Snakebite (sarpa visha)

Divine serpents are said to carry intense poison in their sight and breath, while ordinary snakes born on earth carry it in their fangs.

Snake poison is called the most dreadful of the animal poisons, and snakes are said to be of five kinds: darvīkara, maṇḍalī, rājīmanta, vaikarañja and nirviṣa.

A snake's bite is said to be of three kinds: svarpita, radita and udvihita.

Darvikara snakes are described as hooded, with marks of an umbrella, plough, moon, wheel, swastika or goad on the head, fast and quick to anger, with vata predominating.

Mandali snakes are described as marked with many-coloured round patches, slow, very long, with very hot poison.

Rajimanta snakes are described as striped in many colours, shining, some reddish, with kapha predominating.

Snakes are said to bite people, mostly out of great anger, when protecting their young, when in frenzy, from greed for food, when trodden on or knocked, when touched and from fear.

In a very timid person, a snake's touch can provoke vata through fright and cause swelling; this sarpangabhihata is said to be non-venomous.

A svarpita bite is made with one, two, three or four venomous fangs and carries very intense poison with wound and swelling.

A radita bite shows red, black or white lines with swelling but no wound and carries little poison.

A darvikara bite shows all signs of provoked vata, a mandali bite pitta signs such as burning, and a rajimanta bite kapha signs.

The commentary adds that in the first stage the body darkens and feels as if ants were crawling, and in the second the body darkens further with swellings and lumps.

In the third stage (the commentary: poison spoils the fat) there is great heaviness of the eyes and headache; in the fourth the poison reaches the abdomen and brings out kapha from the mouth, with joint pain.

In the fifth stage provoked kapha blocks the channels and causes severe hiccup; in the sixth there is intense burning, heart pain and fainting; in the seventh the poison takes life.

In the second stage the flesh is spoilt, the eyes, face and whole body turn pale (or very dark, the commentary says) and the mouth tastes bitter.

The third stage brings great thirst, the fourth high fever and the fifth intense burning; the commentary gives heart pain and fainting for the sixth and death for the seventh, where the verse names loss of awareness and loss of life.

In the third stage saliva flows profusely; in the fourth there is neck stiffness and severe headache.

In the fifth stage speech stops, in the sixth the throat is blocked, and in the seventh life ends from greatly increased kapha.

Darvikara poison is said to provoke vata, mandali poison pitta and rajimanta poison kapha.

Vaikaranja snakes, born of two kinds, are said to have poison that provokes two doshas.

The verse says that in the first stage darvikara poison quickly spoils the blood and makes it black, and in the second it does the same to the flesh.

In mandali poisoning the verse says the blood spoilt by the poison becomes yellow already in the first stage.

In the first stage of rajimanta poisoning the spoilt blood becomes reddish and slimy; in the second the flesh is spoilt and turns very white.

A footnote says tying the limb constricts the blood vessels so the poison cannot spread through the body, because poison spreads through the blood.

Poison present throughout a snake's body is said to come quickly to the tips of its fangs when the snake is angry, as semen reaches its channels on the touch of the beloved.

The fangs are hooked like a fish-hook, so snakes bite and leave the poison that provokes all doshas in the wound; they do not release poison without biting.

The text says a physician who knows antidote measures should remove this poison quickly and also treat the fang wounds.

The physician should identify the biting snake from these signs and remove the poison with suitable medicines and mantras.

The text says even poisons that medicines cannot remove yield to mantras, so the physician should first protect life quickly with mantras and then apply medicines.

For the sight and breath poison of divine serpents the text asks what can be said of medicines; the commentary explains that no medicine pacifies it and that such serpents rage only when unrighteousness reaches its height and great calamity is near.

When the person stays well, the blood is not vitiated and fang marks show without swelling, the bite is described as non-venomous (udvihita).

Snake poison is said to kill quickly like a weapon or lightning if it is not removed between its stages with medicines, mantras and the like, or drawn out of the body.

A bite is called incurable when received at an anthill, temple, cremation ground or under milky trees, at twilight, at a crossroads, at the rise of kulika or under dreadful asterisms such as Bharani and Magha, and when the bite has black and very red swelling or four fang marks with whitish blood.

Bitten persons who are hungry and thirsty, very old, emaciated or children, who have great pitta and heat or suffer from indigestion, or whose nose sinks, face twists, joints loosen, speech halts and jaw stiffens, are to be left as incurable.

Further incurable signs: no weal when struck with a whip or cane, no blood when cut, no gooseflesh when sprinkled with cold water, a wick-like kapha discharge from the mouth, bleeding from the upper and lower passages and loss of sleep; such a patient is incised once by rule and then left untreated.

A footnote says divine serpents live in the world of the gods and that their poison spreads, with effect over a great distance, merely from their looking or breathing out.

The author therefore announces that he will describe agada tantra, the means of destroying poison, as far as he is able.