Grains and other foods, their merits and faults
धान्यादिगुणागुणविचार · स्वास्थ्यरक्षणाधिकार
Opening line of chapter four, whose running head names it धान्यादिगुणागुणविचार (merits and faults of grains and other foods). It is followed by an unclear subtitle line and a note that the opening verses are in the śārdūlavikrīḍita metre.
- Topics
- 46
- PDF pages
- 115–133
Topics in this session
Headings from the book in reading order. Open a topic for its summary and the knowledge it refers to.
The author bows to the Jina, who knows directly every substance and its modes across the three worlds and the three times and has conquered the karmic enemies, and undertakes to describe…
Ultimate time is described as powerful and unavoidable, beginningless and endless, subtle, indivisible and formless, marked by vartanā, the moment-to-moment change it supports in all…
Opening line of chapter four, whose running head names it धान्यादिगुणागुणविचार (merits and faults of grains and other foods). It is followed by an unclear subtitle line and a note that the…
Innumerable instants (samaya) make one āvalī, numerable āvalīs one ucchvāsa, seven ucchvāsas one stoka, seven stokas one lava and thirty-eight lavas one nāḍī. A footnote defines a samaya as…
Two nāḍīs make a muhūrta, thirty muhūrtas a day, fifteen days a fortnight, and the bright and dark fortnights a month. The twelve months from Caitra hold six seasons; three seasons form an…
Six seasons of two months each from Caitra: spring (vasanta, also called madhu, when flowers and fruits flourish) in Caitra–Vaiśākha, summer in Jyeṣṭha–Āṣāḍha, the rains in…
Each day runs through the six seasons as the year does: forenoon is spring, midday summer, afternoon or evening prāvṛṭ, the first part of the night the rains, midnight autumn and the…
Kapha gathered in hemanta is aggravated in spring, vata gathered in summer in prāvṛṭ, and pitta gathered in the rains in autumn; at aggravation they are to be removed, vata by enema, pitta…
Aggravated doshas spread singly, in pairs, all three together, or with blood, fifteen patterns in all, lodge in a site where the channels are faulty and cause the diseases of that site (in…
In spring, food and drink that are mostly dry, alkaline (glossed as salty), astringent, bitter and pungent are said to be wholesome; drinking water may come from a well or the village, or…
- What is wholesome in summer and the rains (verse 14 adds autumn and hemanta)ग्रीष्म ऋतु व वर्षा ऋतु में हितDietp. 49
Summer: food rich in milk and ghee, cold drinks, jaggery and sugarcane, and well water. Rains: mainly bitter and astringent food with a little pungent, milk, sugarcane and their products,…
In śiśira, sour, milk-based, astringent, bitter, salty and markedly hot food is said to be especially wholesome, and pond water suits. Having learned the diet of all six seasons, one should…
The proper time for a meal is when stool and urine have been passed, flatus moves freely, the body feels light, the senses are clear, speech and mind are relaxed, the belly is troubled by…
Sitting steadily on a clean, comfortable seat and considering one's constitution and strength, one should eat lukewarm food suited to all seasons, neither too slowly nor too fast, with…
After-drinks matched to the food: sour gruel (kāñjī) with dishes made from pulses, buttermilk with boiled rice, warm water with ghee-rich dishes or when drinking fats, and cold water with…
Water drunk before a meal is said to make the body thin, in the middle to keep it moderate, and at the end to make it stout (bṛṃhaṇa); so a suitable liquid should be taken with food, since…
Shāli rice is described as sweet, cooling, light to digest, removing pitta, increasing kapha and promoting urine; vrīhi rice as astringent-sweet, removing pitta and vata, binding the stool…
Śyāmāka (sāṃvā) and the other coarse grains are described as hot, very dry, astringent-sweet, very light to digest, removing kapha, producing vata and pitta and always obstructing stool and…
Pulses as a class (arhar, chickpea, lentil and others) are described as dry, cooling, astringent-sweet, binding and vata-increasing, and being astringent they suit raktapitta. Horse gram is…
Black gram is described as slimy, cold, very sweet, aphrodisiac and body-building, heavy to digest and kapha-producing; it checks raktapitta, moves stool, urine and wind, and is always best…
Pigeon pea is said to be most wholesome for kapha and pitta while slightly provoking vata; green gram is similar, removes fever and suits every kind of diarrhoea; the soup (dāl) of these is…
Sesame is described as hot, astringent, bitter and sweet (the commentary names astringent and sweet), binding (stopping fluid discharges), kindling digestion and light to digest; applied to…
Grains to be avoided: those badly decayed or shrivelled, very old, burnt, spoiled by insects or blight, grown on poor forest land or out of season, not properly ripened or quite new,…
Having described grains, the author undertakes to describe vegetables from roots to fruits. The roots (mūla) listed are lotus root, nālī (nāḍī) greens, potato and similar tubers,…
Lotus tuber, kaśeru, the blue water-lily group, the tuber of nālī greens, vidārī and similar tubers are described as heavy to digest, cold, kapha-increasing, good and sweet, suitable in…
Wild potato, varāṭikā, muraṭikā, bhūśarkarā (sweet potato), mānakanda, kuṇḍalī, namalikā, sūraṇa, garlic, amlikā, śvetāmlī, musalī, vārāhīkanda, kaṇikā, bhūkarṇī, hastikarṇī and similar…
The tender shoots of bamboo, śatāvarī, guḍūcī, cane, haḍjuḍī (vajrīlatā), śevālī (glossed fine jaṭāmāṃsī), kākanāsā (kaḍuā ṭoṇṭī) and māriṣa are described as cold, kapha-producing, strongly…
Jīvantī, aloe (taruṇī), vidhārā, vandā, mañjikā, kundalatā, cañcu and kundru are described as binding the stool and producing vata; māriṣa, the two kinds of spinach, vahā and jīvantī as…
Śārṅgeṣṭā (baḍī karañj), paṭola, jalakācarī, makoy, mālkāṅgnī, maṇḍūkī (brāhmī), saptalā (a kind of thūhar), dravaṇikā, guḍūcī, putriṇī (vandā), neem, chirāyatā, jhārasī and white punarnavā…
Leaf vegetables of guhyākṣī, safflower, the śāka tree, lavaṇī, rāī, ajamoda, white mustard, tamarind and mango leaves, śyāmatamāla, kulāhala, gaṇḍīra, kandūrī, drumstick, cumin, fennel,…
Leaves of bandhūka (dupahariyā), bhṛgu, wild turmeric, soapnut, dalitā, yellow devadālī, mūṣākarṇī, pigeon pea, kacūra, the kusum tree, taralī (a thorny tree), vaṃśinī, matsyākṣī, chickpea…
Flowers of drumstick, golden shower, lisoḍā, silk-cotton, śamī (chhauṅkarā), lotus, tamarind, kanyā (glossed large cardamom or vārāhīkanda), agastya, sunn hemp, varuṇa and neem are said to…
Five 'lavaṇī' plants growing on the seashore, glossed as silk-cotton, lentil, kachnār, pomegranate and kaṭāī, are said to remove vata, produce kapha, pitta and blood, cause wasting (śoṣa),…
The five bṛhatīs—kaṇṭakārī (kaṭeharī), mañjiṣṭhā, adhomāninī, bṛhatī (baḍī kaṭelī) and white arka—are said to suit kapha disorders, remove kuṣṭha, destroy worms, counter poison and always…
The five vines—bitter kundru, bitter bottle gourd, mārjārapādī, (bitter) paṭola and bitter gourd—are said to remove pitta and kapha, destroy worms, suit kuṣṭha, relieve cough,…
Fruits of gṛdhrā (kākādanī), pāṭala (āśudhāna), pāṭalī (pāḍal), netra, karkoṭī (kakoḍā), musalī, varuṇa, piṇḍītaka (madana) and ārevata (amaltās) are described as dry, sweet and cold,…
Pīlu, fresh ginger, drumstick root, garlic, onion, black pepper, cardamom, long-pepper root, kulahala and karīra are described as hot and sharp, especially removing kapha and vata, kindling…
Fruits of creepers—yellow pumpkin, cucumber, ash gourd, ridge gourd, bottle gourd, kundru and the like—are described as tasty and nourishing, kapha-increasing and cold, very wholesome in…
Mango, āmrātaka (ambāḍā), citron, lakuca (baḍhar), old tamarind, pomegranate, the small, large and bush jujubes, cavya, phalsa, emblic, chironji, karavandī, cane, jīva, āmraka, sour…
Fruits of bael, aśmantaka (glossed pāṣāṇabheda), mountain bael, karabī (glossed ajwain), gaṅgeran, the milky trees (banyan, cluster fig, pākhar, phāras and pīpal), jāmun, toraṇa, tendū,…
Fruits of grapes, banana (moca), mahua, gambhārī (kumbher), dates (named in the verse), water chestnut, coconut, jackfruit, hintāla and palmyra are said to be heavy to digest, to produce…
The crown (mastaka) of palmyra, ketakī, coconut and similar trees, sthūṇīka, sesame paste (tila-kalka) and piṇyāka vegetables (glossed mālkāṅgnī and the like) are said to remove kapha; the…
The vegetables known in the world have been described with their properties; next, in brief, the liquids will be described, beginning with water, because water is the external life-breath…
The closing verse likens this work to a drop from the great ocean of scripture that issued from the Jina's mouth, with waves of all substances and principles and two shining shores, the…