Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/628

524 tend to enrage or aggravate the bodily Vayu. Moist Sindakis are the (leaves and stems of the Mulaka, etc. slightly boiled and pasted with pungent and aromatic spices and then made into balls.) There are two kinds of Sindakis the dry and the moist. They generate the vayu and are appetising, and tend to impart a greater relish to food. All sweet or palatable potherbs are purgative and heavy of digestion, produce a state of dryness in the organism, are generally indigestible and long retained in the stomach in an undigested state, causing it to distend. They are marked with a shade of the astringent in their taste.

or flowers, leaves, fruits, stems and bulbs, each succeeding one is heavier (of digestion) than the one immediately preceding it in the order of enumeration. Potherbs and leaves of edible plants which are found to be rough or putrified or worm-eaten, as well as those growing on an improper or incongenial soil, or making their appearance in an unnatural season of the year, should be rejected as unfit for use. This ends the description of the Pushpa-shakas.

The Bulb Group:—Now we shall discourse on the virtues of edible bulbous plants or herbs (Kandas). The bulbs of plants and creepers such as the Vidari-kanda, Shatavari, Visha (bulbs of the lotus plant), Mrinala (the upper stem of the lotus plant), Shringataka, Kasheruka,