Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/210



Now we shall discuss the Chapter which treats of blood (Shonita-Varnaniya-madhya'yam).

The food of a human being, which is usually composed of the five fundamental material principles, admits of being classified under four different heads [as, drinks and edibles, etc.]. It has six different tastes or is of two [cooling or heat-making] potencies, or consists of eightfold properties, [viz. hot, cool, dry, expansive, slimy, mild, sharp, etc.] and of a variety of other active or efficacious virtues. The food is fully digested with the help of the internal heat and ultimately assimilated in the system, giving rise to lymph chyle (Rasa) which is extremely thin or attenuated in its consistency and which forms the essence of the assimilated food.*

The lymph chyle (Rasa), though running through the whole organism, has its primary seat in the heart, whence it flows through the twenty-four vessels which branch off from the latter (heart) to the remotest parts and extremities of the body. Of the aforesaid twenty-four vessels, ten are up-coursing, ten are down-coursing, and four have a lateral direction. The Rasa or the