The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c9.s5.2

c9.s5.2

Influence of nutrition on the ovum, especially as regards the sex, stature, and colour-pigment of the resulting offspring.—In a general way, ghee and milk for the male, and oil and beans for the female parent, are favourable to the Vîja. The sexual character of the offspring depends in part on a periodicity to which the life-history of the ovum in the female parent is conceived to be subject—a law of alternate rhythmic change (not unlike what we now know to regulate the development of several orders of bacteria or unicellular organisms), a law under which the fertilisation of the ovum on the fourth day after the menstrual discharge, or on the alternate days succeeding, is favourable to the fœtus developing the male sexual character, and on the fifth, seventh, and alternate following days to the fœtus assuming the female sex. The *Prayogachintâmaṇi* states that the latter occurs on even days, and the former on odd days. Another factor is the relative predominance of the sperm and the germ cells in the fertilised ovum. Excess of the sperm-cell produces the male, that of the germ-cell the female. For male offspring of tall stature, fair complexion, and energetic temperament, wheat-pulp with honey, ghee (clarified butter), and milk should be taken by the female parent. Generally speaking, the adoption of the food, clothing, habits of people of any particular clime are supposed to be favourable to the production of their characteristic stature and complexion. As to sex, the fœtus for a time remains indeterminate, and then takes on a definite male or female character, but before this stage is reached the development of the sex can be modified to some extent by food and drugs (पुंसवननौषध). As for the colour-pigment, it is the animal heat (तेजोधातु) which is its source; but where the *Âkâśa* and *Ap* particles predominate (in the food) the animal heat (of the metabolic processes) produces a fair complexion; where Earth and *Vâyu* particles predominate in the food, blackness is the result; and where the different *Bhutas* are combined in nearly equal proportion in the food, the metabolic heat produces a dark pigment. In the later literature, ghee (clarified butter) habitually taken by the female during gestation is supposed to produce a fair complexion, and rice (or wheat) and salads a dark complexion. Charaka also holds that mental impressions of the parent are powerful factors in the determination of the characters of the offspring.