A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c23.159

v1.c23.159

Some authorities (ācārya) claim that substance (dravya) is pre-eminent (in pharmacology) for the following reasons: its stability (vyavasthitatva), constancy (mityatva), maintenance of its generic characteristics (svajātyavasthāna), perceptibility by the five senses (pañcendriyagrahaṇa), its being a container (āśrayatva) (of the tastes, etc.), prescriptability (ārambhasāmarthya), recognition by the śāstras (śāstra-prāmāṇya), successive dependency (of taste, etc.) on substance (kramāpekṣitatva), and curability (of diseases) by component parts of it (ekadeśasādhyatva); shortly, substance is pre-eminent because it is a whole (nirayayavatva) and an inherent cause (samavāyikāraṇa)³⁹² (40.3).