The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c9.7

c9.7

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 (विदाहादमलतां गतः, evidently the gastric juice is meant). Then the bio-motor force, the *Samâna Vâyu*, begins to act, and drives down the chyme, by means of the *Grahaṇî Nâdî*, to the *Pittâśaya* (duodenum, *lit.* bile-receptacle), and thence to the small intestines (the 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 *kaṭu* taste (pungency). This chyle contains in a decomposed and metamorphosed condition all the organic compounds, viz. tissue-producing Earth-compounds, water-parts or Ap-compounds, heat-producing Tejas-compounds, force-producing Vâyu-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 bio-motor force, the *Prâṇa Vâyu*, along a Dhamanî 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 Dhamanîs, being driven by the bio-motor force, the *Vyâna Vâyu*, all over the body.