The Materia Medica of the Hindus, compiled from Sanskrit Medical Works c4.s1.12

c4.s1.12

Material objects, according to Sanskrit writers, have six sorts of tastes, twenty sorts of qualities, and two sorts of forces in them. The six tastes are sweet, acid, salt, bitter, acrid and astringent. The twenty qualities of objects are as follows :—Heavy, light, soft, dull, oily, consistent, watery, hot, fixed, sharp, tremulous, delicate, demulcent, smooth, harsh, transparent, hard, pungent, coarse and cold. The two forces are heating and cooling. All substances are supposed, after digestion, to assume one or other of three sorts of properties : thus sweets and salts are supposed to be turned after digestion into sweets ; acids, into acids ; and bitters, acrids and astringents, into acrids. Besides the above properties, each medicine has a special action of its own. It is that quality which shews itself superior to the usual properties of taste, force, and result of assimilation ; as for example, Danti (Baliospermum Montanum), which though similar in properties to Chitraka (Plumbago Zeylanica), yet, unlike the latter, acts as a purgative. This result is owing to its special action, the nature or ultimate cause of which is beyond the comprehension of the Gods themselves.