Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/475

Chap.XL.] Those, who adhere to the last named doctrine, endeavourto substantiate it by the following analogy, and argue that as milk kept boiling in a basin placed over a fire does not change its natural sweetness (with the change of its temperature), as cereals such as Shali-rice, wheat, barley, Mudga, etc. sown broadcast in the ground do not part with their inherent, generic attributes (through their successive stages of development), so the tastes of food-stuff do not alter even after being boiled in the heat of the digestive organs.

Others, on the contrary, assert that weak tastes are naturally merged in the strong ones in the course of digestion. And since the consensus of expert opinions on the subject serves only to increase the confusion on account of their differences and bigoted antipathy, we shall judiciously refrain from indulging in idle theories on the subject.

Only two kinds of digestion (digestive reactionary tastes) have been noticed in the Shastras, such as, the sweet and the pungent, the first being heavy and the second light. The specific properties of the five essential material principles of the world such as, the earth, water, fire, air and sky may be roughly described as heaviness and lightness, the two attributes which appertain to their fundamental natures. Heaviness forms the characteristic attribute of earth