੨੦. ਹਿਤਾਹਿਤੀਯਾਧ੍ਯਾਯਃ

Meaning of the commentary

The chapter is called Hitahitiya because it is composed with beneficial and harmful things as its subject, or because such things are contained in it.

Meaning of the commentary

The commentary first presents the opposing view. Sesame oil and kanjika are examples of things described as suitable for vata but unsuitable for pitta. In that view, no substance is continuously beneficial because it may be unsuitable for pitta, and none continuously harmful because it may suit vata. The conjunction translated as or in the source is explained as including both possibilities. The text then states its own position within the Sushruta tradition. Svabhava is a thing's persistent inherent nature, illustrated by heat in fire and fluidity in water. Samyoga is conjunction with one, two, three or more substances. The conjunction in the statement also includes inherent nature operating within combinations, together with place, time, quantity and processing insofar as these are connected with that nature.

Meaning of the commentary

Congeniality to the species means suitability to human beings. A cited definition calls a substance satmya when it remains compatible with the body and does not produce disturbance when used. The inclusive phrase after cooked rice covers barley, wheat and similar foods. Fire, alkali and poison are invariably harmful to healthy people, though for a patient they may be beneficial when selected according to the disease, dose and related considerations. Some read that other substances become harmful through combination with those same harmful things. On that interpretation, inherent nature, combination, place and the other associated factors can make them invariably harmful. The category beneficial and harmful has already been illustrated by the difference between vata and pitta suitability.

Meaning of the commentary

Red shali is known by that name. Shashtika is the white variety, kanguka the white-black variety and mukundaka the black variety. Panduka shali has a pale husk. Sugandhaka is devashali. Kalama is a shali variety locally called kalavi. These belong among awned grains. Nivara is a red-awned grain among the prasadi group and is locally called tulaji. Uddalaka is wild kodrava, and vainava is bamboo barley; these and the related grains are placed among inferior or minor grains. Ena is blackbuck, harina a copper-coloured deer, kuranga is locally called caturanga, mrigamatrika is the small, broad-bellied female caturanga, shvadamshtra is a fierce four-tusked animal locally called karkataka, and karala is musk deer. Tittiri is the dark partridge and kapinjala the pale partridge. Vartira is locally called gharghara and vartika is its variety. The deer beginning with ena are dry-land animal meats, and the birds beginning with lava are dry-land birds. Mangalya is a pale variety of masura. Harenu is a round kalaya and a variety of satina. Adhaki is tuvari, and satina is round. Mudga and the following pulses belong to the pulse-soup group. Chilli is field vastuka; vastuka is tankavastuka. Sunishannaka is shirivalika, though others identify it as a four-leaved plant. Jivanti is dodika and mandukaparni is brahmi. These belong among leafy vegetables. Cow ghee represents unctuous substances, saindhava the salts, and amalaki and pomegranate the fruits. The commentary addresses the objection that nivara, kodrava and uddalaka can increase vata: because that action is slight, they are still described as not producing dosha disturbance.

Meaning of the commentary

After the dietary items, the text describes conduct. Brahmacarya here means abstaining from sexual relations. Exercise is considered most suitable for a healthy person when performed at the proper time and in an appropriate amount. The conjunction also includes conduct such as not suppressing natural urges.

Meaning of the commentary

The invariably beneficial items are water and the others, while the invariably harmful items are fire and the others. The conjunction shows that context-dependent items too were explained earlier, through the example of differing suitability for vata and pitta.

Meaning of the commentary

Calling these combinations poison-like places them in the invariably harmful category within the source's framework, since poison is held to be invariably harmful to a healthy person. Valliphala means fruits of creepers such as kushmanda; others identify pulses and similar pods. Kavaka is mushroom; some specify a mushroom variety called sukhanda. Karira is a bamboo shoot, and sour fruits include amrataka. Virohi may mean something whose sprout has been removed or sprouted gram and similar foods. Pishta is rice flour, jambava is jambu fruit, and cilicima is described as a scaled, red-eyed fish with red lines over its body, usually moving on land and called a land fish. Naikadhyam means not at one time. Every item from vine fruit through boar is prohibited with milk both collectively and separately. Some recensions add that non-dry-land meat is suitable for healthy people except those affected by disease, and explain non-dry-land meat as fivefold according to aquatic, marshy and related habitats.

Meaning of the commentary

The passage shows that even something generally classed as incompatible may sometimes be used. Disease includes conditions such as abdominal enlargement. Satmya is said to be eightfold, based on species or birth group, patient, medicine, food, taste, region, season and water. Region includes marshy and other types; season is characterized by cold, heat or rain; and bodily condition may be stout, lean or intermediate. The factors beginning with digestive fire also include constitution, age, strength and mental resilience. Rogavrtti means the patient. Thus, a physician capable of inference, discrimination and reasoning may, after examining these factors, administer even a substance considered categorically harmful. The commentary gives historical examples involving a minute amount of poison in an abdominal disorder and sugarcane given after a black-snake bite.

Meaning of the commentary

The many possible states of disease, habituation, region and the other factors prevent physicians from calling a substance always beneficial or always harmful in every patient. They do accept fixed classifications in the context of preserving health. Although the example speaks generally of choosing for one of two people, the intended subject is the healthy person: for that person physicians call milk invariably beneficial and poison invariably harmful. Likewise, the concluding statement about water and other substances applies to their use by a healthy person, not to use by someone who is ill.

Meaning of the commentary

Both sprouted and de-sprouted new grain are included, and each named item is incompatible with the domestic and other meats whether used collectively or separately. Rohini is katuka greens and jatuka is paushkara greens. Balaka is a type of crane, varuni another name for liquor, and kulmasha boiled masha or similar grain. Nadibhanga is a green made from tender reed-like shoots, and chicken may be combined with neither one nor both of the other listed items. Pitta here means the dark portion attached to the liver. Krishara is gruel of sesame, rice and masha; payasa is rice cooked in milk; these and sura are incompatible in pairs as well as all three together. Sauvira is a type of sour fermented grain liquid. Sugarcane products include jaggery. Other witnesses read the sequence as kakamaci with jaggery, mulaka with honey, boar with milk, and mulaka with milk. Still others omit the milk relationship with boar and read kakamaci with jaggery, mulaka with honey, and boar; by carrying the word honey forward, they link it with both boar and kakamaci. Shvavit is identified as sehika. Cilicima is singled out to emphasize its incompatibility with milk even though all fish have already been included. Some manuscripts add a reading that lakuca should not be eaten with honey and ghee; although present in many current copies, it is absent from the older compilations and the commentator says it should not be accepted. The final phrase again supplies lakuca as the item not to be eaten before or after milk.

Meaning of the commentary

Here karman means processing or preparation. The wording concerning eranda and daruharidra is read as cooking over a fire made from eranda and daruharidra wood. Others read only eranda-wood fire and explain it accordingly. Ten nights means that the ghee has remained for ten days and nights. Hot substances are those hot to the touch through fire or another cause, while a hot time means summer and autumn. In the fish- and ginger-cooking rule, paripacana means the cooking vessel. The balaka is forbidden with coconut after being fried in boar fat. Bhasa is described as a short-beaked gray kind of vulture, and angarashulya means pierced on a spit and cooked over embers.

Meaning of the commentary

The commentary emphasizes that honey with an unctuous substance, or water with an unctuous substance, is especially not to be consumed with rainwater as the accompanying drink. With this passage the source has described five forms of incompatibility: by inherent nature, combination, time, processing and quantity.

Meaning of the commentary

In this section, 'in all respects' means by taste, potency and post-digestive effect. The conjunction after sweet and salty carries forward opposition by taste and potency; after sweet and astringent it carries forward opposition by taste and post-digestive effect; and after pungent and astringent it carries forward opposition by taste and potency. The passage implies that the listed opposition does not prohibit established usable pairs such as curd with sugar, but applies among pairs that are otherwise unsuitable. Gayadasa and other teachers declare this entire passage non-authoritative. They reason that another passage prescribes consuming all tastes, beginning with sweet, for healthy people, while yet another prohibits consuming only a single taste. Brahmadeva, without deciding whether it is authoritative, reads and explains it. The present commentator includes it, and explains portions of it, in order to represent all views.

Meaning of the commentary

The verse explains that even substances normally beneficial to a healthy person, such as buffalo milk, become categorically harmful when a quality is excessive. Taratamayogayukta means endowed with an extreme degree of unctuousness or another quality. Thus buffalo milk, being more unctuous than cow milk, is to be avoided by a healthy person with balanced digestive fire, though the commentary says it may be used by an ill person with sharp digestive fire. The conjunction is also understood to include use of substances that are exceptionally wholesome, life-promoting or fertility-promoting, since these are held to be invariably beneficial; other substances possessing extreme qualities are held inherently and invariably harmful. 'And similar' includes qualities associated with potency such as slimy, clear or non-slimy, penetrating and soft, as well as heavy and light potency. Others say it includes every quality not already mentioned.

Meaning of the commentary

The verse summarizes the preceding teaching. Virya may denote the eight qualities beginning with unctuousness, or the twenty qualities together with the six tastes, since virya is defined as that by which a substance acts. The broad wording includes all incompatibilities stated in other treatises. Another interpretation derives from 'and so forth' the incompatibilities involving place, time, quantity and other factors taught elsewhere. Remaining foods, such as masha, are conditionally beneficial or harmful because they aggravate one dosha while reducing another.

Meaning of the commentary

The diseases named as examples include impotence, blindness, visarpa, dakodara, eruptions, insanity and bhagandara. Weakness may affect the physical seats of the senses or their functional powers. Mention of taste excludes treating the inherent virya of a substance itself as the incompatibility; thus the commentary allows warmed milk, explaining that the acquired heat does not make milk harmful because milk's sweet taste and cooling virya oppose it, and similarly allows warm water. An alternative reading has 'taste, virya and the others,' which also requires avoiding incompatibility of the two vipakas called heavy and light. The verse summarizes this chapter: the taste and virya incompatibility applies specifically to the substances declared incompatible here, rather than automatically to unlisted substances.

Meaning of the commentary

The verse shows that incompatible food is not the only cause of disease; conditionally beneficial or harmful foods may also cause it. 'Anything' includes every unsuitable substance. Utkleshya means aggravating vata or another dosha. Failure to expel means that, unlike madanaphala or trivrit, it does not draw the dosha upward or downward. A substance can also cause disease by specifically impairing rasa and the other dhatus and opposing their life-supporting purposes. Because substances have specific powers, some chiefly impair doshas and others dhatus; the details are omitted to avoid excessive length. Another explanation takes 'rasa and the others' to mean rasa, virya and vipaka: food that acts improperly or harmfully in any of these respects causes disorder. Jejjata calls the verse non-authoritative, while Gayadasa accepts it; Dalhana therefore records and explains it.

Meaning of the commentary

The purgation should be appropriate to the particular disease caused by incompatible food; for example, purgation suited to kushtha counters kushtha arising in this way, and the principle applies similarly elsewhere. Emesis or purgation is used when doshas are abundant and the patient has adequate vitality; shamana is for other cases. Shamana is defined as that which neither expels balanced doshas nor excites them, but brings aggravated doshas toward balance. Prior beneficial use means first taking something that counters the expected harmful disorder, with gold cited in relation to poison. Another reading has 'prior wholesome food' instead of 'prior beneficial use.'

Meaning of the commentary

The verse explains why some people who consume incompatible food do not develop the corresponding disorders. One grammatical interpretation joins strength with unctuous intake and exercise: persons strengthened by eating unctuous substances have powerful agni, so the incompatible food proves ineffective. Others take balinam as a separate group, yielding people who are unctuous, exercise regularly, or are strong. Some place after this verse another stanza saying that one accustomed to exercise, strong, a child, unctuous, possessing agni, or a large eater does not acquire such disorders because of habituation or small quantity. The commentary rejects that additional stanza because none of the commentators read it.

Meaning of the commentary

The directions can make even otherwise beneficial wind harmful. Another explanation says south and north winds are beneficial because they reduce doshas, while east and west winds are harmful, which is why their qualities conclude the chapter. A variant says the east wind especially increases moisture in wounds rather than disease. Khara means violently forceful. Other authorities omit the entire wind passage because conjunction with direction is out of place in a discussion of foods. Gayadasa transmits this chapter in a different order, omitting some earlier material and inserting another list of incompatible combinations. That list prohibits taking milk together with, immediately before or after, vine fruits, fungi, karira, sour fruits, salt, kulattha, oil cake, curd, sesame oil, dry vegetables, goat or sheep meat, alcohol, jambu, chilichima fish, monitor lizard or boar. It also prohibits pigeon fried in mustard oil; kapinjala, peacock, lava, tittiri or monitor lizard cooked with castor wood or fire, or with castor oil; equal measures of honey and ghee; honey followed by rainwater; ghee kept ten nights in a bronze vessel; heated honey or honey with something hot; curd with alcohol; meat cooked with bile, and raw meat even alone; sura, krishara and payasa together; sesame cakes with sauvira; honey, ghee, fish, monitor lizard or prishata meat with buttermilk; monitor lizard with honey; fish or prishata meat with kshaudrasava; fish with maireya, madhvika or balopodaki; sugarcane products with fish; ghee, jaggery, kakamachi, honey and radish together; boar with honey; chicken with curd; balaka with alcohol; cooked upodika with sesame paste; pippali with fish fat; and eating payasa while anointed with priyangu. Gayadasa then places passages beginning with graded combinations, which the commentary does not reproduce because they match earlier passages.

Meaning of the commentary

Thus ends the twentieth chapter in the Sutrasthana of the Nibandhasangraha commentary on Sushruta, composed by Shri Dalhana.