Hindu Medicine c8.100

c8.100

The intestinal fire residing in the belly, the “cooking fire,” and the humor bile, are one and the same force. There are five minor centers, wherein the humor bile is especially active, all fed from its main abode in the abdomen. Bile resides in the liver and spleen. There it imparts the characteristic red, fiery color to the substance of chyle, which is at first colorless when extracted by the cooking process. Hence, bile in both these organs is called the “reddening” fire (rañjaka); and chyle, reaching its first stage of transformation, is in this way turned into blood.