Part 2 - Dietary prescriptions

The following is a list of salutary diet:—Rice, prepared from good paddy grown about a year back; anna-manda (boiled rice, rubbed with hot water, made into a paste, and then sifted through a piece of cloth), palika (thin home-made bread), roti or chapati (home-made bread), laja (paddy, fried and then deprived of husk, to be taken as fresh as possible), powder of the same, and lajamanda (paste prepared from the same). These three things should be taken with a little of sugar and rock-salt. Patola, papita, alabu, chichinda, koshataki, udumbara, inula, raktalu (red sweet potato), barahi-kanda, maha-kosha taki, (luffa penfandra), shurana, gopala-karkati, mana (arum indicum), Leaves of the following may also be taken in small quantities, duly prepared with coryander seed, cumin seed, rocksalt, and clarified butter:—punarnava, bastu, meghanada, sprikka (trigonella corniculata), dhanya, jiraka, brahmi, guduchi, and sunisanna (marsilea quadrifolia). Levcs of vegetables, however salutary they may be in other respects, should not be taken in excess, otherwise they give rise to diseases and destroy memory, intelligence, and the dhatus (constituents of the body, viz. chyle, blood, semen, bone, flesh, fat, and marrow).

As to cow’s milk, it has several good properties and may be used, in some of the diseases, but it gives rise to flatulence and is not to be taken in loss of digestive power. It is not to be given to patients suffering from flatulence, colic of all sorts (including appendicites), gulma, new fever, diabetes, spermatorrea, chronic diarrhoea, derangement of vayu, and abdominal phthisis, except at the time of taking a class of medicines, known by the name of parpati, with which cow’s milk is the most essential and indispensable diet. Milk may also be taken, if required, by special medicines (such as dugdha-bati). Throbbing below the navel (felt by the pressure of fingers) is an indication of the stomach giving rise to flatulence. In the diseases named above, goat's milk is not so bad as cow’s milk, The former may be used in those diseases by physicians having regard to the digestive power of the patients. Goats’ milk should always be boiled and then cooled before it is used for drinking.

Ghrita (clarified butter) increases vitality, strength, retentive faculties, loveliness of appearance, and digestive power. It is nutritious and pacifier of the three doshas. It is bo be prohibited in diseases due to mere kapha (phlegm) or mere pitta; at night in winter; at day time in summer; to boys and old men in all circumstances; in spermatorrea, diabetes, enlargement of spleen and liver, in diseases due to an increase of mucus, in cholera, intestinal obstruction, diseases due to taking of liquors, in fever, and in loss of digestive power. Ghrita may however be taken, at all times and by all sorts of people, at the time of taking a special class of medicines (such as gauri-sankara-rasa, etc.).

Meat of the following animals may also be prescribed, when necessary:—laba (a sort of quail), tittiri (the francoline partridge), godha (iguana), mayura (peacock), sasaka (hare), bataka (batkal, balhans, or bageri, a kind of small goose-like bird), kalabinka (sparrow), barti (bater, a kind of quail), haritala (green partridge), syena (hawk), big laba, other wild birds (except kukkuta or fowl and kapota or pigeon) and deer of all sorts.

The following fishes may also be prescribed, when necessary:—madgura, rohita, sakula and other fresh fish, considered salutary.