Rejuvenation
रसायनविधि · स्वास्थ्यरक्षणाधिकार
Opening lines of the sixth chapter, whose running head names it Rasāyanavidhi. It opens with the section on the daily regimen: cleaning the teeth, oiling and massage, exercise, rubbing with paste, bathing, betel and footwear.
- Topics
- 62
- PDF pages
- 145–161
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 Lord (the verse: Vīra), steadfast and heroic, whose feet the gods worship and who is an ocean of knowledge for the saints, and undertakes to set out the excellent…
Every morning the teeth are to be cleaned with a faultless tooth-stick suited to the doshas; the commentary names neem, babul, karanja and arjuna. This is said to bring desire for food,…
Those suffering from consumption, insanity, indigestion, fainting, cough, breathlessness, vomiting or hiccup, those whose body is moist from wounds and the like, and those who have just…
In health, oil should be put on the head. It is said to satisfy (the commentary: calm) the senses, soften the hair, keep the head cool and destroy all skin diseases.
Massage with oil is said to destroy kapha and vata, and massage with ghee pitta and blood disorders (the commentary: raktapitta). Entering through the hair pores, it is said to soothe the…
Massage is always to be avoided for one who has fainted, has indigestion, is thirsty, has drunk liquor, has taken a purgative, is very emaciated, has fever with burning, or has recently…
Exercise should be taken daily. It is said to kindle the digestive fire, free the body of disease, remove sleepiness, lethargy and obesity, give lustre, nourishment, health and long life,…
Exercise is to be avoided by those with raktapitta, breathlessness, cough, hiccup, wounds or fever, by one who is sweating, one weakened by excess sexual intercourse and a child; the verse…
When sweat appears and strength slackens during exercise, one should understand that half the strength remains and stop; excessive exercise is said to destroy (the verse: kill) a person. A…
Rubbing the body with paste (udvartana, ubtan) is called always good in skin discolouration, kapha and fat disorders, itching, emaciation of the body, affliction by vata and raktapitta.
Rubbing the body with a paste of wheat and the like, friction and dusting with medicinal powders (the verse: foam rubbing, massage and the like) are said to make the body firm and the skin…
Bathing is said to give contentment, nourishment, lustre, health and long life, purity and balance of the doshas, to kindle the digestive fire, remove lethargy and sleepiness, calm sin,…
One should not bathe when vomiting or with ear pain, distension of the abdomen, indigestion, eye disease, freshly begun pīnasa, diarrhoea or fever, or right after a meal.
Verse 14 says body unguent (aṅgarāga) gives everyone happiness, fortune, fragrance, lustre, delight, beauty and good spirits; the commentary reads both verses as about betel. Betel is said…
Betel is to be avoided by those with raktapitta, fever, consumption or extreme emaciation, after a purgative, with diarrhoea, hunger or thirst, insanity or painful urination, after drinking…
One should always walk wearing footwear, which is said to bring health and softness (the commentary: of the body). Oil massage of the soles is said to calm burning of the feet and to give…
Intercourse is to be avoided by one who is hungry or thirsty, has the urge of urine, stool or semen, is tired from a long walk, is afflicted by consumption (the verse: by injury), has…
Only a man whose body is wholly free of disease, who is young and takes aphrodisiac, semen-producing substances is said to be fit for intercourse at all times. The author promises to…
A man who always masters himself with regard to women is said to gain a better complexion, a body without wrinkles, strength of mind, long life, good sight, lustre, firm limbs and great…
Intercourse is forbidden with a wicked woman, one of low birth (as the text puts it), one with a defective genital tract, an ill-favoured one, one with a narrow vaginal opening, a sick or…
After intercourse one should eat tasty, unctuous, clean and agreeable foods made with milk and sugarcane products such as sugar, take a cool breeze and cooling food and drink, and sleep…
One who sleeps enough at night becomes happy, and whoever seeks happiness should sleep at night. Sleep is the cause of health for all beings and broken sleep provokes the doshas, yet one…
One who has walked a long way, is tired or thirsty, wasted by vata disease, has diarrhoea, is drunk, or has stayed awake at night may sleep in the day for half as long as the waking.
One who wants happiness should not climb mountains, trees, vicious horses or elephants, should not enter rivers or the sea with crocodiles, high waves or swift currents, and should not…
A wise person should never do anything that earns sin, brings public reproach, is unpleasant or inauspicious to people, or harms everyone.
Bowers of creepers full of blossoming flowers that delight the mind are fit for recreation; with what pleases the eyes, touch, ears and nose, they are mostly the causes of desire in the…
A beautiful young woman with a lovely body, becoming clothes and ornaments, a slender waist, high full breasts and shapely hips is said to arouse men.
One who wants health should give up violence, falsehood, theft, possessiveness, unchastity, delusion and the like, keep to good conduct, serve the good and the self-restrained, and use the…
Amalaki powder soaked with its own juice and dried (bhāvanā), then impregnated with milk, is eaten mixed with an equal amount of khand, with milk drunk after it, and is said to increase…
Cakes of shali rice, black gram and sesame flour, cooked with milk and ghee mixed with sugar (the commentary: eaten with sugar, milk and ghee), are said to nourish and to help satisfy a…
Saktu mixed with milk cream, or a dish of black gram flour rich in jaggery, is eaten daily; the text says even an old man could then go to seventy women without fatigue.
Wheat flour cooked with sugarcane products (the commentary: sugar) and milk and cooled thoroughly is eaten with ghee; the text says a man could then enjoy sixty women in turn at one time.
Milk boiled with red ashvattha bark, or milk mixed with licorice powder and sugar, is drunk; the text says even a man without virility, burning with desire, could then go to a woman seven…
Amalaki cooked with goat's milk, dried, powdered and eaten with plenty of sugar, or the roots of uccaṭā and gokshura (the commentary: taken with the amalaki rasāyana), are said to make…
Goat's milk mixed with a decoction of black gram, ghee and jaggery is drunk at night; the text says one could then go to women joyfully seven times in each watch of the night.
Bhūkūṣmāṇḍa, ikṣura seeds, guptā (kauñca) seeds and musalī root are powdered and given with goat's milk to drink at night at the time of intercourse.
Impotence is said to arise from injury to a vital point, depletion of semen, disease of the penis and (in the verse) from birth. Impotence from depletion of semen is curable, and the…
- Section on rasāyana: aphrodisiac substances in briefरसायनाधिकार / संक्षेप से वृष्य पदार्थों का कथनPrinciplep. 82
Whatever is cooling, unctuous and sweet is called aphrodisiac by the great sages. Since a healthy body is needed to protect the self, the author turns to the rasāyanas, very potent formulas…
Amalaki in the morning at mealtime and one haritaki with bibhitaki at night (the commentary: three amalaki in the morning, one haritaki and two bibhitaki at night), powdered and taken with…
A very fine vidanga powder, or licorice powder with an equal part of sugar, taken every morning with cold water, is said (the commentary) to remove wrinkles, grey hair and the like and to…
The after-drink for a rasāyana is the decoction of the same drug, as triphala decoction with the triphala rasāyana; or decoctions of bhallātaka, guḍūcī, grapes or triphala, which suit…
Once the after-drink is digested, food is taken with milk, or with ghee and green-gram soup, avoiding sea salt and other sharp things; this is said to remove great diseases and give many…
Vidanga kernels, purified, cooled, dried and powdered, are mixed with equal sugar and ghee, sealed in a new fragrant pot and kept in a heap of grain through the rains. Afterwards, with the…
Bala root, dried and powdered, is taken daily after purification of the body (the commentary: by emesis and the like), half a pala (the commentary: two tolas) with milk, with food of ghee…
Likewise powders of nāgabalā and atibalā, or of vidārī, taken with milk in the morning, are said to give great strength, long life and a fine body.
Bakuchi seed powder with jaggery is kept in an iron pot in grain in the ground for seven nights; after purification, a dose the size of a bibhitaki fruit is taken daily with cold water and…
Brāhmī, maṇḍūkaparṇī (the commentary: मजीठ) and a larger share of vacā, with sugar, milk and ghee, taken daily with a pure mind, are said to remove all diseases and give evident strength,…
Ten divine herbs named in the commentary (guḍūcī, gokshura, vidhārā, śatāvarī, black agaru, bhallātaka, red and white punarnavā, vārāhīkanda and large cardamom), powdered in equal parts and…
One who seeks health through medicine should give up alcohol, meat, astringent, pungent, salty, alkaline, dry and sour things, keep free of anger, exertion, intercourse, sun, wind,…
Describes chandramrita, a divine plant whose leaves wax and wane with the moon, drunk in one kudava of breast milk in the morning inside a three-walled, three-storeyed secluded house,…
States that many other medicines are even more powerful than chandramrita, with leaves bearing shining circles and varied lines, some being creepers with one or two leaves, and that taken…
- Persons unfit for chandramrita and similar rasayanasचन्द्रामृतादि रसायन के अयोग्य मनुष्यPrinciplep. 88
Lists the people to whom chandramrita and the other divine medicines should not be given: the sinful, timid and careless, those without family or wealth, those who disrespect medicine or…
Gives the reasons why even the rich and generous fail to obtain these great medicines: fate, ignorance, lack of money, unavailability of the drug, an unsteady mind, lack of steady effort,…
The closing verse compares the work to a drop from the ocean of scripture that issued from the Jina's mouth, whose waves are all substances and categories and whose two shores are the means…