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.
It is seen that acts, womb (in which birth takes place), affluence, a id Emancipation are all under the own control of persons that ar conversant with the Self.
None else (than the Self) is the author of one’s pleasure and pain.
As regards conception also, it arises from none else (than Self)
Also, none else (than the Self) grows.
No sprout can grow without seed. * 14
* What is said here is this : in conception, something resultts from mother, father, and Self, of their own will ; something from the influence of previous acts ; and something from the power or capacity of the organs both external and internal. With reference to the last, the measure of control depends upon the measure of power or capacity of the organs themselves ; that is, if the ‘ Karanas ’ or organs are endued with unrestricted power, mother, father, and Self have unrestricted control over the kind of being that takes birth. Thus, in the case of a father like the Rishi, Vibhandaka, who was endued with yoga puissance, the traditional account is that he begat the celebrated Rishi, Rishyasringa, upon a she-deer. Here the superiority of the ‘ Karanas ’ enabled the father to beget a superior child. So also in the case of the Rishi, Bharadwaja, a son like Drona was created without the intervention of an womb. Apart, again, from such instances furnished by mythology, it stands to reason that the superiority of the ‘ Karanas ’ in either of or both the parents, certainly tells upon the concep¬ tion. In the case of the Self also that takes birth, the superiority of his * Karanas ’ (as belonging to the linga carira or subtile body which succeeds the dissolution of the gross body) certainly enables it to take birth as a superior being. Such superiority is, as is evident, determined by the Self alone. — T
* What the Rishi wishes to inculcate in this passage is that they who are conversant with the Self have their acts, the wotnb in which they take birth, wealth, and emancipation, under their own control. They even select the womb in which they are to take birth. They can earn what affluence they desire. Birth, therefore, and condition in life, are not, in the case of all per¬ sons, matters over which there is no control.
CHAR AKA SAM HIT A
72 3
Verily, those possessions of the foetus which are derived from the Self and which grow from the growing Self we shall expound below.
They are as follows :
Birth in this or that womb, the period of life, knowledge of of Self, mind, organs of sense, the life-breaths called Prana and (and Apana and the rest, viz, Samana, Udana, and Vyana), volitons (in respect of acts), holding together the constituent elements, physical and mental, of the body, distinctions in respect of features, voice, and complexion, pleasure and pain, desire and aversion, animation, apprehension, understanding, memory, consciousness, and will, — these are derived from the Self* 15
Persons conversant with the Self are, of course, yogins.
As regards the being that takes birth and that grows, it is none else than the Self. The Self, it should be said, is eternal. What is meant by birth is only an investment of the Self by a material case. The case is destructible ; not so the Self. It is the Self that enters the womb and that begins to grow. This growth means the increase of the material case. The semen and the blood constitute the seed from which the material case, like a sprout,, begins to grow. It is pervaded or quickened by the Self. — T.
* ‘ Atmajani ’ and ‘ yani sambhatah atmatah sambhabanti ’ are, in reality, identical ; the first implies ‘born of or derived from the Self ’ ; the second, ‘ those which grow from the growing Self.’ Amongst those things which are mentioned by the Rishi, there are some which spring directly from the Self and some which grow as the Self grows in the womb and after coming out of the womb.
Take, for example, the senses. Though born of the Self, these do not appear till the Self actually takes birth, that is, enters into the foetus.
Although ‘Prana’ and ‘Apana’ only are named, yet all the five lifebreaths are implied.
By ‘ Preranam ’ is meant the power of impelling the organs of knowledge and action.
‘ Dharanam ’ implies the power of holding together the constituent parts of the body. The Self possesses such a power ; it is in operation when the body is asleep. When, however, the Self leaves the body, the constituent parts, no longer held together, begin to decay and dissolve away.— T.
p. 92
p. 724
CHARAICA SAMHITA.
Conception is, again, born of assimilation of proper food, since without addiction to food and drink, that are not assimil¬ able there cannot be sterility in man and woman, or mishaps to foetuses in the womb. As regards even men and women that are addicted to unassimilable food and drink, they are capable of bringing about conception as long as the three faults, becoming excited and pervading the body, do not injuriously affect the semen and blood and womb.
As regards men and women, again, that are habituated to assimilate food and drink, that have semen and blood and womb unaffected by impediments of any kind, and that unite in sexual congress at the proper season, conceptions do not take place in consequence of Jiva’s not falling (into the uterus).
Hence, conception is not born ©f only assimilable food and drink.
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