Garudapurana 1.168

Glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa — 168 / The diagnosis is concluded. / Dhanvantari said: / I shall state the proven essence of therapeutic formulations that removes all diseases; / listen briefly, O Suśruta, for the sake of the life of living beings.

From eating astringent, pungent, bitter, sour, and unctuous food and the like, / from worry, sexual intercourse, physical exercise, fear, grief, and keeping vigil,

from loud talking, lifting heavy loads, and overexertion from activity, / vāyu becomes vitiated in cloudy weather, when food is digested, and at the end of the day.

From eating hot, sour, salty, alkaline, pungent, and undigested food, / from excessive exposure to harsh sunshine, fire, and heat, and from indulging in wine and anger,

during the period of burning digestion of food, at midday, at the end of the rainy season, / in summer, and also at midnight, pitta becomes vitiated in an embodied being.

From eating excessively sweet, sour, salty, unctuous, heavy, and cold food, / and from consuming new grain, slimy food, marshland meat, and the like,

from lack of exercise, day-sleeping, and the comforts of bed and seat, / the vitiation of kapha is provoked during [early] digestion and in the spring.

Roughness of the body, contractions, pricking pain, constipation, and so forth, / as well as numbness, horripilation, stiffness, and emaciation,

dark discoloration, looseness of the limbs, and increased fatigue despite exertion— / these are the signs of vāyu; a disease characterized by them one should declare as born of vāyu.

Burning sensation, feverish heat, moistness of the feet, anger, redness, exhaustion, / pungent or sour corpse-like foul odor, sweating, fainting, excessive thirst, dizziness,

yellow and green discoloration—a person endowed with these has the signs of pitta. / Unctuousness of the body, sweetness [in the mouth], slowness of action, obstruction,

numbness, satiety, compactness, swelling, coldness, heaviness, / itching, and excessive sleep are the symptoms arising from kapha.

From the combination of causes and symptoms, one should know a disease born of two doṣas; / that which arises from all causes and has three sets of signs is sānnipātika.

The body of embodied beings is said to be the receptacle of the doṣas, tissues, and wastes; / their balance is health, while decrease or increase is its opposite.

Fat, blood, flesh, adipose tissue, bone, marrow, and semen are the tissues; / vāta, pitta, and kapha are the doṣas; stool, urine, and the rest are considered wastes.

Vāyu is cold, light, subtle, unsteady, mobile, and strong; / pitta is sour, pungent, hot, and indigestion is the cause of disease;

phlegm is sweet, salty, unctuous, heavy, and extremely slimy. / Vāyu resides in the rectum and pelvis; pitta is located in the small intestine;

The stomach is the site of phlegm, or the throat and the sutures of the cranium.
Pungent, bitter, and astringent [tastes] agitate the wind.

Pungent, sour, and saline [tastes agitate] bile; sweet, hot, and saline [tastes agitate] phlegm.
These very [tastes] reversed, applied for their pacification,
lead to relief for the diseased, and become causes of well-being in health.

The sweet [taste] is known as beneficial to the eyes, increasing the fluid-tissue.
The prominently sour is delightful to the mind, as well as an appetizer and digestive.

The bitter [taste] is an appetizer, destroying fever and thirst, cleansing and drying.
The astringent produces bile, is scarifying, constipating, binding, and drying.

Substance is the excellent repository of taste, potency, and post-digestive effect;
it endures throughout the change of taste, and rapidly supports all entities.

Potency is regarded as cold and hot, or else as saline energy.
The post-digestive effect of tastes is twofold, and also pungent.

The excellence of the physician, the medicine, the afflicted patient, and the attendant—
these are the four limbs of medical treatment; the reverse lead to failure.

Having understood the region, season, age, digestive fire, habituation, constitution, and medicine,
as well as body, mind, strength, and disease, one should perform the treatment.
A marshy region has abundant water and hills, and aggravates phlegm and wind;
a dry-shrub region has different trees, and is dominated by disorders of blood and bile.

A region endowed with mixed characteristics is considered moderate.
One is called a child up to sixteen, middle-aged up to seventy, and old thereafter.

Phlegm, bile, and wind are generally said to be predominant in these stages respectively.
In decaying old age, treatments should be devoid of alkalis, cautery, and surgical instruments.

For an emaciated person, nourishing therapy must be performed; for a stout body, reducing therapy;
for an average frame, maintenance. The divisions of the body are considered three.

Strength should be carefully assessed through firmness, exercise, and contentment.
[A strong] man is free from affliction, possessed of great vigour, and greatly daring.

The drinks, foods, and the like which, even if contrary to one's constitution,
conduce to one's well-being, that is called habituation.

From phlegm-producing foods eaten by a pregnant woman, a phlegmatic person is born;
likewise from wind-producing and bile-producing foods; from beneficial food, one of balanced bodily constituents is born.

A lean, dry, sparse-haired man, unstable in mind,
devoted to talking much, [flying] in dreams—such a man has a wind constitution.

Prematurely greying, fair, sweating profusely, irritable, intelligent,
beholding blazing [fire] even in dreams—such is said to be of a bile constitution.

Firm of mind, with a fine voice, serene, with glossy hair,
beholding water and rocks in dreams—such a man has a phlegm constitution.

A man endowed with two or three humours is known by mixed characteristics;
even if other humours are present, the constitution is called after the predominant one.

The digestive fire is fourfold: sluggish, intense, erratic, and balanced,
due to the predominance of phlegm, bile, and wind, or due to their balance.

Maintenance must be performed for the balanced [fire]; subdual of wind for the erratic;
remedying of bile for the intense; and cleansing of phlegm for the sluggish.

Indigestion is the source of all diseases, and the destroyer of digestive fire;
and that is of four kinds, characterized by undigested, sour, chyme, and obstructed [states].

From the undigested state comes cholera, as well as heart-sluggishness and the like;
in that case, one should induce vomiting with calamus and saline water.

Loss of semen, dizziness, fainting, and thirst arise from the sour state;
there, when it is unassimilated, drinking cold water and resorting to wind [is prescribed].

Malaise of the limbs, heaviness of the head, and disorders caused by food faults—
in that case, day-sleeping, fasting, and abstention [from food] should be undertaken.

Colic and abdominal swelling indicate the retention of faeces and urine;
sweating should be administered there, and salted water as a drink.

The undigested, the sour, and the obstructed [arise] from phlegm, bile, and wind in order.
The wise physician, having anointed the abdomen with asafoetida, tryūṣaṇa, and rock salt,

should have him sleep by day, which destroys all indigestion.
A host of diseases comes from unwholesome food; therefore one should abandon unwholesome food.

Warm water as a post-prandial drink, or with honey, serves as a digestive.
Milk is generally incompatible with shoots of Capparis, curd, and fish.

Bilva, śoṇā, gambhārī, pāṭalā, and gaṇikārikā—
this great five-root combination is an appetizer and destroys phlegm and wind.

Śālaparṇī, pṛśniparṇī, the two bṛhatīs, and gokṣura—
this lesser five-root combination removes wind and bile, and is aphrodisiac.

Both combined make daśamūla, which removes fevers born of combined humours;
it is commended in cough, dyspnoea, drowsiness, and pleurodynia.

With these, through oils, clarified butters, and liniments, one overcomes ailments.
Four times the decoction of water [is added]; it should be reduced to a quarter.

The fat, an equal amount of milk, and the paste should be a fourth part of the fat.
The boiling done with the compounded drugs should be medium for an enema and drink;
coarse for massage, and mild for nasal therapy—thus one should prepare the decocting.

The stout body, the sense organs, and the established constitution are to be considered;
knowing that to be health, one should treat one who is long-lived.

He who perceives objects wrongly with his senses partakes of death;
and he who becomes an enemy to the physician, friends, and elders, but loves his foes.

He whose ankle, knee, forehead, jaw, and cheek
are fallen and displaced from their position, soon yields up his breath.

He whose left eye is sunken, tongue dark, nose deformed,
lips black and displaced, and mouth black—him one should abandon.

Thus ends the one hundred and sixty-eighth chapter, entitled 'Technical Terms of the Medical Treatise', in the Ācārakāṇḍa of the first section of the first part of the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa.