Garudapurana 1.157

The glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa — 157 / Dhanvantari said: / I shall state the diagnosis of diarrhoea and duodenal disorder, O Suśruta: / it is of six kinds: through the doshas individually, all combined, from fear, and from grief.

Diarrhoea arises particularly from drinking excessive water, / from dry food, muscle fat, oily substances, sesame paste, and sprouted grains,

from alcohol, dry foods, excessive amounts of meat juices, disruption from excessive unction, / and from parasites, sounds, and incompatibilities in such regimen; aggravated wind

relaxes the downward wind, having thereby destroyed the digestive fire; / affecting food, stool, and viscera, fluidity of stool and other symptoms

bring about the characteristic signs of forthcoming diarrhoea: / splitting pain in the heart, anus, and viscera, bodily perspiration, retention of feces,

distension, and indigestion. There, through wind, without fever, / scanty, noiseless, and bound stool is evacuated;

dry, frothy, clear, or passed repeatedly with gripping; / also appearing like burnt medicine, slimy, causing cutting pain,

with a dry and prolapsed anus, horripilation, and sighing. / Through bile, the stool is yellow, turmeric-coloured, and green as grass;

with blood, extremely foul-smelling, accompanied by thirst, fainting, perspiration, and burning; / with rectal pain, heat, and suppurative inflammation. Through phlegm, it is thick,

slimy, following along with that, scanty, accompanied by tenesmus, / with horripilation, discomfort, and heaviness in bladder, rectum, and abdomen;

feeling as though not done even after defecation; that of all three forms has all symptoms. / When the mind is agitated by fear and one lies down, the wind liquefies the stool;

from that, the hot, fluid, floating [stool] is quickly expelled; / they say its symptoms are identical to wind-bile; similarly so from grief.

Diarrhoea in brief is twofold: with undigested matter and free from undigested matter. / Stool born with blood, causing disorder of chyle, sinks in water due to its heaviness, / foul-smelling, in one afflicted by gurgling, distension, pain, and excessive salivation.

The nirāma type is the opposite, but due to kapha it does not sink in water at all. / One who is not very careful in cases of diarrhoea develops the disease of the grahaṇī.

This may occur due to the extinction of the digestive fire caused by extremely accumulated [doshas]. / The condition whereby stool, either sāma or nirāma, is passed repeatedly in an undigested state

is atīsāra (diarrhoea), by nature acute because of excess purging; / [food] passed as sāma is broken down by indigestion, whereas when digested, it is not well-processed.

The disorder of the grahaṇī is chronic and causes the accumulation [of waste] to be eliminated: / suddenly [it causes] loose motions, and suddenly solid stool repeatedly. / It occurs in four varieties: from the individual doshas and from their combination.

The premonitory symptoms are: debility of the body, slow and deficient movement of vāta, / salivation, bad taste in the mouth, loss of appetite, thirst, exhaustion, dizziness,

distension of the abdomen, vomiting, and a buzzing sound in the ears. / The general symptoms are: emaciation, vomiting, fainting, fever,

loss of consciousness, headache, constipation, swelling of the hands and feet, / drowsiness, dryness of the palate caused by vāta, blurred vision, and ringing in the ears;

pain in the flanks, thighs, groins, and neck; acute cholera-like pain; / an increase in symptoms among the sick that drives away hunger and thirst.

When food is digested or being digested, flatulence occurs, but after eating, one feels relief. / Due to vāta, there may be suspicion of heart disease, abdominal tumors, piles, spleen enlargement, and anaemia.

With difficulty and after a delay, one repeatedly passes stool that is liquid, dry, small, frothy, and accompanied by sound, / suffering from pain in the anus, shortness of breath, and cough.

Due to pitta, one passes liquid stool that appears yellowish-blue or yellowish, / afflicted by foul and sour belching, burning in the chest and throat, loss of appetite, and thirst.

Due to kapha, digestion is painful, accompanied by nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, / a coated feeling in the mouth, spitting of phlegm, cough, excessive salivation, and chronic catarrh.

One feels the chest to be congested, the abdomen stiff and heavy, / with sweet-tasting, foul eructations, debility, and horripilation.

The stool passed is broken, mixed with mucus, heavy, and sour. / Weakness occurs even in one who is not emaciated; in the tridoshic type, all symptoms are observed.

The three wastes—thirst and the others—that are taught in the division of the body, / these too are the disorders of the grahaṇī; there is a common cause among them.

Diseases of vāta, urinary calculi, skin diseases, urinary disorders, abdominal dropsy, fistula-in-ano, / piles, and grahaṇī: these eight are the great diseases that are very difficult to overcome.

Thus ends the one hundred and fifty-seventh chapter, entitled “Diagnosis of Diarrhoea,” in the Ācārakāṇḍa, the first section of the first part in the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa.