History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c24.s5.13

v1.c24.s5.13

The text lays down several prescriptions for the nourishment of plants, in the form of manuring formulae. It recommends that for the proper growth of a young plant a porridge made of fish, meat and sesamum should be administered cold every seventh day (verse 107). Other nourishing prescriptions are the sprinkling of juice extracted from the fruits of herbs, urine, fat, milk, corpse- water, ordure and meat, of kuṇapa mixed water in which meat and Kiṇva have been boiled (verses 112b-114), of the fat of deer and hog, honey and ghee and the juice extracted from the leaves of Nicula (verse 118); fumigation with the flowers of Siddhārtha and Arjuna mixed with the meat of deer along with Viḍaṅga, Rohita and Niśā (verse 116) and with the incense of plantain leaf, Siddhārtha and Śafarī fish (verse 117); besmearing with ghee, Vidanga, milk, water and honey, and fumigating with the pollen of Nalā, Kuṭha and Aja (verse 119); nourishing with the fat of python and Dhammiṇa (Hindi Dhāmina) (verse 120)33 and stinging of the creepers at the root by the thorn of a Vṛścika plant, fumigating with the śapharī fish and ghee and nourishing with the fat of hog and rat (verse 121).