Explore the knowledge

Eating sesame oil is listed among the causes of pitta aggravation.

Alternatively, a cotton swab (pichu) soaked in sesame oil is placed in the yoni in vata-type yoni diseases.

Oil cake (piṇyāka, glossed by the commentary as sesame oil cake) is listed among the causes of pitta aggravation.

Sesame oil prepared with all the fragrant drugs is applied when pox arising from vata and kapha is ripening.

Grains of the nishpava group (red, white and other kinds of nishpava) mixed with sesame oil and given in food are said to destroy all sinus wounds and apachi.

Dry ginger, black pepper and long pepper with rock salt, mixed in sesame oil, are given to the newly delivered woman to drink.

Sesame oil consecrated by reciting the holy names of the Tirthankaras is given to the pregnant woman to drink, and chasha-patra is placed at the mouth of the vagina; the text says delivery…

For three, five or seven days with the amount raised step by step; after that it becomes habituated (satmya), so it is not drunk beyond seven days.

The verse describes sesame as hot, pervaded by astringent, bitter and sweet tastes, binding and appetising, light in digestion, and, applied to wounds, cleansing and healing.

Chapter 23 ends with a series of pastes, oils and nasyas said to turn white hair black, most of them containing iron powder and matured in iron vessels or pots buried in grain.

Taking digestion as the example, the introduction says the pācaka pitta in the āmāśaya, pakvāśaya and similar organs is gross and can be seen directly, with qualities such as a raw smell…

Horse gram soup with sesame oil (the commentary says: or sesame oil), mixed with trikatu, asafoetida and vidanga, is said to be beneficial against worms.

Vidanga powder impregnated many times with horse-dung juice and mixed with sesame oil and sugar is said to destroy worms when used.

The people of marshy (ānūpa) land are described as very stout and kapha-predominant, and physicians there are told always to treat kapha and vāta.

Kushtha, the second of the major diseases in chapter 11, is said to arise from all the vitiated doshas and to take eighteen forms. The text gives its pathogenesis (wrong conduct or…

Semen (śukra), like fat and brain matter, is said to measure one añjali in the body.

One of the pastes given to restore normal skin colour after the shvitra verse: bhallataka seed and other drugs, or animal hides, burnt and powdered in sesame oil.

A paste of thirteen burnt drugs headed by bhallataka in sesame oil, the second of the colour-restoring pastes.

One part sesame oil cooked with twenty parts of bhringaraja juice and a paste of haritaki is said to destroy shvasa and cough quickly.

Pitta is said to be aggravated by excessive grief, anger, fear and joy, by severe fasting and excessive sexual activity, by too much pungent, sour, sharp (alkaline) and salty food, by…

After purgation the prameha patient is given a niruha (decoction) enema prepared from niruhana drugs mixed with cow urine and sesame oil, and is then fed on the prescribed foods.

Defects of the menstrual blood (artava, rajas), which the text classifies together with those of semen by dosha, blood and excessive intercourse, and treats with purification up to the…

Powder of the mango-kernel and iron powder are taken in equal parts, and triphala powder and nilanjana powder (glossed as blue vitriol or antimony) each equal to these two. The four powders…

The anus and the suppository are smeared with sesame oil mixed with rock salt and the suppository is inserted carefully; it is said to remove severe distension, abdominal worms and…