Charaka-Samhita — trans. Kaviraj Avinash Chandra Kaviratna

t Suppose the physician is seated on a spot that is exposed to severe sunheat. A messenger comes to him and reports that the patient for whom he has come is suffering under a disease characterised by excited bile. The physician should not take up the treat¬ ment of the patient. Or, suppose the messenger arrives after dusk, and reports that the patient is suffering from a disease characterised by phlegm. The physician should not then take up the treatment. The fact is, certain places possess attributes agreeing with those of wind, or bile, or phlegm. So also certain hours of the day are similarly circumstanced. Thus the morning is the time for phlegm, the noon for bile, and the afternoon for wind. A spot exposed to heat, agrees in respect of attributes, with bile ; a spot exposed to breezes agrees with the wind ; a spot contiguous to water or damp owing to such conti¬ guity, agrees with phlegm.

Susruta says that by ‘kala’ or time, especial reference is made to certain planetary con¬ junctions and constellations. — T.

CHARAKA-SAMHITA.

gi8

Those patients should be regarded as on the point of death who send messengers that are cheerless or terrified, or that arrive at a running speed, or that are hasty, or ill-dressed, or that are of the female sex and unchaste in character, or that are three in num¬ ber, or that are of deformed limbs, or that are eunuchs.* rS

The physician should not go to the patient if he see the mes¬ senger to be one who is defective in respect of a particular limb, or one who has adopted the symbols of religious mendicancy, or one who is diseased; or who is a doer of fierce deeds.f 16

The physician should conclude that the patient would succumb to the disease if the messenger arrived on his account has used a mule or camel, or a. car for his journey. r7

Those messengers betray the last stage of the patients, who, before seeing the physician, have touched any of these articles, viz,, straw, , kernless paddy, flesh, bones, hair of the head, bristles, nails, teeth, broom, pestle, winnow, shoes torn and thrown away, grass, wood, husks of paddy, charcoals, clods of earth,, and stones. | i8_i9 If the physician sees inauspicious signs when the messenger is reporting to him the condition of the patient, he should not fol¬ low him. 20

Thus one that is plunged into distress, one that is dead, the ornaments of a dead person, some object that is broken, or burnt, or lost, or conversation relating to these, some pungent taste, some keen scent, or an exceedingly foetid odour of a dead body, or some fierce touch (as of a fierce gale dr storm) or the touch of some wick¬ ed animal, or anything else of an inauspicious nature that may occur : hearing the report made by messengers either immediately before the occurrence of these or after their occurrence, the physi-

* The number three is regarded unlucky by the Hindus. Three persons should not set out on ajourney together. Three things should not be given. Three messengers despatched for fetching the physician is highly inauspicious. — T.

t ‘A doer of fierce deeds’ is one who is a robber or murderer by profession. — T. t The two verses are to be construed together. In the first line of 19, the true read¬ ing is ‘sprigantah.’ It qualifies ‘dutah’ in the last line. ‘Mumurshatam’ is ‘state of being mumurshu.’ It is- not a genetive plural. Gangadhara reads ‘sprigantam’ and takes the verses to mean that what the messengers say unto a physician who has, before their arrival,, touched the articles named, should be regarded as appertaining to patients who are on the point of death. The fact is, even if ‘sprigantah’ be altered into ‘sprigantam’, gram¬ mar would not support the construction put by Gangadhara. He is obliged to introduce ‘yat’ after ‘vyaharanti’ and construe the last line as ‘yat dutah vyaharanti, tat mumursha¬ tam vyaharanti.’ This is very far-fetched. — T.

CHARAKA-SAMHITA,

p. 919

cian should conclude the death of the patient to be certain. Or, if these inauspicious omens occur while the report is being made; the same conclusion should be arrived at.* 2T 23

Thus has- the whole subject been explained of the messengers; of those patients whose death is near.

I shall- now speak of the death-indicating omens noticeable by the physician on- his way to the patient’s house, z4