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

A ground having a cool, glossy, white coloured soil, which is adjacent to water, and whose surface is covered with a lavish growth of glossy weeds and luscious shady trees, should be considered as characterised by the essential properties of water (Amvuguna . A ground having a gravelly soil of varied colours, and which contributes only to the germination of scanty and yellowish sprouts, should be looked upon as permeated with the attributes of essential fire (Agmguna). A ground with an ash-coloured or ass-coloured (grey , soil, and on which withered looking, sapless, large-holed trees of stunted growth, somehow eke out a miserable existence, should be considered as being controlled by the specific properties of air (Anilaguna) ; while the one having a soft, level surface with large trees and lofty

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THE SUSHRUTA SAMHITA. [ Chap. XXXVII.

hills cropping up at intervals thereon, and which is covered with growths of weeds and under-shrubs, and is endued with a dark soil, kept moist and sappy by the percolation of invisible (subterranean) water, should be looked upon as permeated with the essential properties of sky (Akashaguna).

According to certain authorities, the roots, leaves, bark, milk\^ exudations, essence and fruits (seeds) of medicinal plants and herbs, should be respectively culled in the early part of the rains (Pravrit) and in the rainy season proper (Varsha\ autumn, (Sharat), fore- winter (Hemanta), spring (Vasanta) and summer (Grishma). But we cannot subscribe to that opinion inasmuch as the nature or essential temperament of the earth is both cool (Saumya) and hot (Agneya). Accordingly drugs of cooling virtues should be culled during the cold seasons of the year, and the heat- making ones in the hot season, as they do not become divested of their native virtues at those seasons of the year. Medicinal plants of cooling virtues, which are grown on a soil of cool temperament and are culled during the cool seasons of the year, become intensely sweet, cooling and glossy. These remarks hold good of other medicinal plants and herbs.

Herbs of purgative properties, which are grown on a soil permeated with the specific virtues of water or earth matter, should be culled as the most effective of their kind. Similarly, herbs of emetic virtues should

Chap. XXXVII.] SUTRASTHA'NAM.

3.^9 be culled from a ground permeated with the essential virtues of fire, sky and air.

Herbs exercising both purgative and emetic virtues should be culled from ground exhibiting features common to both the two aforesaid classes of soil. Similarly, herbs possessed of soothing properties (Sanshamanam)* are found to exert a stronger action in the event of their being reared on a soil permeated with the essential properties of sk5\

All medicinal herbs and substances should be used as fresh as possible, excepting Pippali, Vidanga, Madhu, Guda, and Ghritam, fwhich should be used in a matured condition i.e. not before a year;. The milky juice or sap of a medicinal tree or plant should be regarded as strong and active under all circumstances. Herbs and drugs, that had been culled or collected within the year, might be taken and used in making up a medicinal recipe in a case where fresh ones would not be available.

Authoritative Verses on the Subject— Medicinal herbs and plants should be recognised and identified with the help of cowherds, hermits, huntsmen, forest-dwellers, and those who cull the fruits and edible roots of the forest. Xo definite time can be laid down for the culling of the leaves and roots of

* Herbs or drugs, which in virtue of their own essential properties soothe or subdue a disease without eliminating the morbid humours or without exercising any emetic or purgative action.

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medicinal plants, etc., such as are used in compounding the recipe, which is called the Patra-lavanam, and which covers, within its therapeutic range, diseases, which are peculiar to the entire organism (such as Vata-vyadhi, etc).*

As soil admits of being divided into six different classes according to its smell, colour, taste, etc. so the sap of a medicinal plant may assume an}' of the six different tastes through its contact with the peculiar properties of the soil it grows on. Tastes such as^ sweet, etc., remain latent in water, which imparts them to the soil in a patent or perceptible condition.