Vanaspati: Plants and Plant-Life as in Indian Treatises and Traditions c6.19

c6.19

to be, is nowhere expressly deduced. On the other hand, *Ātreya* and *Charaka* emphasise the influence of abundant or defective nutrition (see English translation 16, 17, pp. 774, 725), and of the constituents of the food, etc., on the characters of the *Vīja* in the reproductive tissue, especially as regards the sexual character, the stature, and the colour-pigment (वर्ण) of the offspring. But though the influence of nutrition on the *Vīja* is thus freely admitted in a general way, it is expressly stated that the peculiar characters or idiosyncracies of the elements that combine to form the *Vīja* must be regarded as a matter of chance (दैव), in other words, the truly congenital variations are accidental.”