Rasa panchaka (five pharmacological attributes)

Other5

• The text calls faulty the one-sided views of those who see substance, taste, potency and post-digestive effect as separate: if taste, potency and vipaka were different from the substance they would be seen apart from it like a cow's horns, and if they were not different the four words would be mere synonyms, like Indra, Shakra and Purandara; so the four are in some respects different and in some respects one.

  Appendix: Hitahita · p. 609Sanskrit verseTraditional descriptionOriginal wording

• Quoting Sushruta, the text says the wise accept the combined action of all four: some substance acts on a dosha by itself, some through its potency, some through its taste and vipaka; there is no vipaka without potency, no potency without taste and no taste without substance; and substance and taste arise in mutual dependence, like the body and the embodied soul.

  Appendix: Hitahita · p. 610Sanskrit verseTraditional descriptionOriginal wording

• A footnote gives the reading of the printed Sushruta Samhita for one line of the quotation: substances are digested in substance, not the six tastes.

  Appendix: Hitahita · p. 610FootnoteTraditional descriptionOriginal wording

• Some one-sided teachers take substance, taste, potency and vipaka separately, as sweet, sour and pungent, which the translation calls very faulty: if the potencies were different from vipaka they would be seen apart, like a cow's horns, and if they were not different they would be synonyms of one thing, like Indra, Shakra and Purandara; so the four are in some respects different and in some respects the same.

  Appendix: Hitahita · p. 625Hindi commentaryTraditional descriptionOriginal wording

• The learned give primacy not to any one but to the combination of all four: a substance sometimes removes or produces doshas by its own nature and sometimes through its vipaka; there is no vipaka without potency, no potency without taste, and taste cannot exist apart from substance, so substance is the best; substance and quality arise in mutual dependence, like body and soul.

  Appendix: Hitahita · p. 625Hindi commentaryTraditional descriptionOriginal wording