Built from passages of the source by the curated extraction. Pending human review.
Names and synonyms
- Sanskrit
- विरुद्धाहारविरुद्धान्नसंयोगविरुद्ध
- Hindi
- विरुद्ध आहारगलत खाद्य संयोजन
- English
- Incompatible foodsincompatible foodsfood incompatibility
- Romanized
- viruddha ahara
What the text says
Each statement reports the source, with its chapter, page and verse. Traditional descriptions are not presented as proven medical facts.
Contraindications1
Milk taken with meat, fish, jaggery, black gram or modaka sweets is said to bring on kushtha, and taken with vegetables, jambu fruit, sura or asava to kill the ignorant quickly like a snake; meat and milk together, the text adds, are unworldly, unpleasant and excluded by the texts, and should not be eaten.
Other4
The opposing claim that some substances become like poison when combined is called unproven, contradictory and inconclusive: for some people, those who eat everything, habitually eat before the last meal is digested and take many kinds of incompatible combinations in large amounts, such as meat with jaggery, mung, radish, astringents, milk, curd, honey and ghee, cold with hot, new with old and very dry with very oily foods, among them alms-eating mendicants, incompatible foods are said to act as compatible, giving great strength, life, satisfaction and nourishment.
All things are said to be incompatible or compatible according to substance, place, time and state; the text cites Sushruta, whom it calls a syadvada teacher of medicine: for one habituated to it, or when taken in small quantity, and for one with a sharp digestive fire, the young, the unctuous, those who exercise and the strong, incompatible food becomes ineffective.
The claim that other substances become poison-like by combination is called faulty: some renunciants who eat everything, eat repeatedly and take many incompatible foods together, such as jaggery, mung decoction, milk, curd, honey and ghee, cold and hot, fresh and stale, dry and unctuous, are seen satisfied and nourished and growing in life and strength, and such holy men are seen robust; so by substance, place, time and state all things, though incompatible, become compatible.
Citing Sushruta, the translation says that although eating incompatible things is harmful, they do no harm when one eats them habitually, eats them in small amounts, has a very strong digestive fire, is young and healthy, and takes exercise along with unctuous food.
Questions and answers
How does the hitahita chapter argue that no substance is wholesome or unwholesome in every respect?
It rejects the one-sided view that water, ghee, milk and rice are absolutely wholesome and fire, alkali and poison absolutely unwholesome: if the former were wholesome everywhere and always, people with new fever, diarrhoea, kushtha, fistula-in-ano, eye disease or wounds would have to take them constantly, while alkali, fire, instruments and poison used by skilled physicians relieve diseases at once.
Detailed answer and sourcesWhich food combinations with milk does the hitahita chapter warn against?
Milk taken with meat, fish, jaggery, black gram or modaka sweets is said to bring on kushtha, and taken with vegetables, jambu fruit, sura or asava to kill the ignorant quickly like a snake; meat and milk together are called unworldly, unpleasant and excluded by the texts.
Detailed answer and sourcesWhich combinations with milk does the translation say cause kushtha or quick death?
Milk taken with meat, fish, jaggery or sweets made of black gram is said to cause kushtha, and milk used with liquor made from vegetables and jambu fruit is said to kill the fool quickly.
Detailed answer and sourcesAll references
Every page and verse of the source that this entry draws on.
Extraction notes
- The word मांसरहित (meatless) stands in brackets before गुड in the translation.
Quick facts
- Content type
- Principle
- Categories
- Diet
- Source pages with records
- 3
- Pages naming it
- 0
- Chapters
- Appendix: Hitahita
- Extraction tasks
- T29, T30
- Record id
- concept_viruddha_ahara