O Brahmin, listen with reverence to the ancient wisdom concerning remedies and the nature of disease, as spoken by the great sages. For the relief of ear pain, it is taught that oil or even the urine of a camel may be used to fill the ear, and all kinds of pearls are also suitable for this purpose. When wounds caused by seminal discharge trouble the body, a paste made from mountain clay, sandalwood, lac, and jasmine buds, applied together, brings healing. For afflictions of the eyes, a mixture of vyosha and triphala, combined with tucchaka and water, serves to cure all eye diseases, as does rasanjana. Clarified butter, roasted and ground on stone, mixed with lodhra, sour rice water, and rock salt, is praised for washing and curing eye ailments. A paste of mountain clay and sandalwood is recommended for the eyes, and for the prevention of eye diseases, triphala should always be used. Those who desire a long life are advised, at night, to use honey and clarified butter. Shatavari juice prepared with milk and ghee is invigorating. Likewise, kalambika and mash beans, when prepared with milk and ghee, bring invigoration. Triphala, as previously stated, promotes longevity, especially when combined with licorice. Licorice and other juices bestow strength and remove gray hair; clarified butter prepared with vacha destroys defects caused by spirits. Poetry itself brings intelligence and fulfills all purposes, while ointment made from valā and kalkakaṣāya is beneficial for massage. Oil prepared with rasna and sahachara is recommended for disorders caused by wind. Any food that does not cause obstruction is praised for healing wounds. Shaktu cakes and sour foods aid digestion; for ulcers and their healing, neem powder is beneficial. Proper cleaning and special sacrificial offerings are especially important, and protection for women in childbirth is always beneficial for living beings. Eating neem leaves is a remedy for snakebite, and applying a mixture of palmyra and neem leaves, aged oil, barley, and ghee is also helpful. For scorpion stings, fumigation with peacock feather ghee, or applying a paste of arka milk with lotus seed and palasha seed, brings relief. For scorpion affliction, black nightshade or shiva plant with fruit, mixed with arka milk, oil, clay, and jaggery, is effective. By drinking the root of tandulīya, equal to trivrit, with ghee, one quickly overcomes the severe poison of a rabid dog bite. Even the most potent poisons from snakes and insects are swiftly conquered by sandalwood, padmaka, kuṣṭha, palmyra, usira, and pāṭalā. Nirgundi, shariva, selu, and lūta are remedies for poison; for cleansing the head, gur and nāgara are excellent. For internal oleation and enemas, the best oil and ghee should be used. Strong fomentation with fire is recommended, and cold water is the supreme astringent. Trivrit is best for purgation, madana for emesis; enema, purgation, emesis, oil, ghee, and honey are all used according to need. For disorders of vāta, pitta, and kapha, these are the supreme medicines, to be applied in proper sequence. Then Dhanvantari spoke: Diseases arise from bodily, mental, external, and congenital causes. Bodily diseases include fever and skin disorders; those from anger and similar disturbances are mental. External diseases arise from injury; congenital ones include hunger and old age. To destroy bodily and external diseases, one should offer ghee and jaggery on Sunday. A salted rice-cake with gold should be offered to a Brahmin; on the day of the moon, anoint the Brahmin, and he will be freed from all diseases. On the day of Saturn, give oil; on the day of Ashvini, offer cow’s milk and rice. Bathe the image with ghee and milk, and freedom from disease will follow. Recite the Gāyatrī while offering darbha grass soaked in three sweet substances into the fire; bathe and make offerings at the place where the disease occurred. For mental pains and afflictions, the praise of Viṣṇu brings healing. Now hear about the humors—vāta, pitta, kapha—and the bodily tissues. The food eaten and digested in the stomach, O Suśruta, divides into two parts: one becomes waste, the other becomes essence. The waste portion forms the excretions—feces, urine, sweat, nasal, ear, and other bodily impurities. From the essence arises rasa, the nutritive fluid, which then becomes blood; from blood comes flesh, from flesh fat, and from fat, bone. From bone comes marrow, from marrow semen, from semen passion, and from passion vigor; likewise, region, form, strength, power, time, and nature. With this understanding, one should administer treatment, considering the potency of the medicine. One should avoid the lunar day called Rikta, as well as Tuesday, and the constellations Mula, Bharani, and Krittika. After duly honoring Hari, cows, twice-borns, the moon, the sun, and the gods, listen, O learned one, to this mantra and then begin the administration of medicine: "May Brahma, Daksha, Ashvins, Rudra, Indra, Earth, Moon, Sun, Wind, Fire, the sages, the hosts of medicinal plants, the spirits, and the protectors guard you. As elixirs are for the seers, as nectar is for the gods, and as the best medicine is for noble serpents, so may this remedy be for you." Know that a region dominated by wind and phlegm, with many trees and much water, is marshy; the opposite, lacking these, is arid. A region with some trees and water is considered mixed. The arid region is rich in bile, while the mixed region is regarded as balanced. Wind is subtle, cold, and mobile; bile is hot and pungent in three ways; phlegm is stable, sour, unctuous, and sweet, and is said to confer strength. Increase comes from similar qualities, decrease from opposites. Sweet, sour, and salty tastes increase phlegm and diminish wind. Pungent, bitter, and astringent tastes are windy and reduce phlegm; pungent, sour, and salty tastes are known to increase bile. Thus, O seeker, is the ancient knowledge of remedies and the nature of disease, as preserved in the sacred tradition.