The Mákshika Kalpa

The metal known as Mákshika (iron-pyrites), which grows in the river Tápi and which copes with the divine ambrosia in its highly therapeutic properties, may be also used in the same way and under the same sort of preparation. The metal is divided into two classes according to its colour, as Svarna-Mákshika (gold-coloured) and Rajata-Makshika (silver-coloured). Of these the first has a sweet taste while the second is acid. Both of them prove efficacious in cases of decrepitude, Kushtha, Meha, jaundice and consumption. A person using Silájátu and Mákshika (in the manner prescribed above) should refrain from taking pigeon-flesh and Kulattha pulse (during his life-time). 6.

The following measures should be adopted by an experienced physician in the case of a patient suffering from (Meha and) Kushtha and who has a firm faith in medicines and is desirous of existence (life) and in whose case the curative efficacy of Pancha-karma * has been baffled. 7.

The Tuvaraka Kalpa

The Tuvaraka plants which grow on the shores of the Western Sea (Arabian Sea) are constantly tossed about by the winds raised by the waves of the sea. The pith or marrow of the seeds (lit. - fruits) of these plants should be carefully collected in the rainy season while they ripen and should be subsequenly dried and pounded. The oil should be either pressed out of these seeds in a mill in the manner of preparing sesamum oil, or squeezed out (of a press bag) like that used in the case of Kusumbha flowers. The oil should be boiled over a fire so as to have its inherent watery particles completely evaporated. Then it should be taken down from the fire and kept in a pitcher and then buried for a fortnight in a heap of well dried cowdung. The patient (in the meantime) should be duly anointed, fomented and treated with cleansing remedies (i.e., emetics and purgatives). * He should wait a fortnight (after the administration of the aforesaid measures] and wait for a period of four meals † (i.e., two days) more; and on the next morning he should drink a portion of the oil in adequate doses (two Tolas) under the auspices of favourable astral combinations in the lighted fortnight of the month. He should be made to recite, at the time of his taking the fourth dose, a Mantra which runs as follows: - "Cleansest and purifiest, O Thou potent essence of seed-marrow, all the essential principles of (my) vital organism. The deity who knows no decay and suffers no change and who weilds a discus, a mace and a conch-shell in his arms, commands thee on that behalf"

* Some take the term in its ordinary sense to mean the five measures of emetics, purgatives, etc.; but Dallana would explain it as the measures adopted in the treatment of the Kushtha affecting the bone which is the fifth Dhain in the system.

The Doshas in both the upper and the lower parts of a patient's body are cleansed with the help of this oil (which should be given to the patient in the morning); while a cold gruel, unseasoned * with salt and not mixed with any emollient substance (oil or clarified butter) should be given to him in the afternoon. The use of this oil should be repeated in the same manner for five days in succession, and the patient should avoid anger, etc., and live on Mudga soup (Yusha) and boiled rice for a fortnight. A five days' use of this oil would ensure the cure of every types of Kushtha (and Madhu-meha). 8-9.

* The Kapha should be first reduced with emetics; and after a fortnight, the Pitta with purgatives. A fortnight after the use of purgatives, a potion of the Tuvarka oil should be administered inasmuch as it is a Sams'odhaka (cleansing) remedy.

† On the sixteenth day after the administration of the cleansing measures, as well as on the morning of the seventeenth day, the patient should take his meals as usual. On the evening of the seventeenth day no meal should be taken. On the following morning the oil should be taken.

The foregoing (Tuvaraka) oil should be boiled and prepared with a decoction of Khadira weighing three times the quantity of the oil and taken internally with patience for a month for the same purpose. The patient should anoint his body with the same and then take his meals in the prescribed form. A Kushtha-patient (as well as a Meha-patient) suffering from hoarseness, redeyes and with worm-eaten and emaciated limbs should be speedily treated with this oil as an anointment and a drink. Regular potions of the above medicinal (Tuvaraka) oil taken with honey, clarified butter and a decoction of Khadira and a diet consisting of the soups of bird's flesh (during its course) would enable the user to live for a period of two hundred years. A use of this oil as errhines Nasya) for a period of fifty consecutive days would enable the user to witness three hundred years on earth, in the full enjoyment of bodily vigour and a youthful glow of complexion, as well as with a very powerful retentive memory.

A regular use (in an adequate dose) of the pith of Tuvaraka cleanses the system of the patient and is a most potent remedy in cases of Kushtha and Meha. 10.

* A little quantity of salt and of oil or clarified butter may be given.

The pith (inner pulp of the seeds) of the Tuvaraka burnt in a closed vessel (Antar-dhuma) should be mixed with Saindhava-salt, Anjana* and Tuvaraka oil. This prepared compound, used as a collyrium, is efficacious in cases of eye-diseases, such as night-blindness, Arman, Nili, Kácha-roga (dimness of sight; and Timira. 11.

Thus ends the thirteenth Chapter of the Chikitsita Sthánam in the Sus'ruta Samhitá which deals with the treatment of Madhu-Meha.

* Dallana recommends the three things, viz., the pith of the Tuvaraka, the Saindhava-salt and the Rasánjana to be mixed and burnt together in a closed vessel.