expansive potencies, fail to pacify the deranged Vayu, though otherwise they may prove soothing to that deranged humour. Similarly, tastes, which are ordinarily reckoned as pacifiers of the deranged Pittam, fail to produce that effect in the event of their being endued with a keen, light or heat- making potency. Likewise, tastes, which are commonly found to soothe the deranged Kapham, tend to aggravate it in the event of their being possessed of potencies which are respectively heavy, cool and emollient in their character.*[1] Hence the potency of a drug is the most important factor in the science of medicine.
But certain authorities dissent from the above-said view, and attach the highest importance to the process of digestive (chemical) reaction (Vipaka) for the reason, that all ingested food, properly or improperly digested in the stomach, proves wholesome or otherwise to the body. Certain authorities on the subject hold that digestion develops all the several tastes.†[2]
According to others, tastes such as, sweet, pungent and acid, follow upon the completion of the process of digestion (by way of reactionary result or transformation).
- ↑ *Flavours such as, sweet, acid and saline, subdue the deranged vayu. Tastes such as, sweet, bitter and astringent are antibilious in their efficacy, while those, which are pungent, bitter and astringent, are antiphlegmagogic in their virtues.
- ↑ †The process of digestion is followed by a reactionary taste, which may be either sweet, pungent, acid, astringent, bitter or saline.
