Ayurved sutram

Author(s): Yoganandnatha, R Shama Shastry
Publisher: Government of Mysore

Page 6

of i sutra in the thiri decacle. The sutras of the
econd I'rasna appear to liave been divided into livisions of lilleen sutras cach. Here too, the present order of the reading of the sutras differs from the reading indicated lay the string of words. Neithor does the first Prasna consist of one hundred sutras corresponding to the ten decades, als indlicated by the word 'dasa,' ten, in the Chittha. Vor docs the second Prasna contain 135 sutrils corresponding to mine divisions of fifteen sutras each. No such Chittha is found in the other Prasnas. From this it follows that the text in its present form has undergone il vast change from its original and is full of omissions and commissions.
What however led this Library to undertake the edition of this work in spite of the manifest mutilation which it has undergone, is an attempted restoration of the text coupled with the prominence which it gives to fasting * and deep-breathingł as a sure means both curative and preventive of all those discascs, which are found to defy the power of drugs in the forın of churna, tajla, lehiya, or rasayana.
In no other Indian medical work, ancient and modern, is so much elficacy attached to the theory of fasting and deep-breathing coupled with natural Rasa diet. Of late some celebrated physicians of America liave been enthusiastically preaching and expounding, botlı from the platform and the press the theory of fasting and deep-breathing “Of the two principal matters recomended as the practical outcome of the tireory of health development in this book," says E. H. Dewey in his Introduction, P. 5, to his Science of Living, "is that o! fasting or the abstinance from food untii natural hunger calls for it, is the best way to bring about recovery from disease ... The second is that digestion is best promoted and food so assimilated as to allord the largest ainouüt of nourishment
* P. 160.
† 147 and 182.