An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita (Bhishagratna ed.)

Definition of Vaji-Karana :— if duly

taken, the Vaji-karana* remedies make a man sexually
as strong as a horse (Vaji), and enable him to cheerfully
satisfy the heat and amorous ardours of young maidens,
a fact which has determined the nomenclature of this
class of (^medicinal) remedies. 2-B.

Means of Vaji-Karana :--Various kinds

of (nutritious and palatable) food and (sweet, luscious
and refreshing) liquid cordials, speech that gladdens
the ears, and touch which seems delicious to the skin,
clear nights mellowed by the beams of the full moon and
damsels young, beautiful and gay, dulcet songs that
charm the soul and captivate the mind, use of betel-
leaves, wine and wreaths of (sweet-scented) flowers,

* The Vsiji-Karana remedies are of three kinds, viz., (i) those pro- ducing the semen, (2) those secreting the semen, and {3) those producing as well as secreting the semen.

Chap. XXVI.] CHIKITSA STHANAM. 51I

and a meny careless heart, these are the best aphro- disiacs in life. 2.

Causes of Sexual Incapacity :— A cessa- tion of the sexual desire owing to the rising of bitter thoughts of recollection in the mind of a man, or a forced intercourse with a disagreeable woman (who fails to sufficiently rouse up the sexual desire in the heart of her mate) illustrates an instance of mental impotency. Excessive use of articles of pungent, acid, or saline taste, or of heat-making articles of fare leads to the loss of the Saumya Dhatu (watery principle) of the organism. This is another kind of impotency. Virile impotency resulting from the loss of semen in persons addicted to excessive sexual pleasure without using any aphrodisiac remedy is the merit form of virile impotency. A long-standing disease of the male generative organ (syphilis, etc.), or the destruction of a local Marma such as the spermatic cord) destroys the powers of coition altogether. This is the fourth form of impotency. Sexual incapacity from the very birth is called the congenital (Sahaja,) impotency. Voluntary suppression of the sexual desire by a strong man observing perfect continence, or through utter apathy produces a hardness of the spermatic fluid, and is the cause of the sixth form of virile impotency. Of the six foregoing types of impotency, the congenital form as well as the one due to the destruction of any local Marma (spermatic cord) should be regarded as incurable, the rest being curable and amenable to the measures and remedies antidotal to their respective originating causes. 3.

Their Remedies:— Now we shall describe the
different Vayi-Karana (aphrodisiac) remedies. Powders
of sesamum, Mdska-ipulsQ, Viddri, or S'dli-ricQ should

512 THE SUSHRUTA SAMHITA. [Chap. XXVI.

be mixed with Saindhava salt and pasted with a
copious quantity of the expressed juice of the sugarcane
of the Paundarika species. It should then be mixed
with hog's lard, and Utkarik^ should be prepared by-
cooking it with clarified butter. By using this
(medicinal) Utka'rika^, a man would be able to visit a
hundred women. 4.

The testes of a he-goat should be boiled in milk.
Sesamum seeds should then be successively treated
with this milk in the manner of a Bhavand saturation.
Cakes should be made of these sesamum seeds with the
lard of a porpoise. This medicine exerts the same
action as the preceding one without producing any
exertion whatever. By eating the testes of a he-goat
with (an adequate quantity of) salt and powdered
long- pepper (Pippali), fried in clarified butter prepared
from churning milk (and not from curd), a man is
enabled to visit a hundred women. 5.

Powders of Pippali, Mdsha-'^yA's>^, S'dli'v'icQ wheat
and barley, should be taken in equal parts. Cakes
(Pupatlikai) should be prepared with this compound and
fried in clarified butter. By taking these cakes and
a potion of milk sweetened with (a copious quantity of)
sugar, a man becomes potent enough, to enjoy the
pleasures of love like a sparrow (Chataka). 6.

Powdered Viddri successively soaked in the expressed
juice of the same and dried, should be licked with
honey and clarified butter, whereby a man would be
able to visit ten women successively (at a time). Simi-
larly powders of (dried) Amalaka successively soaked
in its own expressed juice should be licked with honey,
sugar* and clarified butter, after which a quantity of

* According to S'ivadasa it may also be taken with honey and clarified butter only.

Chap. XXVL] CHIKITSA STHANAM. 513

milk should be taken. This compound would make even
an old man of eighty sexually as vigorous as ayouth. 7-8
The testes of a he-goat or of a porpoise mixed with
salt and powdered long-pepper, and fried in clarified
butter should be taken for speedy and effective
aphrodisiac purposes. The eggs of a tortoise, of an
alligator, or of a crab,* or the semenf of a male
buffalo, of a he-ass, or of a he-goat should be similarly
taken for the same purpose. 9.

Milk boiled and cooked with the sprouts, bark,
roots and fruit of an As'vattha tree, should be sweeten-
ed with sugar and honey, and taken ; this enables a
man to enjoy sexual pleasures like a sparrow. The
powdered bulbs of Viddri, weighing an Udumbara (one
Tola) in measure, and taken with milk and clarified
butter,! would make an old man young again. A
Pala measure of the pulverised Mdsha pulse, mixed
with honey and clarified butter should be licked and
a potion of milk should then be taken ; this would
make a man sexually as strong as a horse. Wheat and
Atmaguptd seeds should be boiled in milk, and taken,
when cold, with clarified butter, and a potion of milk
should then be taken for the same purpose. 10-13.

Clarified butter should be boiled with eggs or
the testes (as the case might be) of alligators, mice, frogs
and sparrows. By lubricating the soles of the feet
with this Ghrita, a man would be able to visit a woman
with undiminished vigour so long as he would not touch
the ground with his feet. 14.

* Some explain "q|f^T" as Louse-sparrows.

t Here semen would mean the testes, the receptacle of the semen.

X Some read "3?^^" (boiled) in place of •''§^»r". In that case the boiled milk only should be taken and no clarified butter should be added thereto.

$14 THE ^USHRUTA SAMHITA. [Chap. XXVI,

The use of pulverised Atmaguptd and Ikshuraka
(Kokilaksha) seeds mixed with sugar and taken with
milk just milched enables a man to indulge in the
pleasures of youth for the whole night without any
sense of fatigue. The powders of the Uchchatd should
also be taken similarly (with milk and sugar). S'atdvari
and Uchchatd roots should also be similarly taken by a
man wishing to have (sexual) vigour. A soup of Atma-
guptd seeds and i^<^V/^-pulse (boiled together) should be
taken. Atmaguptd'Secds,Gokshura seeds a.nd Uchchatd
should be boiled wiih milk and constantly stirred with
a ladle. The use of this preparation (with an adequate
quantity of sugar) enables a man to enjoy the pleasures
of love all the night long. Likewise the milk boiled
with Mdsha-puhe, Viddri, or Uchchatd should be taken
with honey, clarified butter and sugar. By using this a
man may indulge in the pleasures of the bed for the
whole night like a sparrow. 1519.

The use of the milk of a Grishti (a cow delivered
only once) with a grown up calf (one year old) and
exclusively fed on the (fresh) leaves of the Mdsha-
parnay is recommended as a sexual tonic. All kinds of
meat and milk, as well as the drugs of the Kdkolyddi
group should be regarded as being highly possessed of
the virtue of imparting tone and vigour (to the male
productive organs). They should, therefore, be used (for
that purpose). The medicinal remedies and compounds
described in the present chapter should be taken in
sound health and proper seasons, as they are exhilarat-
ing and invigorating, and help the procreation of
children. 20-21.

Thus ends the Twenty-sixlh Chapter of the Chikitsita Sihanam in the Sub'ruta Samhita which deals with the treatment of the virile impotency.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Now we shall discourse on the recipes and niodes
of using elixirs and rejuvinators of the human organ-
ism which will make it invulnerable to the inroads
of any disease or of decay (Sarvopaghstta —

^amaniya-Rasayanam). i.

Metrical Texts :— A wise physician should
(invariably) prescribe some sort of tonic (Rasdyana) for
his patients in their youth and middle age after having
their systems (properly) cleansed by the applications
of a Sneha and purifying remedies (emetics and
purgatives). A person whose system has not been
(previously) cleansed (Sodhana) with the proper puri-
fying remedies (emetics and purgatives) should not,
in any case, have recourse to such tonics inasmuch as
they would fail to produce the wished-for result, just
as the application of a dye to a piece of dirty cloth
will prove non-effective. 2.

Now we shall describe the remedial measures and
agents for the maladies due to the aggravated
Doshas* both mental and physical, which have
already been described (in several places). Old age
and senile decay would be arrested (lit. perpetual or
life-long youth would be secured) by drinking milk,
cold water, honey and clarified butter, either severally
or jointly (?>., in any combinationt taken one, two,
three or four at a time\ in early life (just on or

* The mental Doshas are Rajas and Tamas, whereas the physical Doshas are Vayu, Pitta and Kapha.

t There would be four combinations of one each, six of two each, four of three each and one of four jointly ; thus there would be fifteen combinations in all.

5l6 THE SUSHRUTA SAMHITA. [Chap. XXVII.

just before the completion of the process of organic development). 3-4.

Vidanga-RaS^yana :— The powdered seeds
of the Vidanga (Tandula) and pulverised Yashti-madhu
should be mixed together and taken in cold water in
an adequate dose (according to the strength of the
patient), and a potion of cold water should then be
taken. This medicine should be regularly continued
for a month. The same pulverised Vidanga seeds
should be similarly taken for a month through the
vehicle of the decoction oiBhalldtaka mixed with honey ;
or of the decoction of grapes mixed with honey ; or
with the expressed juice of Amalaka sweetened with
honey ; or through the vehicle of the decoction of
Guduchi. Thus there are these five ways (of taking
pulverised Vidanga seeds (Tandula) as an e^xir. A
meal of boiled rice with a copious quantity of clarified
butter should be taken with the soup of Amalaka and
Mudga pulse unseasoned with salt and cooked with only
a small quantity of Sneha (clarified butter) after the
medicine has been well digested. These (Ras^yana)
remedies prove curative in cases of haemorrhoids and
in complaints of worms. They improve memory and
the power of comprehension and their use for every
month increases the life-time of the user by one
hundred years. 5.

Vidanga-Kalpa :— One Drona measure of
Vidanga (seeds) should be boiled in the way of
preparing cakes in an Indian cake-pan. When the
watery portion (of the cakes) have been removed (eva-
porated) and the Vidaitga-^x^va'^ well boiled, they should
be taken down and well pasted on a stone-slab. They
should then be kept in a strong iron pitcher after
having been mixed with a copious quantity of the

Chap. XXVII.] CHIKITSA STHANAM. 517

decoction* of Yashti-madhu. The pitcher should be buried in a heap of ashes inside a closed room during the rainy season and preserved there during the four months of rain ; after that period the pitcher should be taken out (of the ashes). Its contents should then be consecrated with (appropriate) Mantras by uttering them a thousand times and should be taken every morning in suitable quantities after the system has been thoroughly cleansed (by appropriate emetics and purgatives, etc.). The diet should consist of cooked rice and clarified butter mixed with a copious quantity of the soup of Mudga pulse and -^w^/^/^^ cooked with a small quantity of Sneha and salt j and should be taken after the digestion of the medicine. The patient should lie on the ground (and not on a bedding). Worms would be found to have been issuing out of the body after the regular and continuous use of the medicine for a month, which should be extracted with the aid of a pair of bamboo tongs or forceps after the body had been anoint- ed with the Anu-taila (described before) Ants would be coming out of the body during the second, and ver- mins (Yuka) in the third month of the use of the medi- cine which should also be removed as in the preceding manner. The hair, nails and teeth begin to fall off and become dilapidated in the fourth month of its use. In the fifth month the body beams with a divine glow, becomes resplendent as the midday sun, and exhibits features which specifically belong to the etherial being. The ears become capable of hearing the faintest and remotest sound (under its use), and the vision extends far into space and beholds objects at a great range