In ancient times, the wise sages laid down precise instructions for caring for horses and elephants, as well as remedies for women’s ailments and the protection of children. Their teachings, handed down through sacred verses, reveal a deep understanding of nature, medicine, and ritual. For horses, the sages prescribed careful measures for medicinal doses: in the lowest case, eight palas should be administered; for the middle case, fourteen palas, but never during autumn or summer. When wind disorders arise, oil combined with sugar, clarified butter, and milk is used; for phlegm, pungent oils with spices are best; for bile, water infused with triphala is recommended. The diet of horses is also crucial. Horses that eat rice, shashtika, and milk are considered inferior and should be avoided. However, a horse whose color resembles ripe jambū fruit or golden hues is regarded as desirable. At the midpoint of a prahara, guggul should be given to a harnessed horse, and a stable horse should be fed rice pudding with milk without delay. When a horse suffers from wind disorders, milk and rice are the food of choice; for bile disorders, meat juice, honey, mudga, and clarified butter are recommended. For phlegm, mudga and kulattha, or bitter and pungent foods, are beneficial. In cases of deafness or diseases caused by all three humors, guggul is the remedy. For all diseases, the treatment begins with a pala of dūrvā grass on the first day, increasing to a karṣa on the second, and five palas on the third. The proper amounts for drinking and eating are set: eighty palas for the highest type, sixty for the middle, and forty for the lowest. For wounds, leprosy, and lameness, a mixture with a decoction of triphalā is given; for weak digestion and swelling, cow’s urine is administered. In cases of vāta, pitta, wounds, and disease, cow’s milk mixed with ghee should be offered, while emaciated horses receive food mixed with meat for nourishment. During autumn and summer, five palas of well-pounded guḍūcī, mixed with ghee, are given in the morning. This preparation is disease-destroying, nourishing, and increases strength and vigor, to be given with milk or otherwise. Following the guḍūcī method, four or three palas of śatāvarī and aśvagandhā are recommended for the middle type, and palas accordingly for the lowest. Sometimes, without apparent cause, all the animals appear the same and suddenly die; this is recognized as an epidemic affliction. To pacify such an affliction, protective rites are performed: homa, feeding brāhmaṇas, and offering oblations, following harītakī and other preparations. Harītakī, combined with cow’s urine, oil, and salt, is administered—starting with five, then five more, increasing up to a hundred, with the best dose being a hundred, or eighty, or sixty palas. The science of elephant medicine is then declared. The preparations beneficial for elephants have been stated, with doses four times greater than those for horses, curing elephant diseases. For the pacification of epidemic diseases in elephants, after worshipping the gods and brāhmaṇas with jewels, a tawny cow is offered. The physician, having fasted, ties a garland between the elephant’s tusks and, with mantras, recites the sacred words and gives the desired objects. By reciting hymns to the Sun, Śiva, Durgā, Śrī, and Viṣṇu, the elephant is protected. Oblations are offered to spirits, and the elephant is bathed with four pitchers. Food consecrated with mantras is given, and the elephant is sprinkled with ashes for auspicious and pure protection, ensuring it is always guarded. Medicinal herbs such as triphalā, pañcakola, daśamūla, viḍaṅga, śatāvarī, guḍūcī, nimb, vāsaka, and kiṃśuka are used. For the destruction of elephant diseases, dry and astringent preparations are beneficial, as summarized in both branches of Āyurveda. Turning to remedies for women, Hari speaks to Śiva: one root of punarnavā or apāmārga, placed fresh in the yoni, removes pain and relieves the labor pains of young women. If earth, ash gourd root, or rice flour is consumed with milk for seven days, it greatly increases milk production. A paste of rudra, indra, and varuṇī roots, prepared with ghee, relieves pain in a woman’s breasts. When eaten, it destroys pain in the womb; applied as a paste with kāravella root, it expels what is retained. When the womb begins to discharge, there is no need for further consideration; roots of nīlī and paṭola, mixed with clarified butter and sesame oil, form a paste that removes burning and pain. The root of pāṭhā, ground with rice water and drunk, removes evil diseases and cures leprosy; water mixed with honey benefits those afflicted within. It brings relief from the heat of evil diseases. Lac, equal in weight to ghee and drunk with milk, removes the disease called pradara. Powder of dvijayaṣṭī and trikaṭu, when drunk, also removes this affliction. Combined with a decoction of sesame, it removes bloody tumors in women, and a preparation of the flower is prescribed for young women. The root of the red lotus, mixed with sugar and sesame and drunk with sugar, causes miscarriage. Bleeding is stopped by the use of cold water; fermented gruel boiled with śarapuṅkha, when drunk, helps as well. A mixture of asafoetida and rock salt quickly induces labor; the root of the citron, tied at the waist, also brings on labor. If the root of apāmārga is named and placed for a pregnant woman, when it is pulled up whole, a son is born; otherwise, a daughter. If the root of apāmārga is placed on the head of a woman, pain in the womb is destroyed. When the womb is filled with camphor, madana fruit, and licorice, it becomes beautiful in an old woman—how much more so in a young woman! For a child whose forehead is marked with white ochre, and who is given sugar and kuṣṭha to drink, that child becomes fearless, protected from poisons, spirits, and diseases. Thus, the sages handed down their wisdom, blending medicine, ritual, and reverence, to ensure the health and protection of animals, women, and children, guided always by the sacred order of Sanātana Dharma.