Charaka-Samhita — trans. Kaviraj Avinash Chandra Kaviratna

These three, (viz., the improper contact of objects of sense with the Mind, faults of the Understanding, and Time,) each sub¬ divided into three kinds, constitute the causes of disease. Connec¬ tion therewith in normal or judicious proportions is the cause of health. The presence or absence of all objects which occur in the world, acts on the body. Such action, it is seen, takes place only through proper correlation, excess ©f correlation, and injudicious or improper correlation ( including the total absence thereof ), and not through any other means. In fact, the presence or absence of objects, for producing action on the body, depends upon contact or correlation with the body.43

Diseases are of three kinds, viz., Physical, Accidental, and Mental. Physical diseases are those that arise from some abnormal condition of the body. Accidental are those that arise from the action of spirits, of poison, of wind, of fire, of acts of violence done to the body, such as beating, &c. Mental diseases are those that arise from non-attainment of objects desired or coveted, or from accession of those that are disliked.44

Amongst them, an intelligent person, when afflicted by a Mental desease, should, with an well-directed understanding, reflect carefully upon what is beneficial and what is injurious, and himself exert for abstaining from indulgence in every thing opposed to Religion, Wealth, and Pleasure, and for betakingp. 127 himself to the practice of everything that is beneficial to those three.*45

In this world there can be no happiness or misery except through considerations connected with Religion, Wealth, and Pleasure. Hence, those considerations must be attended to that secure these three. One should, therefore, always strive to wait reverentially upon those that are learned and old in years. One should also duly attend to the considerations connected with one’s own country, race, time, physical strength and mental energy. Here occurs a verse.

The treatment for all mental diseases is attention to the considerations of Religion, Wealth, and Pleasure, and the know¬ ledge of how to reverentially wait upon persons that are wellconversant with those three topics, as also the knowledge of how to attend to the considerations connected with one’s own self (viz., consideration in respect of one’s own country, race, time, physical strength, and mental energy).46

The seats of disease are three. They are (i) £akh5, (2) vital parts and bone-joints, and (3) Koshtha.-f

Amongst these, £akha includes blood and the like, the humours known by the name of Dhatu, and skin. These consti¬ tute the External seat of disease.

The Vital parts, again, are the arms, the heart, the brain, and the like. The Bone-joints are the joints of the different bones,

* In the Hindu Scriptures, man’s concern in this world embraces three things, viz.. Religion, Wealth, and Pleasure. The first includes all acts of righteousness and due obervance of all rites and ceremonies laid down in the Scriptures. The second includes all kinds of possessions that have an exchangeable value. The last includes all objects that gratify the appetites. To these three, a fourth is sometimes added, viz.. Emancipation, that is, a merging in the Supreme Godhead so that there may be no return or re-birth after death. The Hindu regulates his life not in view of this short visible span but in view of unending eternity. His ideal of felicity is the cessation of separate existence by attaining to an identification with immutable Brahma.— T t As the words fdkhd and koshtha are both technical, I do not endeavour to render them into English. Both have been fully explained in the text lower down in this very aphorism. — Tp. 128 and the arteries and veins attached to them. These two ( viz., the vital parts and bone-joints) constitute what is called the second seat ( in our enumeration) of disease.

Koshtha is otherwise called the great Stream within the body. The great cavity below, the cavity containing undigested food, the cavity where digestion takes place, and other words occurring together in medical treatises and expressive of the same part of the human frame, are also used for Koshtha. Koshtha is the Internal seat of disease.*47

Bronchocele, ulcers,, tubercles, indolent tumours, warts, tumours, fleshy excrescences, soft corns, leprosy, dark spots on the cheek, and other ailments of this kind, are diseases that apper¬ tain to External seats.