The Compendium of Caraka 7.1: prathamo 'adhyāyaḥ/

Now we shall expound the chapter on the formulation of madana [emetic nut].

Thus spoke the venerable Ātreya.

Now then, O Agniveśa, for the purpose of emesis and purgation, for the formulation of emetic and purgative substances together with other various substances that are most pleasant to consume—meaning for the purpose of division and classification—and for the proper preparation of comfortable measures for the procedure of their formulations, we shall teach the Section on Formulation (Kalpasthāna).

There, eliminating doshas through the upper part is designated as emesis; through the lower part, designated as purgation; or both acquire the designation of purgation (virecana) from the evacuation (virecana) of bodily wastes.

There, hot, sharp, subtle, permeating, and relaxing drugs, reaching the heart by their own potency and following the channels, liquefy the mass of doshas situated in the entire body from the coarse and subtle channels owing to their fiery nature, and cleave them owing to their sharpness. That [dosha], cleaved and flowing, not adhering in a body impregnated with oleation like honey situated in an oiled vessel, reaching the stomach due to its subtlety and descending tendency, propelled by udāna, is cast upward because of its fiery-airy nature and the specific action of the drug toward the upper part; it proceeds downward because of its watery-earthy nature and the specific action of the drug toward the lower part; and both ways because of possessing both qualities.

Such is the enumeration of characteristics.

There, regarding phala, jīmūtaka, ikṣvāku, dhāmārgava, kuṭaja, and kṛtavedhana; and śyāmā, trivṛt, caturaṅgula, tilvaka, mahāvṛkṣa, saptalā, śāṅkhinī, dantī, and dravantī; because of apprehending their origin in diverse places and seasons, their tastes, rasas, potencies, post-digestive effects, and specific actions; and because body, dosha, constitution, age, strength, digestive fire, disposition, habituation, stages of disease, and so forth have manifold specific actions; we shall explain six hundred purgative formulations of these substances possessing diverse smell, color, taste, and touch, for the sake of ease of use and to demonstrate the method of options, even though their combinations are innumerable.

Moreover, those substances become most capable of action through the acquisition of potency and strength from the excellence of place, time, quality, and container.

Land is indeed threefold: arid, marshy, and common.

There, the arid [land] has open sky in abundance; is dense with forests of trees such as kadara, khadira, asana, aśvakarṇa, dhava, tiniśa, śallakī, sāla, somavalka, badarī, tinduka, aśvattha, vaṭa, and āmalakī; is dominated by numerous śamī, kakubha, and śiṃśapā; has young branches continually bent by the force of steady, dry winds; abounds in thin, sharp, coarse sand and gravel encompassed by perpetual mirages; has tracts of land frequented by lāva, quail, and cakora; is rich in vāta and pitta; and is to be known as generally having firm and hard men. Next, the marshy [land] is dense with forests of hintāla, tamāla, coconut, and plantain; borders generally on rivers and oceans; is rich in cold winds; has tracts of land bordered by rivers whose banks are covered with groves of vañjula and vānīra; is adorned with mountain thickets; is dense with trees fanned by gentle winds; has tracts of land dense with flowering forests in many rows; is embraced by glossy trees and creepers; has tree branches echoing with geese, cakravākas, cranes, nandīmukhas, puṇḍarīkas, kādambas, madgus, bhṛṅgarājas, woodpeckers, and intoxicated cuckoos; has delicate men; and is to be known as dominated by wind and kapha. And that [land] which has the assemblies of shrubs, forest-trees, trees, birds, and animals of both of these two lands, and whose men are endowed with common qualities—possessing firmness, delicacy, strength, complexion, and compact build—is to be known as common.

In that common or arid land, medicines are praised that grow in an area visited seasonally by cold, heat, wind, and water; even; clean; with water flowing to the right; free of cremation grounds, caityas, sacrificial altars, assembly halls, crevices, pleasure-gardens, anthills, and saline soil; strewn with kuśa and rohiṣa grass; having glossy black sweet soil or golden-colored sweet soil; soft; not plowed by a plowshare; and not damaged by other, more powerful trees.

There, [those medicines] that are born in due season, have attained full measure, taste, potency, and smell, whose smell, color, taste, touch, and specific action have not been damaged by time, sunlight, fire, water, wind, or vermin, and which are fresh and situated in the northern direction: their branches and tender leaves should be gathered when newly sprouted in the rainy and spring seasons; roots in summer or winter when the leaves are fallen or just grown; bark, tubers, and latex in autumn; heartwood in dewy season; flowers and fruits according to the season. Observing auspicious conduct, of beneficial practice, clean, dressed in white, having worshipped the deities, the Aśvins, cows, and brāhmaṇas, having fasted, facing east or north, one should gather them.

Having gathered them, one should place them in appropriate, quality containers in rooms with eastern or northern doors, with areas free of drafts and areas with air circulation, where offerings of flowers and bali-rites are performed daily, inaccessible to fire, water, humidity, smoke, dust, mice, and quadrupeds, well covered, hung in sling-baskets, and preserve them.

And one should employ them according to the dosha: for vāta, macerated and stirred with surā, sauvīraka, tuṣodaka, maireya, medaka, fermented gruel, sour fruit juice, sour curd, and the like; for pitta, with grape juice, āmalaka, honey, madhuka, parūṣaka, half-boiled molasses, milk, and the like; but in the case of śleṣman, with honey, urine, decoction, and the like. Such is the summary.

We shall explain it in detail, distinguishing the substances, bodies, doshas, habituations, and so forth.

Among emetic substances, the fruits of madana are said to be the foremost, because of being harmless.

One should gather them between spring and summer, under Puṣya, Aśvayuj, or Mṛgaśiras, during the Maitra muhūrta.

Those that are ripe, undamaged, not green, pale, free of worms, not putrid, not eaten by insects, and not stunted—having wiped them clean, bound them in a packet of kuśa grass, smeared them with cow dung, one should place them inside any one of barley chaff, black gram, śāli rice, horse gram, or green gram straw for eight nights.

After that, having taken out those that have become soft and possess a pleasant smell like honey, one should dry them.

When they are thoroughly dry, one should extract the seeds of the fruit.

Having rubbed them with ghee, curd, honey, and sesame paste, and dried them again, one should fill a new earthen jar that is well-cleaned of sand and free of dust up to its neck, cover it well, guard it well, hang it in sling-baskets, and properly preserve it.

Then, having prepared the patient who is to be vomited with unction and sudation for two or three days, intending to vomit him the next day, having provoked his śleṣman with meat soup of domesticated, marshy, or aquatic animals, milk, curd, black gram, sesame, vegetables, and the like, on the morning after his night's sleep when his food has digested, after he has performed the bali, homa, auspicious rites, and expiations, fasting, not excessively unctuous, having drunk a measure of ghee with gruel—crushing an antarnakhamuṣṭi, or as much as one deems fit, of those fruit-seeds, steeping them overnight in a decoction of yaṣṭimadhu, or in any one of the decoctions of kovidāra, karbudāra, nīpa, vidula, bimbī, śaṇapuṣpī, sadāpuṣpī, or pratyakpuṣpī, having rubbed it, strained it, added honey and rock salt, made it comfortably warm, and filled a shallow earthen bowl, one should consecrate it with this mantra: 'Om! May Brahmā, Dakṣa, the Aśvins, Rudra, Indra, the Earth, Moon, Sun, Wind, and Fire,

the ṛṣis along with the assemblies of herbs, and the hosts of beings protect you!

As rasāyana is to the ṛṣis, as amṛta is to the gods,

as nectar is to the supreme serpents, so let this medicine be to you!' Having consecrated it thus, one should have the patient who faces north or east drink it—especially one afflicted with kapha-fever, gulma, or coryza—again and again until pitta appears, by which means he vomits properly. But if the urge is weak, one should repeatedly promote it with pippalī, āmalaka, mustard, and vacā paste with salted warm water until the sighting of pitta.

Such is the entire rule for emetic formulations.

In all emetics, moreover, one should prescribe honey and rock salt to liquefy and cleave the kapha.

Nor is there an incompatibility of heat with honey when it is combined in an emetic formulation, because it is returned undigested and because of its extraction of the doshas.

One should filter two parts each of the fruit-seeds with the decoction of kovidāra and the rest twenty-one times; grinding the third part with that liquid, one should roll pills equal in size to a harītakī, bibhītaka, or āmalaka. Rubbing one or two of them with an añjali measure of any one of the aforementioned decoctions, one should administer it in strong salivation of śleṣman, glandular swellings, fever, abdominal enlargement, and anorexia; the rest is the same as before.

[One should give] milk of seeds of the fruit, or a milk-gruel made with it, in down-coursing internal hemorrhage and in burning of the heart; or the upper layer of curd produced from it in vomiting of kapha, tamaka-asthma, and excessive salivation; or an añjali of cream from that cold milk when pitta is aggravated and the chest, throat, and heart are coated with thin kapha; the rest is the same as before.

Butter produced from milk boiled with seeds of the fruit, prepared with the paste and decoction of the fruit and others, should be given to drink in proper measure to one whose digestive fire is overpowered by kapha and whose body is wasting away; the rest is the same as before.

With powder that looks like flower pollen, thoroughly impregnated twenty-one times with the decoction of the fruit and others, one should dust in the evening a large lotus growing in a lake; taking it up in the morning after it has stayed the night and been dusted again, one should have it smelled by a delicate person whose pitta and kapha are agitated and who is averse to medicine, after he has drunk to the throat any one of haridrā-kṛsarā or milk-gruel combined with rock salt, jaggery, and treacle; the rest is the same as before.

Cooking the fresh juice of seeds of the fruit strained by the method for bhallātaka until it becomes treacle-like, one should have him lick it until thread-formation occurs; or one should have him drink it dried in the sun and powdered, along with a decoction of jīmūtaka and others, when pitta has gone to the site of kapha; the rest is the same as before.

Powders of seeds of the fruit strained through the decoction of any of the six—the fruit and others—as before, made into pills and accompanied by decoctions of the fruit and others, are to be drunk; the rest is the same as before.

An electuary prepared with the decoction of any one of the seeds of the fruit, āragvadha, vṛkṣaka, svādukaṇṭaka, pāṭhā, pāṭalā, śārṅgeṣṭā, mūrvā, saptaparṇa, naktamāla, picumarda, paṭola, suṣavī, guḍūcī, somavalka, dvīpikā, pippalī, pippalīmūla, hastipippalī, citraka, and ginger [is given]; the rest is the same as before.

An utkārikā prepared in the manner of an utkārikā, or modakas in the manner of modakas, with the decoction of any one of twenty drugs—seeds of the fruit, elā, hareṇukā, śatapuṣpā, kustumburu, tagara, kuṣṭha, tvak, coraka, marubaka, aguru, guggulu, elavāluka, śrīveṣṭaka, paripelava, māṃsī, śaileyaka, sthauṇeyaka, sarala, pārāvata-padī, and aśokarohiṇī—should be administered according to the doṣa, disease, and preference; the rest is the same as before.

Flour of sesame and śāli rice impregnated with the fresh juice and decoction of seeds of the fruit, accompanied by that decoction, made into pancakes according to the method for pancake, or into cakes according to the method for cake [should be given]; the rest is the same as before.

And by this very method, one should prepare [them] with the decoction of any one of sumukha, surasā, kuṭheraka, kāṇḍīra, kālamālaka, parṇāsa, kṣavaka, phaṇijjhaka, gṛñjana, kāsamarda, bhṛṅgarāja, poṭa, ikṣuvālikā, kālaṅkataka, and daṇḍairaka.

Likewise, combining madana fruits with any one of jujube-ṣāḍava, rāga, electuary, modaka, utkārikā, refreshing drink, pānaka, meat broth, vegetable soup, and liquor, one should give it according to the doṣa, disease, and preference; by means of these he vomits well.

Madana, karahāṭa, rāṭha, piṇḍītaka, phala,
and śvasana: its preparations are stated under these synonyms.

Here are the verses:

Nine formulations among the decoctions, eight among the pills, five in milk and ghee,
two as treacle and powder, one to be smelled, six in the form of suppositories,

twenty each in electuaries, modakas, and utkārikās,
and sixteen formulations each are stated in pancakes and cakes,

ten other [formulations] in ṣāḍava and the rest: these one hundred and thirty-three
formulations have been duly taught by the great sage in the chapter on the formulation of the fruit.

Thus ends the first chapter, named Formulation of Madana, in the Section on Formulation of the treatise composed by Agniveśa, redacted by Caraka, and, being incomplete, completed by Dṛḍhabala. //1