Indian Medicine (Medicin), translated by C. G. Kashikar c11.5

Language: English

c11.5.1

§ 40. Pregnancy :— The following symptoms appear after the conception : weariness, atony, looseness of limbs— particularly of the thighs, a feeling of heaviness, palpitation of the heart, salivation, nausea, thirst, goose-skin, palpitation in the vulva, retention of the sperm as well as of menstrual blood. The pregnancy is known by the following signs : vomiting, nausea, desire for sour food, dislike for fragrance, heaviness in limbs, closing of eye-lids (by weariness), sleepiness, yawning, swooning, black colour of the skin around the nipples and the lips, swelling of the feet, creation of breast-milk and swelling of the breasts, appearance of hair on linea alba below umbilicus, abnormal appetite etc. (Car 2.22;4.9; Su 3.3.13-15; AS 2.2.202; AHr 2.1.35 f.; 50-52; Bhav 1.1.23). The menses cease, because the canals leading menstrual blood are stopped by the foetus, so that the same is directed partly downwards to the placenta (*apara*), partly upwards to the breasts which, therefore, become full and raised (Su 3.4.24; AS 2.2.202).

c11.5.2

That the pregnant woman bears a son is known from the fact that milk is created first in her right breast, that her right eye becomes bigger, that she starts walking with the right leg, her desire in pregnancy tends mostly to food, drink and other things with masculine designations, dreams of blue or white lotus-flowers, mangoes and other things of masculine designations, the foetus stands on the right side, she does not desire her husband and so forth. From the opposite symptoms one should anticipate a female foetus: the woman in this case also likes dance, music, singing, fragrance and wreath of flowers (AHr). If the body of the woman is arched forward in the middle, while at the same time there is a combination of both the above-mentioned types of symptoms, she bears an impotent or a hybrid (*napumsaka, kliba*). If both the sides of the body are raised, the middle part has gone deep, so that the body has a form of a watertrough (droni) deepened in the middle, then she bears a twin (Car 4.2.28 f.; Su 3.3.34; AS 2.2.204; AHr 2.1.69-72). After pregnancy is sure the ceremony pumsavana takes place in order to aim at a son according to the Gṛhya sūtras¹ under the pusya constellation when three or four drops of milk mixed with an extract of Ficus Indica and other herbs are dropped in the right nostril of the woman as a snuff. She is not to let the fluid flow out. If the husband desires a daughter, he puts the fluid in the left nostril of the woman (Car 4.8.20; Su 3.2.32;

c11.5.3

AS 2.1.200; AHr 2.1.37-42). Herein are included, according to the Gṛhya sūtras² the usages which aim at the prevention of a possible abortion (garbhasthāpana) particularly if after the signs of pregnancy menses occur from the fourth month onwards or there is acute pain in the bladder, lateral parts, hips and entrance of the vagina. The woman should be made to lie down on a soft and cool bed with the head a little sunk down; a wet clothpiece with certain substances applied to it should be inserted in her vagina and urinal canal; her lower body between the navel and the genitals should be smeared with certain fluids and she should be made to have a cold tub bath. She should also pull on clothes which are made wet with juice of milky trees; she should carry "important herbs" on head and in the right hand, should take milk or butter prepared with it, and use internally and externally "animating herbs" in general (Car 4.8.33 f.; AS 2.1.200; AHr 2.1.41 f.). Danger threatens the foetus, if the desires of the pregnant woman are not attended to. Analogous to the development of organs (indriya) in the third or fourth month, the life-sensation occurs in the foetus, it begins to palpitate and to carry longings for all that (according to the belief in the theory of the rebirth of the soul) it experienced in the previous life.

c11.5.4

This condition is called dvaihṛdayya ('twoheartedness') or dohada² in relation to the two hearts of the mother and the foetus which stand connected with each other through the canal mediating the feeding of the foetus, whereby similar movements and desires occur in both the hearts. Therefore, one should not refuse to the woman the fulfilment of her desires, otherwise the deranged vāta will pervade the body and thereby the foetus would come out either in an expired condition or as a child which is humpbacked, lame, dwarflike, weakminded, or otherwise abnormal. On the other hand, by satisfaction of her desires she will beget a strong and long-living son (Car 4.4.16-19; Su 3.3.18; AS 2.2.202 f.; AHr 2.1.52-54).