A History of Indian Medical Literature v3.c47.10

v3.c47.10

The first chapter on horses describes the origin of horses, donkeys and mules (1–21ab), the classification of horses according to their colour (varna; 21cd-33ab), the constitutions (prakrti; 33cd-41), the eight types of characteristics of horses (42),34 the characteristics with regard to their body and the sizes of its parts (43–70ab) and the colour of the hair (70cd), horses of more than one colour35 (71–92), bodily defects (93–101ab), the sheens (chāya; 101),36 trot (102), smell (103–104) and ways of neighing (105), the character types of horses (sattva; 106–107),37 the whirls of hair (āvarta) and their meaning (108–185),38 the determination of the age of horses by means of their teeth (186–189), the characteristics of a long-lived horse (190), the determination of the span of life by means of lines on the nostrils (protharekhā; 191–208), and auspicious and inauspicious characteristics (209–224).