Substances (dravya)

Quoting Sushruta, the text says there is no taste without substance, that substance is regarded as the most important, and that substance is to be known as supreme because the other entities (taste, potency and vipaka) depend on it.

The six tastes, potency and the rest all reside in substance, so substance is called the best of all, the other attributes depending on it; by such verses all things are shown to consist of substance and quality.

The class of substances is said to be of two kinds: the immobile class (sthavara), which consists of earth, water, fire, air and plants, and the mobile class (jangama), which is the class of living beings.

Among the classes of substances the alternatives are said to be the eaten and the eater (aharya-aharaka), the helped and the helper (upakarya-upakaraka), the end and the means (sadhya-sadhana), what is protected and its protection (rakshya-rakshana), and what is eaten and its eating (bhakshya-bhakshana); the immobile substances belong to the class of what is to be eaten.

A medicine, even if small in amount, is called good when it is of good appearance, taste and smell, pleasant, tasty, wholesome, pure and of directly seen effect; such a medicine is to be gathered for treatment.

Experts are said to hold that all fresh (moist) medicines are the more potent, with ghee, vidaṅga and long pepper as exceptions that improve with age.

The text cites the rule that all medicines are potent while they have their sap (sakshira), except honey, ghee, long pepper and vidanga, and reads the word sakshira as excluding meat.

It says minerals given as they are cannot be absorbed by the body, and even their chemical compounds are absorbed with difficulty, so minerals and other inorganic substances are processed with many puṭa and bhāvanā using organic plant material, so that in combination with organic substances they are well absorbed; Ayurveda's rasa śāstra is full of such processing.

Land fit for gathering medicines is described as full of fresh-shooting, flowering creepers and fruit-laden trees, sweet, beautiful and fragrant, rich in the excellent tastes, with very pleasant water and a temperate climate, an ordinary (sādhāraṇa) land rich in all rejuvenating plants, with black, soft and pleasing soil.

A quoted verse says that the qualities found in substances are also found in bodies, so the maintenance, growth and decline of bodies are caused by substances; the text adds that plant substances are taken as medicines only to protect embodied beings.

A quoted saying states that substances endowed with qualities, and those (immobile) bodies too, have the power to cause maintenance, growth and decline, so (immobile) substances also nourish the body; thus immobile substances are taken as medicine only for the protection of living beings in every way.

The editor says the author calls Suśrutācārya a syādvādin in several places, that Suśruta's arrangement of substances and their properties (dravya-guṇa vyavasthā) closely resembles Jain doctrine, and that historians should look seriously into this.

The introduction says Ayurveda has used medicines on a very large scale, surely and without strain, drawing them from animal parts, plants, minerals and substances such as milk; in using plants, minerals and other substances it has discussed their rasa, vipāka, vīrya and prabhāva very finely, and it prepares plants in many forms (kalpa).

The medicinal substances described are called inconceivable, with countless tastes, potencies, post-digestive effects and specific actions; the text says many more substances with greater and wonderful qualities exist that a short treatise cannot describe.

A quoted verse gives the marks of a medicine that bears fruit: grown in a good region, collected at a good time, small in dose, pleasing to the mind, endowed with smell, colour and taste, destroying the doshas, not causing exhaustion, (effective) even in severe calamities, and given at the right time after examination.

A medicine is said to bear fruit when it grows in a good region, is collected at a good time, is taken in a small dose, is pleasing, has smell, colour and taste, destroys the doshas, does not cause exhaustion even in severe illness, and is given after considering the proper time and measure.