[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Medicine](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med) › [Early and ascribed compendia](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita) › [Carakasaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka) › [English (machine translation)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt) › 5.4 # The Compendium of Caraka 5.4 English (machine translation) 5.4 - **Language:** English ### [5.4.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.1) Now we shall expound the chapter on prognostic signs regarding the array of sense faculties. ### [5.4.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.2) Thus declared the revered Ātreya. ### [5.4.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.3) How a physician who knows distinctions should examine the senses of a person, wishing to know the span of his life—hear that: ### [5.4.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.4) One should examine \[the senses of\] sight and so forth properly through inference; for direct cognition \[is held to be through the senses, but\] the senses themselves transcend the senses. ### [5.4.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.5) When a person's cognition residing in the senses is observed to be altered from that of healthy people without cause, that is a sign of death. ### [5.4.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.6) Thus has been properly stated the sign foreboding misfortune in the senses; now learn that same matter once more in detail. ### [5.4.7](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.7) Seeing space as if dense, or the earth as if space— seeing both these in an unnatural state, he meets death. ### [5.4.8](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.8) One to whose sight the wind moving through the sky becomes visible, and a blazing fire does not become visible, one should declare his loss of lifespan. ### [5.4.9](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.9) When a man sees a net in perfectly clear water where no net is cast, whether standing or flowing, he is released from life. ### [5.4.10](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.10) One who while awake sees ghosts, various demons, or any other prodigy—he is not fit to live. ### [5.4.11](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.11) He who sees a fire that is of natural color as blue and lusterless, or black, or white, passes to the seventh night. ### [5.4.12](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.12) Seeing rays of light where there are no clouds, or clouds where none exist in the sky, or lightning without clouds, he meets death. ### [5.4.13](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.13) He who looks upon the clear sun or moon as if it were an earthen vessel covered with a black cloth—he does not live. ### [5.4.14](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.14) When one sees an eclipse of the sun or moon on a day that is not a new or full moon, whether diseased or free from disease, that marks the end of his life. ### [5.4.15](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.15) Seeing the sun at night, the moon by day, smoke rising where there is no fire, or a fire without luster at night, he meets death. ### [5.4.16](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.16) Men wishing to abandon their bodily existence see entities contrary to their marks: those possessing luster as devoid of luster, and those without luster as possessing luster. ### [5.4.17](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.17) Distorted, discolored, and of altered count, men see forms without \[external\] cause at the exhaustion of life. ### [5.4.18](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.18) He who sees invisible things, and he who does not see visible ones— both of them quickly look upon the realm of Yama, without doubt. ### [5.4.19](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.19) He who hears what makes no sound, and he who does not perceive sounds— both of these are to be understood by the discerning as if already dead. ### [5.4.20](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.20) The sick person who, closing his ears with his fingers, does not hear the sound of blazing fire, the intelligent physician should abandon him as one whose life-breath is gone. ### [5.4.21](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.21) He who perceives perversely the goodness or badness of odors, or does not perceive them at all, one should know him to have lost his lifespan. ### [5.4.22](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.22) He who does not recognize tastes, or does not recognize them as they truly are, in the absence of stomatitis, the skilled declare that man to be ripe \[for death\]. ### [5.4.23](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.23) Touching hot, cold, rough, smooth, soft, and hard tangibles, one who is about to die regards them as something other than they are. ### [5.4.24](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.24) Without intense asceticism or proper yoga, if one perceives beyond the senses, he goes to the dissolution into the five elements. ### [5.4.25](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.25) Apart from visual perception by the senses, whatever man perceives objects of the senses with other senses without a morbidity—he does not live. ### [5.4.26](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.26) Healthy persons who, through perversions of intellect, frequently see unreal abnormality in the objects of the senses—one should predict their death. ### [5.4.27](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.27) Here is the summary verse: ### [5.4.27\_1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.27_1) He who understands this cognition of the senses as it truly is— that physician is fit to know death and life. ### [5.4.27\_2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4.27_2) Thus, in the treatise composed by Agniveśa and redacted by Caraka, in the section on prognostic signs, the fourth chapter entitled "Prognostic Signs Regarding the Array of Sense Faculties" \[is concluded\]. ## Linked texts (1) - [Carakasaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka.5.4.1) — Agniveśa (Āyurveda) & Caraka, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.samhita.caraka~en-mt.5.4) · Pramāṇa