________________
362 Speculations in the Medical Schools [CH. potency)". Others say that the rasa, as digested by the stomach (pāka), is most important, since things can produce good or bad effects only when they are digested. Some hold that each rasa remains unchanged by digestion, though according to others there are only three kinds of rasa resulting from digestion or pāka, viz. sweet, acid and hot (kațu); whereas Susruta held that there were only two kinds of rasa resulting from digestion, viz. sweet and hot; for, in his view, acid was not the result of digestion (amlo vipāko nāsti). According to Susruta it is the pitta which is turned into acid. Those objects which have more of earth and water in them are turned into sweet taste, whereas those which have tejas, air and ākāśa as their ingredients are turned into hot taste (kațu).
Speaking of the differences of view regarding the relative importance of dravya, rasa, vīrya and vipāka, Suśruta says that they are all important, since a medicine produces effects in all those four ways according to its own nature 2. The view of Susruta, as explained by Cakrapāņi in the Bhānumatī, seems to be that food, drink and medicine are all products of the five mahābhūtas, and rasa, vīrya and vipāka are dependent on the dravya and are like its potency (sakti), through which it works. Cakrapāni, commenting on this in the Bhānumatī, says that even in those cases where certain rasas are said to remove or increase certain morbidities (dosa) it is only because of their importance that they are so described; the real agent in all such cases is the dravya, since the rasa, etc. are always dependent on the dravya. Apart from the sakti as manifested in rasa, etc., the dravya also operates by itself in an unthinkable way (acintya), which is also called prabhāva and which is comparable with the attractive force exerted by magnets on iron. The dravya by itself is thus differentiated from its śakti, and it is said to have a peculiar operative mode of its own, as distinguished from that of its sakti or potency, as manifested in rasa, vīrya or vipāka, and this mode of operation is considered to
1 etāni khalu viryāni sva-bala-gunotkarsāt rasam abhibhuyātma-karma kurvanti. Susruta, ibid. The vīrya is said to remain both in the dravya and in the rasa. Thus in Susruta, 1.40.5-8, it is said that, if in those rasas which remove vāta there is dryness (rauksya), lightness (lāghava) and cold (śaitya), then they will not remove vāyu; so, if in those which remove pitta there is sharpness (taikşnya), heat (ausnya) and lightness (laghutā), then they will not remove pitta, and so on.
2 caturnām api samagryam icchanty atra vipascitaḥ. Susruta, 1. 40. 13.
* dravya-sakti-rūpakā rasa-virya-vipākā yatha-yogam nimitta-karanatām samavāyi-kāraṇatām vā bhajanto na kartytayā vyapadisyante dravya-paradhinatvāt. Bhanumati, 1. 40. 13.