Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/486

 CHAPTER XLII.

Now we shall discourse on the Chapter, which treats of the specific properties of flavours (Rasa-Vishesha-Vijnaniya-madhyayam).

The properties of sky (Akasha), air (Pavana), fire (Dahana), water (Toya) and earth (Bhumi) are sound touch, colour, taste and smell, each of the preceding elements possessing properties less by one than those of the one immediately succeeding it in the order of enumeration.*

[Since a matter is designated after the name of the preponderant natural element, which enters into its composition], taste is said to be a water-origined principle. All material elements are inseparably connected with one another, and there is a sort of interdependence among them, each one contributing to the continuance of the other and jointly entering, to a more or less extent, into the composition of all material substances. This water-origined flavour (Rasa), which becoming modified through its contact with the rest of the material