Conception and the growing embryo
गर्भोत्पत्तिलक्षण · स्वास्थ्यरक्षणाधिकार
Opening line of the second chapter, whose running head and colophon name it Garbhotpattilakṣaṇa. It treats the two kinds of health, balance, the stages of life, the digestive fire, strength, the three kinds of land and suitability, and then the rules for menstruating women, conception and the formation of the embryo.
- Topics
- 39
- PDF pages
- 85–97
Topics in this session
Headings from the book in reading order. Open a topic for its summary and the knowledge it refers to.
Bowing to the Jina, worshipped by hosts of gods and demons and the cause of the destruction of all karmas, the author promises to set out the consideration of health with the good marks…
The Jinas describe health for a person capable of liberation as of two kinds: the ultimate (pāramārthika), which is primary, and the practical (vyavahāra), which is secondary.
Ultimate health is the wondrous, final and unequalled bliss beyond the senses that arises from the destruction of all karmas and is sought by the wise; the commentary identifies it with the…
Practical health is described as balanced digestive fire and tissues, no disturbance of the doshas, proper elimination of wastes, and a clear, contented self, senses and mind at all times.…
Opening line of the second chapter, whose running head and colophon name it Garbhotpattilakṣaṇa. It treats the two kinds of health, balance, the stages of life, the digestive fire,…
Balance (sāmya) is called a state of calm well-being; its signs are appetite, good digestion and sustained strength, its means is wholesome food in measured amounts, and strength makes the…
Put simply, a person whose body is free from diseases is called healthy; the commentary says this is stated on the authority of the Ayurvedic texts and not otherwise.
The Jinas divide age into four stages: childhood, youth, middle age and old age. In the present (Kali) age a person's full life is about a hundred years, passing through ten phases of ten…
The first phase is childhood, which grows into youth, and further phases follow; the commentary says that through them skin, bone, semen, strength, intellect and the senses develop and are…
A child first lives on its mother's milk alone, after some months takes both milk and food, and later food alone; so there are three kinds of diet for children, while in the other stages…
For people in youth and the later stages too, the physician should consider, according to the texts, whether the digestive fire is balanced, irregular or weak, and treat accordingly.
Disordered digestive fire is of three kinds caused by the doshas: irregular (viṣama) from vāta, sharp (tīkṣṇa) from pitta and weak (manda) from kapha. Footnotes define them: irregular fire…
The physician should correct the digestive fire troubled in turn by vāta, pitta and kapha with enema therapy, purgation, and suitable emesis together with nasal therapy, respectively.
The wise physician should always protect balanced fire with food suited to the season and with enemas, purgation and emesis suited to the three periods (trikāla). A footnote defines…
Some thin people are strong and some stout people weak, so strength should be judged in several ways rather than by the look of the body, for example by making the person run or carry a…
Strength is chief for all undertakings, so the knowing physician should consider it first; one who wants success in treatment should expect it in treatment given to the strong.
Excellent strength (sattva) arises from the subsidence, destruction, or partial destruction and subsidence of one's karmas (the commentary names the karma that obstructs energy,…
The person of strong spirit keeps his composure through gain and loss: even when his wealth is lost his face stays bright and calm like a blooming lotus, and his steadfast mind is not…
Land is described as of three kinds: dry (jāṅgala), marshy (ānūpa) and ordinary (sādhāraṇa), of which the ordinary is the best; their marks are given in turn.
Dry land has rough grasses and shrubs; trees such as sarja, arjuna, bhūrja, palāśa, asana and teak; red, dark and pale soils; hills of hard stone, bamboo thickets and forests with fierce…
Marshy land has abundant cold water and ground that is always muddy and hard to cross; very tender grasses, shrubs and creepers; banyan, pāṭalī, pārijāta, aśoka, clove, jasmine, mango,…
Ordinary land has soil neither too red nor too pale, neither too dry nor too dense; it is neither very cold nor harshly hot, neither too windy nor given to extraordinary rain, neither too…
Medicines, land, water, disease, body and anything else whose use brings a person comfort are called suitable (sātmya) for him; whatever brings discomfort when used is the opposite,…
The text says that what is taken little by little in gradual order is digested, even poison, so that nothing harms a person who has grown used to it, and that a thing used regularly for…
Having carefully set out the marks of suitability, the author promises to describe people's constitutions (prakṛti), together with the signs of conception and with reference to causes such…
During her period a woman should live like an ascetic, wholly avoiding violence and the other four sins and keeping silence and similar vows; for three days she gives up garlands, ornaments…
The husband keeps away from the woman for three days; on the fourth day she bathes, adorns herself auspiciously and eats well, including warm khichdi with oil, while he eats food rich in…
If through ignorance conception takes place on the first day of menstruation, the child is said to die in the womb; on the second day, to die within ten days of birth; on the third day, to…
When the couple unite with care on the fourth day, the man's semen reaches and mixes with the woman's blood (rajas) in the womb; if conception is to occur, the beginningless, endless,…
The soul is called jīva because, holding the vital powers (prāṇa), it lives now, lived before and will live again and again.
Ten vital powers (prāṇa) are named: strength of mind, speech and body, the five senses (touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing), breath and life span (āyu); death is the separation of the…
For the soul that has obtained its vital powers, six capacities (paryāpti) are described in order as the causes of bodily growth: intake of food, body, senses, breathing, mind and speech.
The mass of semen and blood joined with the soul attains the six capacities in turn within an antarmuhūrta and then takes on the form of a body.
- How the body appears in the womb (in champakamālā metre)गर्भ में शरीराविर्भाव क्रम (चम्पकमालिका)Anatomyp. 22
After conception the embryo becomes kalala in ten days, turbid in another ten and firm in another ten; in the following months it becomes bubble-like and then somewhat solid; in the fifth…
The child lies in the womb between the stomach, intestine and rectum, wrapped in the moist membrane (jarāyu) in deep darkness, and absorbs from all sides the pitta- and kapha-rich juices…
Driven by its karma, the child emerges through a passage described as unfit even to speak of: smeared with impure faeces, urine, blood and secretions, foul-smelling, hairy, downward-facing…
Having described conception on the basis of scripture and reasoning, the author promises to set out next, in order and as taught by the Jina, the characteristics of the body; the commentary…
The closing verse, repeated from chapter 1, likens the work to a drop from the ocean of scripture issued from the Jina's mouth, with waves of all substances and two shores of means for this…
- Colophon of chapter 2: signs of conception (Garbhotpattilakṣaṇa)इत्युग्रादित्याचार्यकृत कल्याणकारके स्वास्थ्यरक्षणाधिकारे गर्भोत्पत्तिलक्षणं नाम द्वितीयः परिच्छेदः॥Otherp. 25
The colophon closes the second chapter, named Garbhotpattilakṣaṇa, in the part on protecting health of Ugrādityācārya's Kalyāṇakāraka, with the Hindi line naming the Bhāvārthadīpikā…