1. vēdōtpattyadhyāyaḥ

Meaning of the commentary

The commentator takes atha as an auspicious opening, indicating fulfilment of the purpose of both listener and teacher. Khalu is understood either as embellishing the sentence or as expressing certainty. Dhanvantari is called foremost among the immortals because, in one explanation, he brought forth amrita in a previous birth; another explanation understands him as an incarnation of Brahma. These are alternative accounts recorded by the commentary. The surrounding rishis are described as devarshis, brahmarshis, and rajarshis, whose austerity and knowledge make their words worthy of acceptance. Ashramastha is interpreted as dwelling in the vanaprastha stage: freedom from concerns of rulership suggests an untroubled mind and the character of a royal sage. Kashiraja identifies the ruler of the Varanasi region. The commentary also connects this designation with the king's wish for liberation and an account of becoming his son. Divodasa distinguishes him from other kings of Kashi. The commentary offers alternative derivations of this name: one involves the gods, their wish to honour, and giving; another explains dasa or dasha through diligent action and service associated with heaven. Dhanvantari is then derived by taking dhanu to mean Shalyashastra and understanding him as one who has reached its farthest extent. Another derivation is deliberately omitted to avoid excessive length. The commentator initially counts seven named disciples, from Aupadhenava to Sushruta, and understands 'and others' to include Bhoja and others. An alternative divides Gopurarakshitau into two names, giving eight, and includes Nimi, Kankayana, Gargya, and Galava under 'and others,' giving twelve. These counts are preserved as alternatives. Finally, although Sushruta is the principal questioner, the others may be named first because, in this explanation, they are devarshis whom rajarshis honour.

Meaning of the commentary

The commentator explains bodily disorders as arising from imbalance of Vata and the other doshas; mental disorders as desire and related disturbances arising from rajas and tamas; and externally caused disorders as those produced by such causes as tigers or weapons. He offers two explanations for the absence of svabhavika disorders from the opening list. One is that their management is not the principal subject of this treatise. The other is that they are already included in the students' wish to sustain their own lives. In that second explanation, the rishis are regarded as not subject to the other three groups, so sustaining life concerns preventing natural disturbances. This is the commentator's account of the rishis. People described as sanatha have friends and others to support them, yet suffer as if alone. Their troubled actions and anguished cries show, in this explanation, that companions alone cannot provide the help that Ayurveda supplies. Pranayatra is explained as maintaining the functioning of the pranas, including Agni and Soma, and following svasthavritta. The commentator records the alternative reading 'atmaprajahitahetoh,' referring to benefit for oneself and others. Upadishyamana means being taught concisely. The commentary distinguishes well-being in this world from well-being beyond it. The former includes artha and kama, gaining friends, and fame. The latter includes heaven, knowledge connected with other births, and immortality. These are the traditional aims stated in the commentary, not promises of medical outcomes. Because these kinds of welfare are understood to depend on this instruction, the speakers have approached the teacher in the capacity of students.

Meaning of the commentary

The commentator pairs each condition of retas with a corresponding aim. Naturally scanty retas calls for nourishment; retas disturbed by Vata and other doshas calls for restoration of its proper condition; retas reduced below its usual amount by particular causes calls for increase; and retas reduced to an extreme degree calls for generation. An alternative interpretation relates these descriptions to age: those who have not reached twenty-five are described as having scanty retas, middle-aged people whose retas has diminished through particular causes as having depleted retas, and elderly people as having dried-up retas. The final expression about producing praharsha is explained, for a person otherwise in health, as increasing shukra and bringing about its discharge. These explanations remain within the supplied traditional account.

Meaning of the commentary

The commentator recalls his earlier observation that the introductory promise beginning athata should be understood in the teaching sequence after this address to Sushruta. Iha khalu establishes the present topic as the origin of Ayurveda. Vyadhi is used broadly: it can refer to disturbed Vata and the other doshas, to their effects such as jvara, to afflictions, and to attachment and other forms of suffering that perpetuate samsara. Parimoksha means cessation or release. The commentator then asks whether supporting people with yapya disease and extending lifespan through Rasayana should be named as additional purposes. One answer is that cha, 'and,' includes these unstated purposes. Alternatively, support in yapya disease is included under disease management because the therapeutic action is shared, while the lifespan-related purpose of Rasayana is included under protecting the healthy.

Meaning of the commentary

The commentator explains why Shalya has been called the foremost branch. Its prompt action is connected with applying yantra and the other named means: he says that slow action in their use is inappropriate because it may bring harm to the patient. A second reason is its common ground with branches such as Shalakya. Some read adhika-kriya-karana, performing a greater range or degree of action, instead of ashu-kriya-karana. On that reading, its use of the specified means and its shared scope with the other branches support the claim. Another interpretation counts three separate reasons in the original formulation and explains prompt action as quickly performing actions such as cutting. These are arguments about Shalya's standing within this text.

Meaning of the commentary

The commentator presents this praise of Shalyatantra as encouragement for the students. Shashvata can mean imperishable; alternatively, it can refer to moksha, with the discipline so described because it helps bring that about. Punya means a cause of merit. Svargya, yashasya, and ayushya mean either causes of, or things beneficial to, heaven, reputation, and life respectively. Vrittikara means providing the means of subsistence. These explanations preserve the aims stated in the traditional text.

Meaning of the commentary

The king of Kashi speaks this verse to establish the students' confidence. One interpretation identifies Adideva as Shankara. Another distinguishes primordial deities such as Brahma, deities associated with acts such as Shatakratu, and deities born for particular purposes such as Skanda, placing the speaker in the first category. Being an Adideva and being the king of Kashi are reconciled through his taking a different incarnation. The statement about removing old age, illness, and death means, in this traditional account, that the gods formerly experienced these conditions and that the speaker removed them. He explains his return to earth by saying that he had previously gone to heaven for the work of the gods and has now come to the mortal world to teach for human purposes. An alternative reading says that he came bearing Shalya, the great and foremost discipline. The commentator argues that declaring one's own greatness is not blameworthy here because it serves others and is regarded as truthful.

Meaning of the commentary

The five mahabhutas are earth and the others; shariri is atman, and samavaya is explained here as conjunction. An alternative opening reading specifies Shalyatantra and the present discussion of therapeutic action and the basis of disease. Kriya includes the actions taught in the discipline involving medicines, shastra, kshara, and agni, as well as measures for maintaining health. Purusha is their basis because it is the locus of both disease and health. The world is divided into sthavara, such as trees, and jangama, such as human beings. The further distinction between agneya and saumya is introduced for its relevance to treatment. The commentary connects them with the natures associated with Agni and Soma. It rejects the reading that makes 'twofold' mean 'having two causes,' citing criticism in the Panjika. Although all the elements are present, the twofold description rests on predominance: substances are generally considered cold or hot. An alternative formulation describes both divisions of the world as fivefold in elemental constitution. The four traditional classes of living beings are explained as follows: samsvedaja arise from the moisture or warmth of the earth or body; jarayuja arise from jarayu, glossed as the womb; andaja arise from an egg, described as a rounded support of a living being; and udbhijja emerge by breaking through the earth. Samsvedaja is placed first because heat is considered necessary for the coming into being of all four. The commentary notes but rejects a different order of the list, again referring to the Panjika. Although the broad definition of purusha could include animals, here the word specifically denotes the human being, whose benefit is the principal concern. Other stationary and moving beings are treated as resources for that purpose. A final alternative interpretation locates the statement of human primacy specifically within the four classes beginning with samsvedaja. This explains why purusha is selected as the locus of the discipline.

Meaning of the commentary

Tat refers back to purusha. Duhkha is distress involving body, speech, or mind. The word vyadhi is explained through the bringing of different kinds of suffering. The commentator accepts two ways of construing the statement. Diseases such as the externally caused kinds are those whose association with purusha brings suffering. Alternatively, diseases are those conditions in whose presence, through whose agency, or from which suffering arises for purusha. He then records two other interpretations but rejects them, referring to criticism in the Panjika: one treats diseases as the combinations of the person's painful sensations; the other divides duhkha into an explanation involving damaged kha or srotas and makes the association a cause of disturbed channels. These rejected readings are not merged with the two accepted interpretations.

Meaning of the commentary

The reference to food and drink means their inappropriate use, since balanced food is not regarded as a cause of disease. It also points more broadly to departures from svasthavritta: disturbances involving time, activities of body, speech, and mind, and the relation between senses and their objects. The commentator says that naming food instead of listing all these factors highlights its principal role in the arising of such disorders. Imbalance may consist in either decrease or increase. Its manifestations include disorders that reveal the accumulation and other states of Vata and the other factors, such as a feeling of the abdomen being filled with Vata. The commentary asks why shonita, a dushya, is included in a discussion of doshas. One answer is specific to Shalyatantra: wounds are central to it, and rakta is especially important among the dushyas in wounds. Another answer is that rakta disturbed by doshas can itself become a cause of disease. The cited later passage names disorders according to the dhatu strongly affected by doshas, such as rasa or shonita, by analogy with calling a burn one caused by ghee. The commentator declines to reproduce the more extensive discussions of other authors because they could confuse the student.

Meaning of the commentary

Hunger is the wish to eat, thirst the wish to drink, and jara old age. Death is defined as the separation of body, senses, atman, and mind. Sleep is explained through the conjunction of mind with the medhya nadi and the resulting ease of body and senses. The reading prakriti includes conditions arising from constitution or nature. The commentator distinguishes their natural occurrence from their occurrence through disturbed doshas. He gives excessive hunger associated with increased Pitta, reduced Shleshma, and bhasmaka agni as an example of a dosha-caused condition requiring correction. The same distinction is extended to thirst, premature ageing, untimely death, and sleep arising from dosha disturbance. Such cases are assigned to bodily disorders. When the conditions arise through nature itself, he describes them as beyond counteraction, even through Rasayana. The commentary acknowledges that natural hunger, thirst, and ageing can still have a connection with Pitta, and sleep with Shleshma and tamas. It nevertheless calls them non-dosha-caused because dosha involvement is slight, comparing the terminology to calling a person who eats only one grain a person who is fasting. Death, even when substantial doshas participate, is not necessarily named after them if they follow nature; the analogy is that a victory achieved by a king's powerful servants is attributed to the king. Externally caused death is another reason that death cannot always be classified as dosha-caused. An alternative reading has prabhritaya, 'and others,' rather than prakritaya; those accepting it include such conditions as wakefulness at night. The statements about what can be counteracted are the distinctions made in this commentary, not clinical advice or assurances of preventing death.

Meaning of the commentary

The phrase 'and others' includes smaller measures of time such as nimesha, kashtha, kala, and muhurta. The commentator says that others read and explain this prose passage differently, but he does not reproduce those versions because they are not familiar in the copies available to him.

Meaning of the commentary

Svabhavata means through their own defining characteristics. Dosha refers to Vata and the other factors that disturb body, speech, and mind, and also to disorders such as jvara arising from them. Sanchaya is increase in a dosha's own location. Prakopa is used broadly here to include prakopa, prasara, sthanasamshraya, vyakti, and bheda. Prakopa itself is described as movement away from the normal location along an improper course; fifteen forms of prasara are to be described later. Vyakti is the general manifestation of a disease, as heat characterises jvara and frequent passage characterises atisara. Bheda is its specific differentiation, such as the eight kinds of jvara. Prashama means subsiding of itself, whereas pratikara means action opposed to the cause and the disease. Some omit pratikara, treating the two words as equivalent. The commentator rejects that view: kapha-jvara may require counteraction in spring or the forenoon but subside naturally in summer or at midday. Thus natural subsidence and active counteraction are distinguished. The factors are useful in treatment as well. The commentary cites examples involving leaving a preparation in wind at night, arranging material in a sheltered place, and drying madana fruits in sunlight, to show how the previously listed environmental conditions can be put to use.

Meaning of the commentary

The commentator addresses why the summary is called fourfold although person, disease, medicine, action, and time can be counted as five. He explains that time is not separate from action, or that action is not separate from medicinal means; time qualified by action can therefore be treated together in the fourfold account. The cited wording offers several ways of grouping these closely connected terms rather than adding a fifth independent subject. Under purusha, one reading takes the constituent group to include shukra, artava, and the five mahabhutas, with bhuta meaning the first or principal constituents. Another takes the group to be the conjunction of shukra, shonita, and related materials whose root causes are the mahabhutas. A further reading makes this conjunction the origin of living beings because they become manifest there. The interpretation beginning from avyakta under bhutadi is recorded but rejected on the authority of the Panjika. Angas include larger divisions such as the head, and pratyangas smaller divisions such as the chin. The commentary mentions seven layers of skin, five hundred muscles, seven hundred siras, and nine hundred snayus, with srotas and dhamanis included by 'and others.' These are the enumerations supplied by the commentary. 'All diseases' includes externally caused, mental, and naturally arising conditions. Dravya includes the stationary and other groups; rasa the tastes beginning with madhura; guna qualities such as guru; virya such properties as cold and heat; and vipaka the twofold guru and laghu classification used here. The action group includes sneha, svedana, vamana, virechana, asthapana, anuvasana, dhuma, nasya, kavala, gandusha, pachana, and samshamana. The operative group includes cutting, opening, scraping, probing, extraction, drainage, and suturing. Time refers to the occasions specified for these measures: examples include administration of sneha under a described condition of the sun, svedana after food has digested, vamana in the forenoon, virechana early in the day, and anuvasana later in the day or sometimes at early night. The detailed timing of asthapana in the supplied phrase needs review rather than a forced interpretation.

Meaning of the commentary

The fourfold framework is called a seed because, like a seed that grows into roots, stem, branches, and leaves, it expands through the Sutra, Nidana, Sharira, Chikitsa, and Kalpa sections and bears health as its fruit. Samasa means brevity. Savimsham adhyaya-shatam is first explained as a hundred chapters with twenty added. The commentator discusses how the wording relates to the Uttara Tantra. One interpretation gives the sa or saha element the sense 'together with,' connecting the stated body of chapters with its Uttara Tantra supplement. The objection that the opening chapter has already been spent presenting the seed is answered by treating that chapter as representative of the whole teaching. Another interpretation gives sa a sense of something less or deficient: with the opening chapter excluded, the explanatory remainder is one hundred and nineteen chapters. On this reading, the Uttara Tantra is included by the requirements of the subject matter, because the remaining topics are to be explained there. A further argument for including it is mentioned but omitted to avoid length. These are alternative explanations of the wording and count, not a single revised total.