CHAPTER XLII
Now we shall discourse on the chapter which deals with the symptoms and) medical treatment of Gulma (Gulma-Pratisheda). 1.
Definition and number of Gulmas:— The fundamental principles of the body, deranged and aggravated by their respective or specific exciting causes and factors tend to accumulate in the cavity of the abdomen (Koshtha) and help the formations of ball-like tumours or Gulmas (internal tumours inculsive of those known as the phantom tumours) somewhere inside the body lying between the extreme confine of the regions of the heart and of the bladder (Vasti). The Gulma is of five kinds and found to be round or spheroid in shape and may be either fixed or mobile (lit. shifting) in their character and subject to variations in their mass and size. 2.
Localisation and nomenclature:— They have five locations inside the abdominal cavity, viz. the two sides, the region of the heart, the bladder (Vasti) and the region of the umbilicus). The Gulmas are so named because their root or base cannot be exactly localised as well as their cause cannot be exactly ascertained owing to the fact of their having their origin in the aggravated condition of the local bodily Váyu, or because of their being but a agglomeration of the deranged bodily Doshas in the affected locality and the shrub-like large converse outline of the surface (Gulma-shrub). Since a Gulma, like a bubble of water, is a self-contained agglomeration of the deranged bodily Doshas and freely moves about in the cavity of its growth, it is not marked by the advent of
