History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c24.s3.t2.10

v1.c24.s3.t2.10

Varāhamihira prescribes the method for treating seeds for increasing their fertility. For ten days daily the seeds are to be handled by hands smeared with ghee and soaked in milk. Then they are to be repeatedly rubbed with cowdung. They are to be fumigated with the fumes of the flesh of hog and deer and are to be sown mixed with meat and the fat of hog (Br̥hatsaṃhitā, 54. 19- 20). Tintidi and other seeds are to be sprinkled with combination (saktu)¹⁵ of powder of rice, Māṣa and sesamum mixed with putrid flesh and regularly fumigated with the fumes of turmeric (Ibid.21). Kapittha seeds are to be placed in milk which has cooled down after boiling in the eight roots (aṣṭamūli) consisting of Āsphoṭa, Dhātrī, Dhava and Vāsikā, Vetasavallī and Sūryavallī with leaves, Śyāmā and Syandanaka for tālaśata¹⁶ and then dried in the Sun. This process is to be repeated daily for a month (Ibid., 22-23). A fourth method is to sprinkle the seeds a hundred time with the paste made of the fruit of Aṅkola or the oil made of it from the fruit of Śleṣmātaka (Ibid.27). The shell of the seeds of Śleṣmātaka is to be removed and then treated with the lubricous fluid of Aṅkola and then dried in shade. This is to be repeated seven times. Then they are to be rubbed in the dung of buffalo and put in the dry dung of the same animal and then mixed with hail and soil (Ibid.,29-30).