An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. I: Sutrasthanam — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907)

A gentle, cool and fragrant breeze, blowing from the direction of his destination, should be regarded as an auspicious omen by a physician. A wind, which is hot, dry, and is charged with the fetid exalations of putrid matter, and which blows from the direction of his starting point, should be regarded as an evil omen.

The word "cut," used by another and accidentallv heard by a physician fon his wa^O to the bed-side of a patient laid up with Granthi (aneurism) or Arvuda (tumour), should be regarded as a good omen ; while the term "open", heard under similar circumstances and in connection with a case of Vidradhi (abscess), or Gulma (abdominal gland\ or Udara (ascites), should be regarded as an equally auspicious portent. Similarly, the term "stopped" is commended in a case of dysenter}' or haemoptysis. Thus the physician should interpret the auguries according to the nature of each individual case.

p. 278

A curse, imprecation, or wailing like "woe to me", as well as sobs, groans, reports of defecation or vomiting, the brayings of an ass, the frightened sound of a camel, an obstacle or impediment in the path of a physician, or a sudden breakage, collapse, or the falling of any article from a cupboard, and a sad or dejected spirit of the physician without any assignable cause, should be regarded as evil omens at the time of his starting.

These omens should be observed or attended to at the time of first entering the house of a patient, or at the threshold or within its walls, but not after the physician has once commenced the medical treatment. The sight of a knot of torn hairs, ashes, bones, wood, stone, husks of grain, cotton, thorns, a bedstead with its legs upturned, wine, water, fat, oil, sesamum, dried grass, straw, a eunuch, a deformed person or one with a broken limb, a nude man, or one with a clean shaved head, or clad in a black garment, should be regarded as evil omens by a physician, whether noticed b}' him at the time of starting or after getting into a sick room. Pots or utensils placed in pendent brackets, and found to be spontaneously moving about without any definite cause, as well as any other fallen articles digged in, smashed in or thrown out of the sick-room ; a ph3^sician sitting dejected and gathered up in his seat, and the patient sitting with a downcast face, or pricking his body or at the bed clothes

Chap. XXIX. ] SUTRASFHANAM. 279

while talking with the physician, or shaking his hands, back or head, or taking hold of or placing the hands of the physician in his own, or on his breast, or interrogating the physician with an up-turned face, or pressing his own limbs, when he is interrogated by the physician in return, should be considered as unfavourable signs.

The patient, in whose house a physician is not duly honoured, can never rally. The due honouring of a physician leads to a speedy recoAery. A messenger of good omen forebodes the favourable termination of a disease, while the contrary is indicated by a messenger of the opposite type. Hence a physician shall carefully observe the ominous character of a messenger (despatched to seek his aid .

Dreams : — Now I shall describe the dreams, which either being dreamt by the patient, or by his relations, portend fatal or a successful close of the malady. The patient, who dreams of going towards the south on the back of an elephant, or on that of any carnivorous animal, or of riding on a boar or on a buffalo, or sees himself carried towards the quarter by a dark woman with dishevelled hair and clad in a blood- red garment — laughing and dancing, soon meets his doom. A dream by a patient that members of vile castes have been drawing him southward, or that ghosts or anchorites have been embracing him, or that

28o THE SUSHRUtA SAMHITA. Chap. xxix.

savage beasts with diabolical faces have been smelling his head, predicts that his earthly days are numbered, while such dreams occurring in a healthy subject indicate an impending disease.