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The Compendium of Caraka 4

English (machine translation) 4

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Contents

4.1.1

Now we shall expound the anatomical [chapter] on “How Many Components Make Up the Person.”

4.1.2

Thus spoke the venerable Ātreya:

4.1.3

“O wise one! In how many ways is a person divided according to the classification of elements? / Why is the person the cause, and what is the origin of the person?

4.1.4

Is he non-conscious or conscious? Has he been shown to be eternal or non-eternal? / What is original nature, what are modifications, and what is the characteristic mark of the person?

4.1.5

Those who know the self speak of the self as inactive, independent, / self-controlled, all-pervading, omnipresent, knower of the field, and witness.

4.1.6

How, O venerable one, can there be action for that which is inactive? / If he is independent, how is he born in undesirable wombs?

4.1.7

If he is self-controlled, why is he forcibly overcome by disagreeable states? / And because he is all-pervading, does he not experience all sensations?

4.1.8

Why does the omnipresent one not see what is concealed behind a rock or a wall? / Moreover, there is doubt: which is prior, the knower of the field or the field?

4.1.9

For without the knowable field existing first, the knower of the field is not possible; / and if the field were prior, the knower of the field would be non-eternal.

4.1.10

And of what is he a witness, when indeed no other agent exists? / And how can there be a distinction produced by sensation in that which is devoid of modification?

4.1.11

Moreover, O venerable one, which of the three [sensations] of the afflicted person does the physician treat: / past sensation, present sensation, or future sensation?

4.1.12

The future one has not arrived; the past one does not return; / and even of the present one there is no duration for the affliction: hence indeed arises doubt.

4.1.13

What is the cause of sensations, and what is declared to be their substratum? / And where do all these sensations cease without remainder?

4.1.14

All-knowing, renouncer of everything, freed from all conjunction, / solitary, tranquil—by what marks is the individual self perceived?”

4.1.15

Having heard this statement of Agniveśa, Punarvasu, the best of the wise, / whose self is tranquil, spoke everything in accordance with reality:

4.1.16

“The person is considered to consist of elements beginning with ether and having consciousness as the sixth; / the consciousness element alone is also considered to be termed the person.

4.1.17

And again, by classification of elements, he is considered twenty-four-fold: / the mind, the ten sense organs, the sense objects, and the eightfold original nature.

4.1.18

The characteristic mark of the mind is the absence or presence of cognition; / for even when the contact of the self, sense organs, and objects exists, cognition does not take place

4.1.19

owing to the distraction of the mind, and it does take place owing to its presence. / Subtlety and singularity are considered the two qualities of the mind.

4.1.20

That which is to be thought, investigated, reasoned about, meditated upon, and intended— / whatever is cognizable by the mind is called its object.

4.1.21

The function of the mind is the directing of the senses, self-restraint, / reasoning, and deliberation; after that, intellect proceeds.

4.1.22

For an object of the senses is grasped by a sense organ accompanied by the mind; / subsequently it is conceptualized by the mind as possessing merit or defect.

4.1.23

Whatever intellect of a determinative nature is born regarding that object, / by means of that one resolves to speak or to act with deliberation.

4.1.24

The five sense organs of ether and the others, each endowed with one predominant [quality], / are inferred from their actions; from them intellect proceeds.

4.1.25

The two hands, the two feet, the anus, the genitals, and the organ of speech— / these are the five organs of action: the two feet are for the action of walking,

4.1.26

the anus and genitals for excretion, the two hands for grasping and holding; / the tongue is the organ of speech, and speech that is truthful is light, while untruthful speech is darkness.

4.1.27

The great elements are ether, wind, fire, water, and earth; / sound, touch, form, taste, and smell are their qualities.

4.1.28

Among them, the first has one quality; each subsequent one has an increase of qualities; / each preceding quality is remembered in succession in the bearers of qualities.

4.1.29

Roughness, liquidity, mobility, and heat are seen in order as the characteristic marks / of earth, water, wind, and fire; non-resistance is seen as that of ether.

4.1.30

All these characteristic marks fall within the domain of the tactile sense organ; / for touch, along with its contrary [qualities], is knowable by the tactile sense organ.

4.1.31

The qualities in the body are pointed out as the marks of the possessors of qualities; / the objects such as sound are known as sensory fields, objects, and qualities.

4.1.32

Whatever intellect of a creature arises based on whichever sense organ / is designated by that [organ], and that born of the mind [is designated] by the mind.

4.1.33

Because of the division of actions, sense organs, and objects, cognitions are indeed considered many; / each one arises from the contact of the self, the sense organ, the mind, and the object.

4.1.34

Just as sound is seen to arise from the finger, thumb, palm, string, vīṇā, and fingernail, / so cognition is seen to arise from combination.

4.1.35

One should know the supreme [self] as the holder of the conjunction of intellect, sense organs, mind, and objects; / for this aggregate of twenty-four components is designated as the person.

4.1.36

For one connected with rajas and tamas, this conjunction is endless; / but when those two are dispelled by the increase of sattva, it ceases.

4.1.37

Here action is established, and here its fruit, and here knowledge; / here are delusion, pleasure, pain, life, death, and possessiveness.

4.1.38

He who knows this in accordance with reality knows dissolution and origination, / succession, medical treatment, and whatever is to be known.

4.1.39

Light, darkness, truth, falsehood, the Vedas, auspicious and inauspicious action / would not exist if the person were not both agent and knower.

4.1.40

There would be no substratum, no pleasure, no suffering, no departure, no arrival, no speech, / no discernment, no authoritative texts, no birth, and no death,

4.1.41

nor would there be bondage or liberation, if the person did not exist. / Therefore, the person is declared as the cause by those who know causes.

4.1.42

If the self were not the cause, light and the other [entities] would be without cause; / nor could knowledge arise in them, nor could there be any purpose fulfilled by them.

4.1.43

[Whoever asserts that] a pot is made by clay, a stick, and a wheel without a potter, / or a house is made by clay, grass, and wood without a builder,

4.1.44

that person would assert, out of ignorance, that the body is made by instruments combining together / without an agent—being excluded from reasoning and authoritative tradition.

4.1.45

The person is apprehended as the cause by all means of knowledge, / [and] from all authoritative traditions from which the object of knowledge is cognized.

4.1.46

"They are not identical, but are others arising in succession; / yet, because of similarity, these continually new [states] are indicated as being just those [same entities]."

4.1.47

"Entities are an aggregation of these, devoid of a lord, designated as a living being; / he is neither agent nor experiencer, nor is he a person"—thus some hold.

4.1.48

For them, by whom no self is taught, / other new, similar entities experience the result of an action done by other entities.

4.1.49

Otherness is observed among instruments, but the agent of the action remains the same; / for the agent, conjoined with instruments, is the cause of all actions.

4.1.50

The time of destruction of entities is swifter than a twinkling of the eye; / once broken, there is no recurring existence, nor does what is done accrue to another.

4.1.51

Because this is the opinion of knowers of reality, therefore he is the cause; / in the undertaking and enjoyment of living beings, the eternal [entity] is designated as the person.

4.1.52

Egoism, fruit, action, transmigration to another body, and memory / exist when there is a cause of living beings within the body.

4.1.53

For there is no origin of the supreme self, because of beginninglessness; / but the person designated as an aggregate is born of delusion, desire, hatred, and action.

4.1.54

The self is the knower; its knowledge proceeds from conjunction with the instruments; / but it does not proceed due to impurity of the instruments or absence of conjunction.

4.1.55

Just as there is no true vision for one looking into a soiled mirror / or into turbid water, so it is when the mind is impaired.

4.1.56

The instruments are the mind, the intellect, the cognitive senses, and the organs of action; / action, sensation, and intellect arise from conjunction with the agent.

4.1.57

Alone, the individual self does not set out to act, nor does it enjoy the fruit; / everything proceeds from conjunction; without it, nothing exists.

4.1.58

For no single entity exists, nor does anything exist without a cause; / nor, due to swift motion and nature, does non-existence turn back.

4.1.59

The person is beginningless and eternal; but what is born of a cause is the opposite; / that which is eternal is seen to be real and uncaused, [whereas] what is born of a cause is otherwise.

4.1.60

That which is not graspable from an entity, its eternality cannot be known from anything; / the unmanifest is to be known from the entity, being unthinkable; otherwise it is manifest.

4.1.61

The unmanifest is the self, the knower of the field, constant, all-pervading, and imperishable; / whatever is other than that is manifest, and another pair will also be explained.

4.1.62

The manifest is sensible, and is that which is grasped by the senses; / but the unmanifest is other than this, graspable by inference, and beyond the senses.

4.1.63

Space and the other [elements], intellect, the unmanifest, and egoism as the eighth / are declared as the primordial nature of beings; and the modifications are sixteen.

4.1.64

The five cognitive senses, the five organs of action, / and the five sense-objects together with the mind are designated as modifications.

4.1.65

Thus the entire field is declared, excluding the unmanifest; / the sages know the unmanifest of this field to be the knower of the field.

4.1.66

From the unmanifest, intellect is born; through intellect, one thinks 'I am'; / thereafter, space and the other [elements] are produced in order from egoism.

4.1.67

Then, complete with all limbs, born, he is said to be arisen; / at dissolution, the person is separated again from the active entities.

4.1.68

From the unmanifest he goes to manifestness, and from the manifest back to unmanifestness; / pervaded by passion and darkness, he revolves like a wheel.

4.1.69

Those who have supreme attachment to duality and who are devoted to egoism / have arising and dissolution; but those who are otherwise do not.

4.1.70

Inspiration and expiration, blinking and the like, life, the movement of the mind, / wandering to other sense-organs, impulsion, and restraint,

4.1.71

going to another place in dreams, also the taking on of death, / and the apprehension with the left eye of what was seen with the right,

4.1.72

desire, hatred, pleasure, pain, effort, consciousness, resolve, / intellect, memory, and egoism are the marks of the supreme self.

4.1.73

Because these marks are observed in a living person, / and are not marks of the self in a dead person, the great sages have therefore declared [them].

4.1.74

For when that [self] has departed, the body is an empty dwelling, devoid of consciousness; / remaining only as the five elements, it is said to have gone to fivefoldness.

4.1.75

The mind is devoid of consciousness and possessed of action; the supreme one is the conscious agent; / the actions of that all-pervading [self] conjoined with the mind are indicated.

4.1.76

Because the self is conscious, it is therefore called the agent; / and because of being devoid of consciousness, the mind, although possessed of action, is not so called.

4.1.77

Just as every living being, by its own self, governs itself / through the vital breaths in all wombs; for there is no other ruler of it.

4.1.78

As the master, he performs that action having done which he experiences the fruit; / as the master, he concentrates the mind; as the master, he casts aside everything.

4.1.79

Although the embodied self is all-pervading, it is in its own respective sense of touch; / therefore, the self does not perceive all sensations located in all substrata.

4.1.80

Pervasiveness belongs to it precisely because it is all-pervading and great; / and through concentration of the mind, the self sees what is concealed.

4.1.81

One should know that, through its constant connection with the mind which pursues the deeds of the body, / it reaches all wombs, even while standing in a single womb.

4.1.82

The self has no beginning; the succession of fields is beginningless; / therefore, because both are beginningless, it is not stated which was prior.

4.1.83

The knower is called the witness, not the non-knower, since the self is remembered as the witness; / for all states of all beings have the self as their witness.

4.1.84

The individual self is never perceived alone by its characteristics; / no distinction exists for that imperceptible, single [self].

4.1.85

A distinction made by sensation is accepted for the composite person; / where sensation is fixed, there distinction is produced by it.

4.1.86

"A physician treats all sensations pertaining to the three times"— / let the reasoning by which some assert this be grasped:

4.1.87

"Again that headache has come, that fever has returned, / again that cough is severe, that vomiting has returned."

4.1.88

By these well-known expressions, the return of past [states] is recognized; / and this time of past sufferings has returned.

4.1.89

The medicine that is administered having aimed at that time of suffering / is called the alleviation of past sensations.

4.1.90

"Lest those waters return by which the crops were previously destroyed"— / just as a dam is constructed [for this], so is counter-action in the substratum.

4.1.91

Having observed the prodromal symptom of impending disorders, / the action that is taken destroys sensation that has not yet come; / but the continuous succession of sufferings ceases, / and happiness also begins, through treatment with the causes of happiness.

4.1.93

Balanced [elements] do not fall into imbalance, nor do imbalanced ones attain balance; / bodily elements are constantly produced similar to their causes.

4.1.94

Placing this reasoning foremost, the physician destroys sensation / belonging to the three times: this is stated; but definitive therapy is that which is free from grasping attachment. / For grasping attachment is the supreme cause that grants suffering and the substratum of suffering; / and abandonment of all grasping attachments removes all suffering.

4.1.96

For just as the silkworm produces threads that bring about its own death, / so the ignorant person, being perpetually afflicted, produces craving from sense-objects.

4.1.97

The wise person, however, knowing sense-objects to be like fire, turns away from them; / through non-undertaking and non-contact, suffering does not attend him.

4.1.98

Derangement of intellect, resolve, and memory, the fruition of time and karma, / and contact with unwholesome objects: these are to be known as the causes of suffering.

4.1.99

Faulty conviction regarding the eternal and the transient, the beneficial and the harmful, / is to be known as derangement of intellect; for the intellect sees truly.

4.1.100

Because of derangement of resolve, the mind, which is inclined toward sense-objects, / cannot be restrained from harmful objects; for resolve has the nature of restraint.

4.1.101

When, for one whose self is veiled by rajas and moha, memory regarding the knowledge of truth / fails, that is derangement of memory; for what is to be remembered rests in memory. / What unwholesome action one does whose intellect, resolve, and memory are deranged: / one should know that as cognitive error, the provoker of all doṣas.

4.1.103

Forcing [the urges] that have motion, and suppression of those that have arisen; / engagement in rash acts, and excessive indulgence in women;

4.1.104

transgression of the time for actions, improper initiation of actions, / breach of modesty and conduct, and affront toward those worthy of reverence;

4.1.105

indulgence in objects known by oneself to be harmful, / and indulgence in causes that are supremely productive of insanity;

4.1.106

movement at improper times and in improper places, friendship with those of contaminated actions, / and avoidance of good conduct as described in the regimen of the sense organs;

4.1.107

envy, pride, fear, anger, greed, delusion, intoxication, and bewilderment, / or the contaminated action born of them, and contaminated action of the body;

4.1.108

and whatever other action of this kind arises from rajas and moha: / the cultured call that cognitive error, the cause of disease.

4.1.109

Faulty understanding by the intellect and faulty activity: / one should know this as cognitive error, for that is within the realm of the mind.

4.1.110

The temporal maturation of diseases has been specified in the enumeration of diseases, / as previously [explained]: the accumulation, provocation, and pacification of pitta and the others.

4.1.111

The end of the rainy season and so on, characterized by improper, excessive, and deficient [manifestations], are causes of disease; / and the periods of time and non-time [concerning] food digested, being eaten, or thoroughly digested;

4.1.112

and morning, midday, afternoon, and the three watches of the night: / the diseases fixed to these times are born of time.

4.1.113

The quotidian, the two-day seizing [tertian], the tertian, and the quartan [fevers] / appear at their respective times; for at [that] time comes their strength.

4.1.114

These and whatever other various illnesses are born of time / are to be treated before they arrive by one who understands strength and time.

4.1.115

Through the transformation of time, diseases born of the causes of old age and death / are seen to be natural; nature admits of no counter-action. / What karma from a previous body is designated by the word 'destiny': / that too is observed over time to be a cause of diseases.

4.1.117

For there is no great karma whose fruit is not experienced; / diseases born of karma, defying therapy, reach pacification upon its exhaustion. / From hearing an excessively harsh sound, from not hearing at all, / and from hearing exceedingly faint sounds, men become deaf.

4.1.119

Contact of hearing with sounds that are harsh, terrifying, inauspicious, / disagreeable, and indicative of calamity is called improper contact.

4.1.120

Non-contact, excessive contact, and deficient contact / of tangible things are stated in brief as harming the sense of touch.

4.1.121

Contact with evil spirits, poisons, and winds, and contact with unctuousness, cold, and heat / arriving out of season: that is called improper contact. / Sight is ruined by excessive gazing at radiant forms, / and by gazing at extremely subtle ones, and also by not looking at all;

4.1.123

from seeing forms that are hated, terrifying, repulsive, too far, or too close, / and dark forms, improper contact is spoken of. / Excessive intake, non-intake, and, with respect to habituation and the like, / irregular intake and deficient intake of tastes are vitiating.

4.1.125

Resorting to excessively faint or excessively sharp smells, / and not resorting [to them] at all, destroys the organ of smell.

4.1.126

Smells that are putrid, spirit-bearing, poisonous, repugnant, and unseasonal: / contact of smell with those odors is called improper contact.

4.1.127

Thus the three-fold unwholesome contact with sense-objects provokes the doṣas; / one should know as unwholesome that which does not assimilate with the self. / The disease that arises from the improper, excessive, and deficient contacts / of sound and the others is to be known by the wise as a sensory disease.

4.1.129

These are remembered as the causes of unpacified sensations; / the cause of happiness, however, is a single balanced one: balanced contact, which is very difficult to attain.

4.1.130

Neither the senses nor the objects are the causes of pleasure and pain; / but the cause of pleasure and pain is seen to be fourfold contact.

4.1.131

The senses exist, the objects exist; yet if there is no contact, there is no pain, / nor pleasure; therefore contact alone, which is fourfold, is the cause.

4.1.132

There is no pleasure or pain without the self, the senses, the mind, the intellect, / the object, or karma; how and which [is the cause], that is explained as it is to be understood:

4.1.133

Contact with the sense organ of touch and mental contact: / this two-fold [contact] is the instigator of the sensations of pleasure and pain.

4.1.134

Craving, consisting of desire and aversion, arises from pleasure and pain; / and craving is again said to be the cause of pleasure and pain.

4.1.135

For it grasps the states termed the substrata of sensation; / when there is no grasping, one is not touched, and untouched, one does not experience sensations.

4.1.136

The substratum of sensations is the mind and the body along with the senses, / with the exception of the hair of the head and body, the tips of the nails, ingested food, excreta, and the fluid qualities.

4.1.137

In yoga and in liberation there is no occurrence of any sensations; / in liberation the cessation is without remainder; yoga is the promoter of liberation.

4.1.138

Pleasure and pain arise from the conjunction of the self, the senses, the mind, and the objects; / from non-initiation, when the mind is steady, abiding in the self,

4.1.139

both of those cease, and mastery arises / for the embodied person: the seers who know yoga know that as yoga.

4.1.140

Entering into another’s mind, knowledge of objects, action at will, / clairvoyance, clairaudience, memory, radiance, and invisibility at wish:

4.1.141

Thus the eightfold lordly power of yogins is declared; / it all arises from the concentration of the pure sattva.

4.1.142

Liberation is from the absence of rajas and tamas, and from the exhaustion of potent karma; / non-rebirth is said to be disjunction from all conjunctions.

4.1.143

Proper attendance upon the virtuous and complete avoidance of the wicked; / observance of vows, fasting, and various kinds of restrictions;

4.1.144

Retention of treatises on dharma, higher knowledge, delight in solitude, / aversion to sense objects, decisive judgment directed toward liberation, supreme steadfastness;

4.1.145

Non-undertaking of actions, and the exhaustion of those already done; / renunciation of action, absence of egoism, seeing fear in attachment;

4.1.146

Concentration of mind and intellect, examination of the true nature of things— / all this proceeds from the presence of the memory of reality.

4.1.147

Memory is produced by service of the virtuous and the rest, ending with steadfastness; / having recalled the intrinsic nature of things, one who remembers is freed from suffering. / The eight causes through which memory is produced will be stated: / from apprehension of a cause or form, from similarity, from contrast,

4.1.149

from application of the mind, from practice, from the discipline of knowledge, from hearing again, / and from recollection of things seen, heard, or experienced—memory is said [to arise].

4.1.150

This has been shown by the liberated as the sole path to liberation: / the power of the memory of reality, by which those who have gone do not return again.

4.1.151

This again is declared by yogins as the path of yoga, / and by the Sāṃkhyas who have enumerated the principles and attained liberation, as the path to liberation.

4.1.152

Everything that has a cause is suffering, not one's own, and truly impermanent; / for it is not produced by the self, and yet ownership arises therein,

4.1.153

so long as the true intellect does not arise, by which [one knows] 'this is not I'; / knowing 'this is not mine', the knower transcends everything.

4.1.154

In that final renunciation, all sensations along with their roots, / accompanied by consciousness, knowledge, and discriminative cognition, completely cease without remainder.

4.1.155

Beyond this, the individual self, having become Brahman, is not apprehended; / it has emerged from all states of existence, and no mark of it is found. / [The goal of the knowers of Brahman is Brahman, and that is imperishable and without mark;] / and the knowledge of the knowers of Brahman is here: an ignorant person is not fit to know it.

4.1.156

Here is a verse: / Twenty-three excellent questions concerning the person / were determined in this [chapter on] 'How Many [Kinds of] Person' by the seer of reality.

4.1.156_1

Thus ends the first chapter, called 'How Many [Kinds of] Person', in the section on the body of the treatise composed by Agniveśa and redacted by Caraka. //1

4.2.1

Now we shall explain the anatomical [chapter] on persons of different clans.

4.2.2

Thus spoke the venerable Ātreya:

4.2.3

When a man of a different clan unites in secret at the end of the menstrual period, / what is that four-footed thing, originating from the six, which becomes an embryo in women?

4.2.4

The wise declare that to be his semen, which is emitted for the origination of the embryo; / it has four parts consisting of the qualities of air, fire, earth, and water, and its origin is from the six tastes.

4.2.5

How and by what means is an embryo born with a complete body, in due time, and with ease? / Why does a woman, even having previously had offspring, conceive after a long time, or why is an embryo destroyed?

4.2.6

One who has excellence of semen, blood, self, womb, and season, / and whose care is accompanied by wholesome foods—her embryo is born in due time, healthy, easily, and with a fully complete body.

4.2.7

From defects of the vagina, from affliction of the mind, from defects of semen, blood, diet, and regimen, / from unseasonable intercourse, and from depletion of strength, even a woman who has had offspring conceives after a long time.

4.2.8

When a woman's menstrual blood is obstructed by wind, the unwise sometimes judge it to be an embryo; / for that blood, discharging nothing and growing, creates the appearance of an embryo in her.

4.2.9

Seeing that blood flow forth due to fire, sun, fatigue, grief, disease, or hot food and drink, / and not seeing anything that can be called an embryo, some men say it was taken by evil spirits.

4.2.10

The body is not desired as food for night-roaming demons who feed on ojas; / if they were to take the embryo, having found an opportunity, why would they not take the mother's ojas?

4.2.11

Why does she give birth to a daughter, or a son, or both together, or separately / two sons, or two daughters, or many sons, or an embryo after a very long time, and why does one among twins grow [more]?

4.2.12

By excess of blood she gives birth to a daughter, by excess of semen to a son; / when that seed is divided in two, she gives birth to a daughter and a son, through the excess of one or the other of their respective seeds.

4.2.13

She whose seed, with an excess of semen, undergoes division gives birth to two sons together; / or if it divides with an excess of blood, she gives birth to two daughters together.

4.2.14

Into as many parts as the excessively increased wind, entering, divides the semen and menstrual blood, / that many offspring, determined by karma, she brings forth beyond her own control according to the division.

4.2.15

When the embryo does not receive nourishment, or undergoes drying or leaking, / a woman gives birth to that embryo after a very long time, when it becomes nourished even after a number of years.

4.2.16

Due to being determined by karma and due to the unequal division of parts of the semen and blood, one grows more in the belly, / the other less; thus even among twins a notable difference arises.

4.2.17

Why is an individual born with both seeds, or with wind-dominated sense, or semen-transporting, or as a male eunuch, or a female eunuch, / or deformed, or taking pleasure through jealousy, or as a wind-type eunuch?

4.2.18

From seed with equal portions and afflicted, an individual having both male and female characteristics and both seeds is born; / wind, by destroying the seminal receptacle of the embryo, produces the condition of wind-dominated sense.

4.2.19

And wind, by obstructing the entrance of the seminal receptacle, produces the semen-transporting condition; / seeds that are sluggish and small, weak, and devoid of arousal are the cause of the two types of impotent persons.

4.2.20

From obstruction of the mother’s intercourse and from weakness of the father's seed, one becomes deformed; / when both are overcome by jealousy and have sluggish arousal, they state this as the cause of taking pleasure through jealousy.

4.2.21

He whose testicles are destroyed by a defect of wind and fire is a wind-type eunuch: / thus these eight varieties of abnormality in those determined by karma should be recognized.

4.2.22

What is the immediate sign of an embryo entered into the womb, whether male, female, or hermaphrodite, abiding in the belly? / And what is considered the cause by which an offspring resembles [the parents]?

4.2.23

Excessive spitting, heaviness, weakness of the limbs, drowsiness, horripilation, pain in the heart,
satisfaction, and retention of the seed in the vagina are the immediate signs of an embryo that has entered.

4.2.24

A woman whose movements are on the left side, who desires a man, who dreams of women, and whose drinks, food, habits, and movements are female,
who carries the embryo on the left side, whose belly is not round, and who has milk first in the left [breast], gives birth only to a female.

4.2.25

A son [is born] by the opposite signs, and the third nature by mixed signs;
at the conception of the embryo, whatever living being the woman's mind attends to, she gives birth to one resembling that.

4.2.26

The fourfold elements of the embryo originating from mother and father,
those born from nutrition, and those made by the self—all of them are present in the body of every [being].

4.2.27

Whichever among them become particularly powerful, originating from the karma of the mother and father,
one should determine those as the cause of resemblance; one should also determine the mind according to its past disposition.

4.2.28

Why does a woman give birth to a deformed offspring, having deficient or excess limbs, or with defective sense organs?
And how does the self pass from one body to another body, and by what is it always accompanied?

4.2.29

Through defects of the seed, the karma of the self, the womb, and the season, as well as through defects of the mother's diet and regimen,
the vitiated doshas produce diverse deformities of shape, complexion, and sense organs.

4.2.30

Just as in the rains the force of wood, stones, and dense water produces deformity in a tree standing in a river's current,
even so do the doshas [produce deformity] in an embryo that is developing in the womb.

4.2.31

Accompanied by the four extremely subtle elements, swift as thought, it goes from body to body;
and because its nature is karma, its form is not visible without divine vision.

4.2.32

It is all-pervading and the supporter of all bodies; it is the maker of everything and has all forms;
it is the element of consciousness, beyond the senses, eternally conjoined, and accompanied by residual karma.

4.2.33

One should know that there are sixteen elements in the body, originating from chyle, the self, the mother, and the father;
four among them reside in the self, and the self is likewise situated in those four.

4.2.34

The elements originating from the mother and father are stated to be the menstrual blood and semen in the embryo;
those elements by which semen and blood are nourished are the elements originating from chyle.

4.2.35

The four elements born of karma, however, which are merged in the self, enter the embryo;
having the nature of a seed, it goes again and again to another body within itself.

4.2.36

For it is well known that form arises from form, and mind from mind, in beings whose nature is karma;
but as for the differences of shape and intellect that arise, rajas, tamas, and karma are the cause therein.

4.2.37

The self is never separated from those imperceptible, extremely subtle forms,
nor from karma, nor from the mind and intellect, nor from the defects that are modifications of egoism.

4.2.38

For the mind is bound by rajas and tamas; without knowledge, all defects reside therein;
and the mind possessed of defects, together with powerful karma, is declared to be the cause of rebirth and movement.

4.2.39

Whence do diseases arise? What is their alleviation? What is the cause of joy and sorrow?
How may the disorders arising from the body and the mind, once pacified, not recur?

4.2.40

Fault of judgment, improper objects of the senses, and time of transformation is the third cause;
and the three kinds of pacification of all diseases are knowledge, objects, and time endowed with balanced contact.

4.2.41

Righteous actions are said to be the cause of joy; contrary to that, they lead under the power of sorrow;
and diseases arising from the body and the mind do not occur again through the non-recurrence of the two.

4.2.42

The continuous succession of physical form and mind has no stated beginning, for no such beginning exists;
the cessation of both is effected by supreme resolve, memory, and by supreme intellect.

4.2.43

Even when the twofold locus as previously stated exists, through constant counter-action against diseases,
illnesses do not afflict one who has conquered his senses, provided that destiny conjoined with that time does not intervene.

4.2.44

Destiny is called that karma which was done previously; human effort, on the other hand, is that which is seen here;
that which is improper is observed as the cause of initiation, while that which is balanced is indeed the cause of cessation.

4.2.45

Purging in spring the accumulation of doshas from the winter, in the rainy season that from the summer,
and at the departure of clouds that from the autumn, swiftly and properly, one never incurs seasonal diseases.

4.2.46

A person who resorts to wholesome food and regimen, who acts with circumspection, who is unattached to sensory pleasures,
who is generous, impartial, devoted to truth, forgiving, and who serves authoritative persons, becomes free from disease.

4.2.47

One whose thought, speech, and action have a pleasant consequence, whose mind is disciplined, whose intellect is clear,
and who possesses knowledge, austerity, and devotion to yoga—diseases do not afflict him.

4.2.48

Here is a verse:

4.2.48_1

Here, in the [chapter on] persons of a different clan, the venerable great seer has properly determined the thirty-six questions
of Agniveśa, which possess great significance, for the increase of knowledge.

4.2.48_2

Thus, in the anatomical section of the treatise composed by Agniveśa and redacted by Caraka, the second chapter entitled "Anatomy Concerning Persons of a Different Clan" is complete. //2

4.3.1

Now we shall expound the concise anatomical chapter on the descent of the embryo.

4.3.2

Thus spoke the venerable Ātreya:

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