see that the herbs and stones are indeed excellent and of rare quality, but the tending and protection of the body, and the inspection of the causes of disease are very much neglected. Therefore I have here described the general methods of medical treatment in order to meet the wants of the time. When fasting does not hurt at all, one should begin medical treatment according to the proper method. The medical decoction prepared from the bitter ginseng specially serves to remove a fever. Ghee, oil, honey, or syrups relieve one from cold. In the country of Lâta[1] in W. India, those who are taken ill abstain from food, sometimes half a month, sometimes a full month. They never eat until the illness from which they are suffering is entirely cured. In Central India the longest period of fasting is a week, whereas in the islands of the Southern Sea two or three days is the limit. This is due to the differences of territory, custom, and the constitution of the body.
I do not know whether or no fasting for curing a disease should be practised in China. But if abstaining from food for a week prove to be fatal, it is because disease does not remain in the body, for while a disease is in the body, fasting even for more days does not cause death. I witnessed some time ago a man who abstained from food for thirty days and recovered again. Why then should we doubt the efficacy of long fasting?
Nor is it good to force a sick person when attacked by a violent fever to drink hot rice-water or to take food, simply noticing that he is ill but not inspecting the cause of his illness. Nay, it is a dangerous thing!
There may be a case of recovery by such treatment, yet it is not after all worth teaching people to follow. Such is strictly prohibited in the science of medicine. Further, in China, people of the present time cat fish and vegetables mostly uncooked; no Indians do this. All vegetables are to be well cooked and to be eaten after mixing with the assafoetida, clarified butter, oil, or any spice.
People (in India) do not eat any kind of onions. I was tempted and ate them sometimes, but they cause pain while taking a religious fast
- ↑ In the Brihat-samhitâ LXIX, 11, Mâlava, Bharoach, Surat (Surâshtra), Lâta, and Sindhu are mentioned in one group; compare p. 9, note 1, above.
by several scholars. Nothing is certain but that Kîna was used as denoting the Chinese in Hiuen Thsang's and I-tsing's time.
