An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. I: Sutrasthanam — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907)
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The translator’s English as printed (Kunja Lal Bhishagratna). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Charaka Sutrasthinam Chap. I.
/'
,/ / rxTRODrcTfoN. , xlix are five Anjali-fuls of Agni (i)' in the human t)rganism. This discrepancy is best explained away by including one Yava measure of Agni - (enzymes, ferment) in the five Anjali-measures of Pittam. •'
The A'yurvedic Physiology recognises the exist'ence of another kind of Agni, which is called Dhatvagni (protoplasm) and which it cL\ssifies into seven different kinds, Arunadatta, the celebrated commentator of the Ashtangahridayam, holds that there are as many Dhatvagnis as the constituents of the body. (2)
'(i) q'g fiiTT^— Charaka Samhita. (2) A q^ qT^vftffi^i '5Bra?f:— v^ ^^^ift?:. ^'^tt^^^I ^rg<fl[inr flfq qigi?rfcT^(9rn fT(?Tfq qTf?f^T3I^r«Io|: 1 ^g qif^^Till'flirw 3»r: qi^: I Arundatta.
q^g ?Tt€q3?^ 5I?Tq -^ q'^rfusrcrr^ffT II Ibid.
r. ^ T^TTf ■^^^^\ ^ig^TTit 'g^=^% 1 fqrnWl!; ^ \W^ '^m T^R^^^f^^ffT II fm'^'e^ HM *Tf« ^TfT ^"^^1 q^^^fl?T II l^a T?^f|c5J^ 5fT?r^Sf^ f^^t?^T*T I ^frf?T fT^ ^Tf^^T^j TW ^kli: II ii^ffTOifir 1^55^ #^ f\-n\ riff: w,?t: i cHJiTri f{'^m, f\\ #f 5[r^' fr5iTg?T fT?f: 11
^iaT^T9?lf^fvwiq : 9^fq^' ^qHsf^g I
Charaka SamhiiS, ChikitsSsthSnam^ Chapter X\'.
I). ^f«f¥ mJTTft >^?Tfr f^f^^ ^: I q^T»^*Tf^f«: qi^ gif'Tf ff ? q^l^rf: I! "
Vid lljid Chap. XX.
1 intr6duction.
The tommeniator of the Chhandagya Bhasyani has emphasised the identity of the Pittani and the solar heat. In fact it was a doctrine of faith among the Rishis that the solar heat pent up in the solids is transformed into organic heat (Bhutagni) which, becoming liberated in the stomach, produces the heat of digestion, (i) All these are but different forms of solar "^ heat. The Dhatvagni and Udaragni lie inert in the organism. It is the Vayu that sets them free and makes them operative.
The Dhatvagnis (protoplasm) of the muscle are not of the same kind as that of the arteries. We cannot resist'
<■ the temptation of quoting a few lines from Foster's physiology on the subject.*
(I) A. flra: ^«< ^^\ M^m-^^ ^%^^\ « ^f ^* ^q?")^r?T ^.^
ChhAndogya Upanisliad.
Chh^ndogya Bh^syam.
" These facts and other considenitions, which might be brought forward, lead to tl\e tentative conception of protoplasm as being a substance (if we may use the word in somewhat loose sense) not only unstable in nature but subject to incessant change, existing indeed as the expression of incessant molecular, i. i. chemical and physical cliange, ver3' much as a fountain is the expression of incessant replacement of water. We may picture to ourselves the total <:'hange. which we denote by the term "metabolism," as consisting on the one hand, of a downward series of i,Katabolic changes) a stair of many steps in which the more complex bodies are broken down with the setting free of energy into simpler waste bodies, and, on the other hand, of an upward series of changes (anabolic changes) also a stair of _ many steps, by which ihe dead food of varying simplicity or complexity is with further assumption of energ}- built up into more and more complex bodies. The summit of the do'uble stair we call ''protoplosm" whether we have right to speak of it as a single hodv .'in the chemical sense of that word or as a
INTRODUCTION. , ll
From whal has now been sUted regarding ihe functions and significations of the Vayu, l*ittam and Kaphah, it will appear that the Achai*yayas of the Ayurveda contemplated three different sets of principles in the domains of Biology and Pathology. Vayu, Pittam, and Kaphah are mixture in some way of several bodies. Whether we should regard it as tlie very summit of the double stair, or as embracing as well as the topmost steps in either side, we can not at present tell. Even if this be a simple substance forming the topmost summit, its existence is absolutely temporary, at one instance it is made, at the next it is unmade matter, which is passing through the phase of life, rolls up the ascending step t«5 the top and forthwith rolls down on the other side * o o
Further the dead food itself fairly, but far from being wholly stable in character, becomes more and more complex living material. It becomes more and more explosive and when it reaches the summit its equilibrium is over-thrown and it actually explodes. The whole downward stair of events seems in fact to be a series of explosives by means of which the energy latent in the dead food and augmented by the touches through which the dead food becomes living protoplasm, is set free. Some of those freed energy is used up again by the material itself, in order to carry on tliis same vivification of dead food, the rest leaves the body as heat or motion.
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