A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v2.c34.235

v2.c34.235

In the stomach (आमाशय) the food becomes mixed up first with a gelatinous mucus (फेणीभूतं कफं) which has a saccharine taste, and then gets acidulated by the further chemical action of a digestive juice (विदाहादभूतां गतः—evidently the gastric juice is meant). Then the biomotor force, the Samána Váyu, begins to act and drives down the chyle by means of the Grahaní Nádí to the Pittá-saya (duodenum), into which bile comes down from the liver, and thence to the small intestines (आमपक्वाशय). In these, the bile (or rather the digestive substance in the bile as opposed to the colouring element) acts on the chyme, and converts the latter into chyle (रस), which has at first a katu taste (pungency). This chyle contains in a decomposed and metamorphosed condition all the penta-Bhautic organic compounds, viz. tissue-producing Earth-compounds, water parts or Ap-compounds, heat-producing Tejas-compounds, force-producing Váyu-compounds, and lastly, finer etheric constituents which serve as the vehicle of consciousness. The essence of chyle (सूक्ष्मभाग) from the small intestines is driven by the biomotor force, the Prána Váyu, along a Dhamaní trunk (cf. the thoracic duct) first to the heart (which is a great receptacle of chyle), and thence to the liver (and the spleen), and in the liver, the colouring substance in the bile acts on the essence of chyle, especially on the Tejas substance therein, and imparts to it a red pigment, transforming it into blood. But the grosser part of chyle (स्थूलभाग) proceeds along the Dhamanís, being driven by the biomotor force, the Vyána Váyu, all over the body.