Cakradatta (Cikitsasangraha) 67: Adhikāra 67

Clarified butter, oil, muscle fat, and marrow are regarded as the foremost among unctuous substances; / even among them, clarified butter is the best because of its adaptability to processing.

Pure clarified butter should be given in conditions of pitta; accompanied by salt in conditions of vāta; / and when kapha is abundant, it should be given combined with the three pungents and alkali.

Likewise, clarified butter is praised for those desiring intellect, memory, wisdom, and digestive fire. / In patients suffering from glandular swellings, sinus ulcers, worms, kapha, medas, and vāta,

oil [is recommended] for lightness and firmness in persons with a hard alimentary tract, / and in those whose tissues are depleted by wind, sun, travel, carrying loads, women, and physical exercise;

and in those who are dry, exhausted, emaciated, or have an excessively fierce digestive fire, or channels obstructed by vāta. / The remaining two [namely fat and marrow] are used in spring, in pains of joints, bones, vital spots, and the alimentary tract, / as well as in pains from burns, trauma, uterine prolapse, earache, and headache.

One should drink oil in the early rainy season, clarified butter at the end of the rains, and the last two in spring; / here, depending on the requirement, one should drink the unctuous substance in an agreeable season.

A person with excess vāta and pitta should drink it at night and in the hot season; / one with excess kapha should drink it by day, in the cold season, and when the sun is clear.

Those fit for sudation and purification; those addicted to wine, women, and exercise; thinkers; / the elderly, children, the weak and emaciated, the dry, those with depleted blood and semen;

those afflicted with vāta, conjunctivitis, cataract, and severe intestinal obstruction— / these should be oleated; but not those with extremely sluggish digestive fire, sharp digestive fire, the obese, the very weak,

those afflicted with stiffness of the thighs, diarrhoea, āma, throat diseases, artificial poison, abdominal diseases, / fainting, vomiting, anorexia, kapha, thirst, and alcoholism;

a woman who has given birth with retained āma, when nasal therapy, enema, and purgation have been administered, / one accustomed to unctuous substances, one enduring hardships, one who is strong, and in cold weather.

One should drink the unctuous substance pure, for drinking it pure is indeed auspicious. / One should drink the palliative unctuous substance at mealtime when hungry;

for the purpose of purification, however, a person should drink it after the evening meal has digested. / [The digestive period] waits for a whole day and night, an entire day, or half a day [according to dosage].

The dose of the unctuous substance is high, moderate, or small in relation to digestion. / The dose for the high [capacity] is a pala, and in the moderate, three akṣas;

for the lowest, half a pala, both for unctuous substances and decoctable medicines. / Hot water should be drunk after clarified butter; soup is recommended after oil;

after muscle fat and marrow there should be scum of boiled rice, or hot water after all of them; / after unctuous preparation of bhallātaka or taurava, one should drink only cold water.

A person who has drunk an unctuous substance should, upon thirst, drink hot water; / and one should expel with hot water an unctuous substance that is being pacified thus.

He in whom the unctuous substance does not digest due to improper conduct or large quantity, / or digests with distress, should be made to vomit with hot water.

Then one should give the unctuous substance again to the person once the alimentary tract is light. / In case of doubt between digested and undigested, a person should drink hot water;

by that, the eructation becomes pure and an appetite for food arises. / He who is about to drink, who will drink tomorrow, who is drinking, or who has drunk, should eat food in proper measure: / liquid, warm, non-obstructive to channels, not excessively unctuous, and unmixed.

Three days is the minimum, but seven days is the maximum; / properly oleated, he should then be subjected to sudation as desired. / They do not prescribe oleation beyond this, / for after seven days it becomes habitual.

A person of soft alimentary tract is oleated in three nights by using pure [oleating substance]; / but a man of hard alimentary tract is oleated in seven nights.

Consuming an unctuous, liquid, and warm meat-soup of arid animals, he should undergo sudation. / Remaining oleated for three days, he should then undergo purgation, and emesis again

[after] one day, or on another day, having excited kapha with agents that cause it. / Downward movement of vāta, stimulated digestive fire, unctuous and non-compact stool,

aversion to unctuous substances, and fatigue occur in one properly oleated; the opposite in one un-oleated. / In one excessively oleated, however, paleness and discharges from nose, mouth, and rectum appear.

Oleation should be performed for the dry person, and drying therapy for the excessively oleated, / using meals of śyāmāka and koradūṣa, buttermilk, oil-cake, and roasted barley flour.

In children, the elderly, and others who cannot endure the restrictions of oleation, / one should administer these unperturbing formulations of instant oleation:

An unctuous thick gruel with little rice, in fried meat juice, / taken with honey, is called instant oleation.

Cooked with a handful each of clarified butter, oil, muscle fat, marrow, and rice, / this five-handful thin gruel should be drunk by one desiring oleation.

Likewise, a gruel containing clarified butter, abundant sesame, and very little rice, / consumed lukewarm, is called instant oleation.

Or one should milk a cow into a jar mixed with sugar and clarified butter; / one should make him drink an akṣa of this: this is called instant oleation.

Meat of domestic, marshy, and aquatic animals, jaggery, curd, milk, and sesame seeds / should be administered with oleation to a patient with skin disease, oedema, or urinary disorder.

One should oleate them with appropriate, non-aggravating unctuous substances prepared / with pippalī, harītakī, along with triphalā.

One should first administer oleation, and immediately after that, sudation. / For one endowed with oleation and sudation, purification comes immediately after.