Charaka-Samhita — trans. Kaviraj Avinash Chandra Kaviratna
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The translator’s English as printed (Avinash Chandra Kaviratna). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Amongst these, those elements, derivable from the mother, the father, and the acts of previous lives, which become parti¬ cularly predominant, should be regarded as the reason of the resemblance. The mind should be regarded as the result of previous states of birth.*26
Agnivega said, — Through what cause does a woman produce a deformed issue, such as one divested of some limb or limbs or one possessed of some superfluous limb or limbs or one with some sense or senses incapable of discharging its or their function ?
How does the Soul (or Self) travelling out of one body got another ?
What are those things by which the Soul (or Self) is always followed (in its peregrinations from body to body) ?'17
Punarvasu answered, — The faults (viz., wind, bile, and phlegm), vitiated by defects appertaining to the seed, the acts of the form being in previous lives, the womb, and time, as also by defects father, too, through the semen he supplies for the formation of the seed, contributes the same four elements. The measures, of course, of each, as supplied by the mother and the father, differ in proportion. Through, again, the food or sustenance which the fcetus draws from, of course, the mother, the same four elements are supplied, in measures of differing proportions. Last come the four elements which the fcetus derives from the acts of previous births. The chit or Self, before birth gravitates, according to its previous acts, towards particular measures of the four (according to Punarvasu, or, five, according to others, for they include ether or space) primal elements and becomes invested with the body of a goat, a sheep, a cow, a horse, or a man, etc. Every live or dead body, as also every inanimate substance, consists of the four (or five) primal elements. The chaturi or panchi-karana, meaning mixture or combination of the four or five, takes place in different proportions. Hence, the difference between object and object, or body and body.— T.
* In verse 26, the Rishi explains tbe reasons of the resemblance which the child has with its parents. This resemblance is both general and parti¬ cular. By the former is meant the resemblance of genus and species ; by the latter, that of individuality. Thus, a human mother not only begets a human being but also a being that is very like herself or the person through whom she conceives, or both herself and that person. The reason of this resemblance is the predominance of the elements derived by the
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CHARAKA SAMHITA.
appertaining to the food and movements of the mother during the period of gestation, cause diverse kinds of defects of body, complexion, and organs (of both sense and action).*28
As trunks (or timber), rocks and stones, clouds (including thunder-storms and rain and hail), and the force of the current, in the season of rains, cause injuries to a tree standing by the bank (or in the bed) of a river, even after the same manner the vitiated faults cause defects in the foetus placed in the womb, f
With the four primordial elements in their subtile forms, the Soul (or Self) gets into one body from another.
In consequence of its vest being (then) only acts, it has, unless one has spiritul vision, no visible form.J foetus from the mother, the father, and the acts of previous states of existence.
Having stated the reason of the resemblance, the Rishi refers to the origin of the mind. The mind of the foetus is ‘ yathanukam,’ that is, agree¬ able to previous states of birth. The ‘ chit ’ that had been formerly encased in the form of a man and that would gravitate, through good acts, towards the attributes of humanity, would again be encased in the form of a man.
* Time means both the season of insumination and gestation and the age of the parents. The first has reference also to the state of the bodies, or tempers of the parents. — T.
t The comparison is scarcely happy. Of course, the foetus in the womb, is compared to the tree in the bed or bank of a river, and the vitiated faults to the fallen and floating trunks, etc., etc. ‘ Kashata ’ is word', mean¬ ing trunks of fallen trees carried away by the swallen river. ‘ A?ma ’ implies boulders or stones. In certain well streams, boulders and stones are washed down with such force after a heavy shower that elephants refuse to cross them at such times even if the water be no higher than their knees. — T.
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