Treatment of vata diseases
वातरोगचिकित्सित · चिकित्साधिकार
Opening lines of the eighth chapter, the section on vata disorders. The chapter goes on to describe the five vayus, the named vata diseases and vatarakta with their signs and prognosis, and their treatment.
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- 177–196
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 has destroyed all faults and pride, has supersensory knowledge of all things and is honoured by the lords of the gods, and undertakes to describe the…
Vata is known by roughness, coldness, coarseness, numbness and pricking pain and by dry, cold, rough, mobile and light qualities. It is aggravated by much snow, rain, cold and dry food, is…
Prana vata dwells in the mouth and carries all food and drink into the stomach; when aggravated it causes breathlessness, cough, hiccup and similar diseases with intense, distressing…
Opening lines of the eighth chapter, the section on vata disorders. The chapter goes on to describe the five vayus, the named vata diseases and vatarakta with their signs and prognosis, and…
Udana vata resides in the head and sets singing, speech and laughter going; aggravated by its own causes it produces diseases of the parts above the collarbones, such as the throat, mouth,…
Samana vata lives in the abdomen (stomach and intestines), is called the companion of the digestive fire and digests food; when deranged it causes weak digestion, diarrhoea, intestinal…
Apana vata lives in the bladder region and the colon and expels stool, urine, semen, menstrual blood and the foetus at their proper time; aggravated, it causes serious diseases of the anus…
Vyana vata pervades the whole body, moves with many kinds of activity and performs all bodily functions, such as moving the blood and carrying pitta and kapha to their places; aggravated,…
Just as vata aggravated in the stomach and colon causes vomiting and diarrhoea there, each vata aggravated in its own seat (skin and the rest) causes the diseases of that seat; if all five…
Vata with kapha makes the body stiff, painless and hard to the touch; vata with pitta and blood causes constant burning. The commentary says vata treatment is applied in three ways for…
Names as kinds of vata disease akshepaka, which repeatedly convulses the whole body, apatanaka, ardita, which twists half the face and makes it motionless, and pakshaghata, which disables…
In apatanaka vata seizes the tendons of the hands, fingers, abdomen and heart region and jerks and shakes the body; the patient vomits phlegm, the gaze turns upward, the sides feel broken,…
Ardita is said to arise from excessive yawning and talking, chewing hard food, agitation, sleeping on a high hard pillow, kapha and cold; the senses are disturbed, the mouth becomes crooked…
- Incurable signs of ardita; pathogenesis and signs of pakshaghataअर्दित का असाध्य लक्षण व पक्षाघात की संप्राप्ति व लक्षणPrognosisp. 108
Ardita is incurable when the head has trembled for three years, speech comes only after long delay and the eyes do not close. Vata blocking the vessels of one half of the body makes that…
- Hard-to-cure and incurable forms of pakshaghataपक्षाघात का कृच्छ्रसाध्य व असाध्य लक्षणPrognosisp. 108
Pakshaghata from vata alone is hard to cure and one caused by a wound is certainly incurable; with kapha the body becomes heavy and swollen, and with pitta and blood there is severe burning…
Apatanaka that arises from heavy loss of blood, miscarriage or a blow is incurable; the physician should give up such a patient, and likewise a patient with akshepaka caused by injury.
- Pathogenesis and signs of dandapatanaka, dhanustambha, bahirayama and antarayamaदण्डापतानक, धनुस्तम्भ, बहिरायाम, अन्तरायाम की संप्राप्ति व लक्षणConditionp. 108
Vata joined with kapha and spread through all the vessels makes the body rigid like a staff or bent like a bow; in the outer vessels it bends the body outward and in the inner vessels…
When violent vata torments the tendons of the hands and feet, so that the limbs feel broken and the pain is unbearable, the disease is called gridhrasi; vata in the shoulder region that…
- Signs of kalayakhanja, pangu, urustambha, vatakantaka and padaharshaकलायखञ्ज, पंगु, ऊरुस्तम्भ, वातकण्टक व पादहर्ष के लक्षणConditionp. 109
Vata in the waist pulling the leg tendons causes kalayakhanja (trembling at the start of walking, limping, loose-feeling joints) and pangu (legs wholly unable to walk); in the thighs it…
- Signs of tuni, pratituni, ashthila and adhmanaतूनी, प्रतितूनी, अष्ठीला व आध्मान के लक्षणConditionp. 110
Aggravated vata causes tuni (bursting pain running down from the colon or bladder to the anus and genitals) and pratituni (pain running up from there to the colon), ashthila and…
Vata spread through the whole body causes generalised diseases such as whole-body vata and tremor, and lodged in a part it causes swelling and pain there. Although its diseases differ by…
Eating burning, pungent, very hot and dry food in the hot season and long fast riding on chariots, horses, elephants, camels and the like burn the blood and provoke vata; the burnt blood…
- Signs of vatarakta with pitta, with kapha and from all three doshasपित्त-कफयुक्त व त्रिदोषज वातरक्त का लक्षणConditionp. 111
With pitta the feet are hot, soft, swollen and burning; with kapha they itch and are heavy and densely swollen; with all three doshas the signs of all three appear.
From vatarakta a very painful, long swelling may form at the knee resembling a jackal's head (a footnote glosses the name), called kroshtukashirsha; vatarakta likewise gives rise to several…
Vatarakta in which the swelling bursts and blood and fluid flow from it and from the knee is declared incurable by the Jinas; within the first year it is curable and after that only…
- Undertaking to describe the treatment of vata diseasesवातरोग चिकित्सा वर्णन की प्रतिज्ञाPrinciplep. 112
Vata diseases destroy the happiness and wealth of embodied beings and are as terrible as lightning, poison and the great wind of the world's dissolution; therefore their remedy is now told…
For vata aggravated in the stomach emesis is advised: the patient is first rubbed with lukewarm oil mixed with rock salt, then sweated on a warm bed of coarse grains or sand or under warm…
Oleation (snehana) is making the body unctuous by taking ghee, oil or another fat. The bowel is of three kinds, soft from pitta, medium from kapha and hard from vata, and ghee is given for…
Those who drink ghee in this way are said to gain a sharp digestive fire, great strength, a golden glow, firm new tissues, a clean stomach and organs, firm senses, a hundred-year life and a…
Ghee for oleation must not be given in loss of appetite, new fever, heart disease, pregnancy, fainting, intoxication, giddiness, fatigue, emaciation, after alcohol, in abdominal disease,…
Sudation, bringing out sweat by any means, makes the digestive fire keen and the body soft, glowing and light, creates a taste for food, makes every part work properly, sets vata moving…
Sudation must not be given to those suffering from injury or heat, the thirsty, patients with pandu or prameha, those who have fasted, patients with raktapitta, diarrhoea, ascites,…
After oleation and sudation, triphala and madanaphala mixed with a paste of rock salt, vacha and long pepper are cooked in milk; the patient, seated on a steady, soft seat as high as the…
Vomiting is encouraged with a finger or a soft stick in the throat. Emesis is proper when first the medicine, then kapha and then pitta come out and the doshas and the disease subside; the…
- Editorial note: graded diet after purificationविशेष: वमन आदि के द्वारा शुद्ध किए गए मनुष्य का आहार सेवन क्रमDietp. 114
After purification the digestive fire is usually weak and must be built up step by step. Purification is of three grades (best, medium, least); after a warm bath, when hungry, the person is…
Properly performed emesis is said to remove delirious talk, heaviness of the body, hoarseness, excessive sleep, bad taste in the mouth, weak digestion, foul breath, burning, heart disease,…
Emesis must not be given to patients with gulma, timira, raktapitta, ardita, akshepaka, prameha, long-standing pandu, haemorrhoids or abdominal disease from injury, to those with a dry…
Even patients for whom emesis was forbidden may, if they suffer severe indigestion, strong poisoning, excess kapha or violent vata pain in the chest, be given mild emesis with a decoction…
A powder of the three pungents with vidanga, asafoetida, vida salt, rock salt, cardamom, chitraka, black salt, devadaru, kutki and cumin, taken in ghee, citron juice or buttermilk or with…
A decoction of dry ginger, the three myrobalans, agnimantha, both nightshades, castor root, devadaru, patala, citron and bilva is used to prepare ghee, sour items, curd, buttermilk, milk,…
When vata is aggravated in the colon, cow's ghee is cooked with a paste of milk-hedge latex and the three pungents and with cow's milk; this purgative ghee is given in lukewarm salted water…
Three purgative combinations for vata in the colon: turpeth, the three pungents and rock salt powdered and taken with castor oil or ghee; a paste of dry ginger, haritaki and rock salt with…
Purgation is said to sharpen the sight, strengthen the senses, increase intelligence, bodily strength and the digestive fire, prolong life, and remove diseases arising from faults of stool…
Purgation must not be given to those afflicted by grief or fear, the very thin, the very dry, the greatly agitated, those exhausted, fatigued or thirsty, those with indigestion or bloody…
Even those for whom purgation was forbidden may, if tormented by strongly aggravated pitta, heavy worm infestation of the abdomen or retention of urine, be purged with powdered sugar and…
Aggravated vata pervading the whole body is to be overcome by asthapana and anuvasana enemas given in the prescribed order. The decoction enema is called niruha because it removes all the…
Even when an anuvasana enema is used, no fault such as weak digestion arises in food and digestion, so the great sages call it the principal enema. The author announces that he will…
The author says the counting and measures for enemas will be given as set out in the ocean of the Jina's teaching, because the wise accept what has been considered from the supreme…
For niruha and anuvasana enemas an apparatus is made with a leak-proof bag of strong, soft leather holding eight kudava of fluid (the commentary adds 128 tola, with a query) and a nozzle 6,…
- Materials for the enema nozzle and size of its openingबस्तिनेत्र निर्माण के योग्य पदार्थ व छिद्रप्रमाणMethodp. 119
The nozzle is to be made of gold, fine silver, copper, wood and the like, unbroken, with a smooth ball at its mouth; the opening inside the tip is the size of a cooked mung bean, pigeon pea…
For the enema, oil, ghee, milk, buttermilk, curd and kanji are mixed in due measure with a decoction of turpeth, madanaphala and castor seed and with cow's urine and churned; a fine paste…
The enema apparatus is filled with one kudava (16 tola), two kudava (32 tola) or four kudava (64 tola) of the prepared fluid for children, youths and young adults; the nozzle is steadied…
The amount of enema fluid may be reduced or increased from the stated measures according to age, strength, body, the rise or fall of the doshas and whether the drugs are heavy or light, but…
The patient lies on his left side on a cot as high as the knee; the physician tells him to draw up the right leg and slowly insert the ghee-smeared nozzle with the right hand into the…
A niruha enema has acted well when first the fluid given and then stool, vata, pitta and kapha come out in order and the disease subsides. If these signs do not appear, three enemas are…
- Care after niruha and giving the oil enemaनिरूह के पश्चाद्विधेय विधि व अनुवासनबस्ति प्रयोगMethodp. 121
After the bowel has been cleansed by the enema, the patient is bathed in warm water and given a light meal prepared with medicines that pacify the dosha concerned, and then an anuvasana…
The patient is told to lie comfortably pressing on his right hand so that the stool does not come out quickly; a footnote says an anuvasana that comes straight out is of no benefit and must…
- Why the oil enema returns quickly, and the remedyअनुवासन का शीघ्र विनिर्गमन कारण व उसका उपायMethodp. 121
If the anuvasana enema comes back quickly because of accumulated stool in the bowel, strongly aggravated vata, great dryness or too small a quantity of ghee or oil, the enema is repeated…
From the third day the anuvasana enema is repeated again and again, up to three, four, six or eight times, according to the patient's strength, the aggravation of doshas and the relief of…
Enemas must never be given to those suffering from indigestion, fear, grief, pandu, intoxication, fainting, loss of taste, giddiness, breathlessness, cough, kushtha, abdominal disease,…
No other measure calms vata diseases as well as a skilfully given enema. Properly given, it calms vata and brings comfort, increases bodily strength, life span and digestive fire, acts as…
Vata lodged in the head is to be overcome by oiling the head (oil massage and an oil-soaked pad), nasya with oil cooked with dry ginger, shirisha seed, drumstick, devadaru, tree turmeric,…
A person who takes a hundred proper anuvasana enemas is said to surpass the elephant in strength, the horse in speed, Brihaspati in intelligence, the sun and moon in brilliance, gold in…
Nasya is given with two kinds of medicines, unctuous (oil and the like) and dry (apamarga and the like). Unctuous nasya is of two kinds, marsha and avamarsha (pratimarsha), and dry nasya of…
Nasya is always to be given three times; when the drop of fat from the nasya reaches the mouth, it is called avamarsha nasya, and its dose is two drops. Nasya with dry drugs is of two…
In kapha-vata disorders an avapidana nasya of black pepper, dry ginger and long pepper is given, and for purging the head a powder of bitter ridge gourd, black pepper, drumstick, apamarga…
Nasya must not be given to one who has just bathed or wishes to bathe, who has just eaten, who has vomited, who eats very little, to pregnant women, patients with raktapitta, or those…
Using these four kinds of nasya is said to give long life, freedom from wrinkles and grey hair, and a face as radiant as the moon and as beautiful as a lotus, with all good qualities.
The work is likened to a drop drawn from the great ocean of scripture that came from the mouth of the Jina, whose waves are all substances and whose two shores are the means of welfare in…