from unctuous food obstructs vāta and the other [humors] along with fat, / and quickly travels down to the thighs through the downward-going vessels and channels on account of heaviness.

Filling the pelvic area, calf, and thigh, the humor, intensified by the strength of fat, / causes uncontrollable movement and diminished capability of motion.

Just as in a vast, deep lake full of water the water remains calm, / motionless, and unshakeable, so does kapha lodged in the thighs.

Accompanied by heaviness, fatigue, contraction, burning, pain, numbness, trembling, / piercing, twitching, and sharp pains, it destroys the body and life.

Kapha along with fat, having overwhelmed vāta and pitta, / stiffens the thighs by its stability and coldness; hence it is called stiffness of the thighs.

Its prodromes are: excessive brooding, excessive sleep, sluggishness, loss of appetite, fever, / horripilation, vomiting, and debility of the calves and thighs.

Due to oleation administered out of ignorance by those suspecting vāta, / there occurs weakness of the feet, numbness, and difficulty in lifting them,

excessive fatigue of the calves and thighs, constant burning pain, / pain when the foot is placed, and inability to perceive cold touch.

Incapable of standing, pressing, walking, and moving, / he thinks his thighs and feet are broken and must be moved by another.

When a person becomes afflicted with burning, agony, and piercing pain, and is shaking, / then stiffness of the thighs will kill him; otherwise, in a recent case, one should treat it.”

For it, neither oleation should be performed, nor enema, nor purgation, / nor indeed emesis; hear the reason for that:

Oleation and enema procedures always lead to the increase of phlegm; / and purgation is not capable of drawing out that which is situated there.

Phlegm situated in the site of phlegm and bile are easily / drawn out by emesis; and when both are situated in the stomach, [they are easily removed] by laxative action.

All [doshas] situated in the colon can be conquered at the root by enemas; / but not those situated in the calves and thighs, which are stiffened by āma and fat.

For in the site of wind, because of its coldness and the stiffness of both, those that have gone there / cannot be easily drawn out, like water from a depression to high ground.

Considering proper application, the physician should always perform pacification, depletion, and desiccation for it, / on account of the predominance of phlegm and āma.

Always for dry management, he should give barley, śyāmāka, and kodrava / with salt-free vegetables prepared with water and oil:

with suniṣaṇṇaka, neem, arka, vetra, and sprouts of āragvadha, / with vāyasī and vāstuka, and with other bitter [vegetables] such as kulaka and the like.

Applications of alkalis and fermented liquors, and likewise of harītakī, / of honey-water, and of pippalī, destroy stiffness of the thighs.

A man should drink samaṅgā, śālmalī, and bilva with honey; / likewise śrīveṣṭaka, udīcya, devadāru, and nata;

sandalwood, dhātakī, kuṣṭha, tālīsa, and nalada; / musta, harītakī, lodhra, padmaka, and tiktarohiṇī;

devadāru, the two kinds of turmeric, vacā, and kaṭukarohiṇī; / pippalī, pippalī root, sarala, and devadāru;

cavya, citraka roots, devadāru, and harītakī; / bhallātaka and pippalī along with its root—these five [recipes] he should drink.

These pastes stated in half-verses, taken with honey, remove stiffness of the thighs. / Śārṅgeṣṭā, madana, dantī, fruit of vatsaka, vacā,

mūrvā, āragvadha, pāṭhā, karañja, and kulaka— / he should drink the powder [of these] in equal parts, mixed with honey or steeped in water,

with honey or with curd scum, to destroy stiffness of the thighs. / Mūrvā, ativiṣā, kuṣṭha, citraka, kaṭurohiṇī,

as before, or guggulu left overnight in urine; / svarṇakṣīrī, ativiṣā, musta, tejovatī, vacā,

surāhva, citraka, kuṣṭha, pāṭhā, and kaṭukarohiṇī— / he should lick the powder with honey, or [drink it] with honey steeped in water.

Or he should drink phalī, vyāghranakha, and hema combined with honey. / Triphalā, pippalī, musta, cavya, and kaṭukarohiṇī—

a person afflicted with stiffness of the thighs should lick the powder with honey. / If the dosha arises from undernourishment, he should indeed nourish him

appropriately with meat of dry-land animals and aged śāli rice. / If there is aggravation of wind due to drying, preceded by loss of sleep and distress,

the regimen of oleation and sudation, which destroys wind disorders, should be performed there. / Pīluparṇī, payasyā, rāsnā, gokṣuraka, vacā,

sarala, aguru, and pāṭhā—with these one should cook an oil; / from it, a man should drink a prasṛta or an añjali with honey.

Kuṣṭha, śrīveṣṭaka, udīcya, sarala, dāru, keśara, / ajagandhā, and aśvagandhā—with these one should cook mustard oil.

One afflicted with stiffness of the thighs should drink that in proper measure with honey; / he is freed from dryness, and from that he is freed from stiffness of the thighs.

Two palas of rock salt, five of dry ginger, two each of granthika and citraka, / twenty bhallātaka stones, and two āḍhakas

of fermented gruel—with these one should cook one prastha of oil; it gives offspring / and cures sciatica, stiffness of the thighs, piles, distress, and all wind disorders.

With two palas each of pippalī root and dry ginger, [an oil cooked with] eight kaṭvaras / and one prastha of oil with an equal amount of curd cures sciatica and stiffness of the thighs.
Thus ends Aṣṭakaṭvarataila.
Thus internal medication for stiffness of the thighs has been taught; / but hear now the other external treatment that depletes phlegm:

With anthill earth, root, fruit, and bark of karañja, / and then powders of brick, one should vigorously perform anointing rubdowns.

Or with the roots of aśvagandhā, or with the roots of arka, the physician, / or with the roots of picumarda, or else of devadāru,

combined with honey, mustard, and anthill earth, the physician / should perform a firm anointing rubdown, [or] a plaster in stiffness of the thighs.

The wise physician [should prepare an affusion] with dantī, dravantī, surasā, and mustard seeds; / and with leaves, roots, and fruits derived from tarkārī, śigru, surasā, viśva, vatsaka, and neem,

the water boiled hot serves as an affusion; / while mustard ground and steeped in urine should be used as a plaster.

Vatsaka, surasa, kuṣṭha, gandhās, tumburu, śigruka, / hiṃsrā, arka root, anthill earth, along with kuṭheraka—

a plaster should be made with these combined with curd and rock salt / for the eradication of stiffness of the thighs by a physician who knows the proper course.

Śyonāka, khadira, bilva, the two bṛhatīs, sarala, asana, / śobhāñjanaka, tarkārī, śvadaṃṣṭrā, surasā, arjaka,

agnimantha, and karañja, having decocted them with water, one should perform affusion; / or a plaster made of them ground with urine removes stiffness of the thighs.

For the depletion of phlegm, one should engage him in manageable exercises; / he should make him tread over dry lands, gravel, and sand in the morning.

He should make him swim against the current in a river with cold, auspicious water, / and again and again in a clear, cold lake with still water.

When his phlegm is thus dried up, the stiffness of the thighs will subside. / Whatever depletes phlegm without aggravating wind,

all that should always be performed as the treatment for stiffness of the thighs; / this procedure must be conducted while protecting the body, strength, and digestive fire.

Here is a summary verse:

Etiology, premonitory symptoms, signs, the reason for unfitness for procedures, / and two-fold medicine have been explained in the treatment of stiffness of the thighs.

Thus, in the treatise composed by Agniveśa, redacted by Caraka, and, being incomplete, completed by Dṛḍhabala, in the section on Therapeutics, the twenty-seventh chapter, named 'Treatment of Stiffness of the Thighs', is concluded.