Vata disorders (vatavyadhi)

Vata joined with kapha is said to make the body stiff, painless and hard to the touch; joined with pitta and blood it causes burning heat in the body.

Akshepaka (convulsing the whole body), apatanaka, ardita (twisting half the face) and pakshaghata (disabling half the body) are named as kinds of vata disease.

People of dry (jāṅgala) land, naturally thin with visible veins and rough, hard bodies, are said to suffer mostly from disorders caused by vāta, so vāta-pacifying treatment is advised there.

In marshy (ānūpa) land, vāta-caused diseases accompanied by much kapha are said to arise.

Vata is said to become aggravated through heavy exposure to snow, rain and cold and through excess of cold and dry food.

Vata is called the main seat, that is the root cause, of many local and whole-body diseases; it flares again and again and troubles the body especially at night.

Each vata aggravated in its own seat (skin and the rest) is said to produce the diseases of that seat; if all five vayus are aggravated together they destroy the body, like the wind at the dissolution of the world.

Vata lodged in a part of the body is said to cause swelling, pain and many other diseases in that part.

The commentary adds that in these three associated states it is still vata treatment that has to be given, in three ways.

In all vata diseases mainly vata has to be overcome, so the earlier teachers hold that one treatment serves for all of them.

When vata is aggravated in the stomach, emesis is to be induced to overcome it.

For vata aggravated in the colon the text gives purgation with medicated ghee or purgative powders and pastes, after oleation and sudation.

Vata pervading the whole body is to be treated with asthapana and anuvasana enemas.

For calming vata diseases no other measure is said to be as useful as a properly given enema.

Vata lodged in the head is to be treated with oil massage of the head and an oil-soaked pad, medicated nasya, pastes, sudation, poultices, shirobasti and bloodletting.

The text says that whatever part of the body a vata disease occupies, that very part is to be treated with oil applications, unction, sudation and poultices prepared with vata-reducing drugs.

When vata is joined with kapha, pitta or blood, the best medicines suited to that combination are to be used.

Vata joined with kapha is to be sweated with heat, binding and steam sudation, and vata joined with blood and pitta with liquid sudation using milk, water, ghee and kanji.

Very hard-to-cure vata, whether in one part or in the whole body, is said to be pacified by enema therapy alone.

For greatly increased vata disorders, oleation, emesis, pastes, purgation, oil massage, fumigation, kavala, enemas and nasal therapy are to be used as needed.

The treatments told so far suit diseases arising from vata alone; for vata mixed with other doshas, the physician who knows the differences of doshas and tastes is to give mixed treatment opposing each dosha involved.

Major vata diseases located in the trunk (koshtha) are to be treated with patra lavana and similar preparations, medicated ghee and enemas of various drugs.

Whether the disorder is due to vata alone or to vata joined with other doshas is to be settled from the signs of the doshas told earlier, and it is treated with medicines suited to it.

Unctuous foods such as oil and ghee, milk, curd, sour and salty foods and drinks, living in a warm house and pastes of kushtha, tejapatra, cardamom and agaru are described as beneficial in vata disease.

Travelling in a warm conveyance, wearing heavy clothes, celibacy, sleeping on soft beds and khala dishes with grain soup are said to be beneficial for vata patients.

Foods and snacks with ghee and oil, immersion in warm decoctions, affusion and pleasantly warm sudation with slightly heated dry cow dung are described as beneficial for warding off vata.

A patient with a vata disease who sees many reddish things in dreams (aruna in the verse, red in the commentary) is said to surely die.

Vata diseases are described as destroying the happiness and wealth of living beings and as terrible as lightning and poison.