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RTU-SATMYA: THE SEASONAL CYCLE AND THE PRINCIPLE OF APPROPRIATENESS*

FRANCIS ZIMMERMANN

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Abstract-- We address ourselves here to the logical frame of prognosis and treatment. in classical Hindu medicine. The Sanskrit medical texts set forth two different cycles of the seasons. The one which includes rhu ~PH.J SCLLSO~ is of distributive type. Every season has specific qualities antagonistic to the other ones. This provides the physician with a logical scheme according to which he may prescribe medicines compensating for an adverse excess. The other one which includes rhr firsr ruins is of evolutive type. To the only three seasons effective in India-winter. summer. rains-. each one giving rise to a specific trouble-phlegm. wind. bile-. three other ones are added which represent transitional phases. The medical treatment adapts itself to the course of time. improving the transient seasons-spring, first rains. autumn-which are the only ones fit for the major treatments in nursing-homes. The course of time logically reconstructed will determine the selection. the appropriateness of a medical prescription.

Ayurvedic medical treatises abound in prescriptions concerning what is “appropriate” (scitmya) to various times and places. and the word stitmyc~ itself, which can be either an adjective or a noun (meaning “appropriateness”). belongs to the specialized language of those treatises. The seasonal cycle is an application of this principle. Each treatise contains at least one chapter devoted to seasonal variations in the “regulation of life according to the season” (rtu-car_vti). Beneath the constant flow of specific items. one can discover some fundamental notions that justify the cyclical arrangement of landscapes, the cyclical suc- cession of climates, illnesses, remedies. or bodily techniques. All these presuppose a particular conception of the relationship between a living being and its life- environment.

I will indicate briefly what Renou [l], in a valuable study on the theme of the seasons. calls “the classical order of things”. The year is made up of a set of six seasons: uar$d (the rainy season), Sarad (autumn). hrmanta (winter). Siiirtr (the cool season or season of frosts), casanta (spring), grisma (summer), each of which was traditionally associated by the poets with a certain flower. a certain bird. such and such a state of mind. In the famous poem the &rum mhrlra, attributed to KBlidasa. for example. we find the sequence of the birds: in the summer the peacocks are masters of the serpents; in the rainy season ctitaka (black and white cuckoos) feverishly await the first drops of rain. which are followed by the passionate dance of the peacocks: but with the cooling of autumn the peacocks tire of their dance. and the drunkenness of love (madana) abandons them for the swans (~LI~SLI): the song of the curlew (krautica) marks winter and the season of frosts; and the song of the kokih (Indian cuckoo). drunk on the sap of the mango tree, announces the coming of spring. Spring is contrasted with autumn,

*Translated by McKim Marriott and John Leavitt. bniversity of Chicago. Originally published in Purugjrrho. Centre d’Etudes de I’lnde et de I’Asie du Sud. Publie avec le contours du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi- que. Paris. 1975, Seconde Partie, pp. 87-105.

and summer, with its mirages and forest fires, with the rainy season’s new grass, the time of the elephant’s drunkenness.. . Enumerations of the six terms of the classical cycle are rarely complete and even the order in which they are listed may vary. There is no fixed first season in such enumerations.

If the theme of the seasons is an indispensibie element of Hindu poetry (kcioyu), the cycle of the seasons is even more indispensible to Hindu medicine (dyur- oeda) and astrology (jyotisa). It allows the therapist and the astrologer to make use of the transformations possible from term to term. Each season is characterized by a set of signs (Iukqqa), flavors (raw), and qualities (guoa). which require appropriate varied observances. habits, and regulations of life.

Seen in its specifics. the seasonal cycle thus seems to be composed of various small, partial cycles. Just as in the seasonal rounds of classical poetry, where one can determine a cycle of birds. or flowers. etc. so in the medical texts there unfolds a cycle of meats, or soups. or sexual activities, etc. But before analyzing this set of ethnographic information. we must attempt to define the more or less philosophical notions under which the concrete data are arranged. We should first discuss how the idea of ytrr-stirmya-appropriateness to the articulations of time-came to be an essential part of the Hindu tradition. Next we shall look at some new questions raised by the form of the seasonal cycle. Concrete things (such and such foods or ges- tures) are in fact found lo be enfolded in a system of technical terms, in a conceptual framework made up of circu/ar series: the three humors (wind, bile, and phlegm). the six flavors, etc. Finally it will be possible. regarding some specific items. to define stirmyu- appropriateness-as a play of oppositions and com- plementarities among contrasting humors. flavors and qualities. Here satmyu can be understood as a principle of compensation and accommodation. We will limit our references to the major classical sa&ircis. the

medical treatises of SuSruta. Caraka and Vagbhata. Although the expression rtu-sdtmya is purely Ayur-

vedic, its roots descend into the most ancient layers of Hindu tradition. The idea of appropriateness to the articulations of time originates in the Vedic doctrine

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of the sacrifice. We must refer here to Rsnou’s article [I] on the etymology of rr~r. as well as to Lilian Silburn’s doctoral thesis [2]. We will summarize the exemplary pages in which Mme Silburn interprets the Vedic rrlr as “an articulating activity” from which there results the rrti. that which is articulated. the well ordered cosmos. or regulated repetition. This coordin- ating. intention is called krc~tr (a Vedic word for “sacrtlice”). meaning a convergence (strm~rp~) of events or acts. an adjustment of times. spaces and actions-- and this is what is put into operation within the sacrifice. The sacrifier simply takes up again the work of Agni, the solar guardian of the rrus. the master of sacrificial actions and occasions. The word rtu means first a facihtating power. an articulating activity. Sub- sequently it designates the crucial instant. the moment in the midst of the sacrifice when the convergence of acts is most effective. It means act and moment fused.

This was the case in the Vedic period. A shift in the latter meaning takes us from the active notion of a structuring rrrr to a passive notion of “repetition” or “periodicity”. In classical texts rrlr signifies the season. or even the “periods” of women. Yet the first conception of time was that of a moment in process. or of discontinuous instants; and the abstract notion of time as a continuum is secondary and subsequent. Prajapati. the Sacrifice as a god. is the “Year” (not “time”): that is to say. he is that articulation of the seasons which is effected by rituals. Sacrifice is conceived as a reconstruction of Prajapati. a continual reestablishment of the order of the seasons. a positing of the Year (sc~~rarstrra) as cycle of seasons and matrix of temporality. The original notion is that of the Year. the cycle of the seasons. The idea of time (k&i), conceived as autonomous and self-subsistent. is not a primary notion.

It thus seems quite natural that in the classical Ayurvedic medical texts the expression kd/usdrmj~u. “appropriate to the time”. should find itself in competition with another expression which. while synony- mous to it. is both more precise and more deeply rooted in tradition-rtzr-s8tm~~. “appropriate to the season”. A philosophical conception of time. as underlying the successive changes that constitute diseases. determines both climatic descriptions and therapeutic prescriptions. This is clearly shown in the beginning of the “&tcccn~~~rm” chapter of the Su.+urn- sil~~~it~l: !4.80 hi ndmu sr~ci~umhhounti~imi~rfhfanidhtr- nub . . “That which we call time. self-subsistent. without beginning. middle or end.. .” [3]. There is a “nature proper to time” (k~/a.sctrhhdcu), which is to cause change in beings and to make diseases follow continually on one another. One example will be enough to show this competition between k&r and rrtg. at icast on the level of vocabulary. One of SuS- ruta’s lists of “appropriatenesses” begins:

“Those place. time. class. season. disease. physical exercise. water. siesta. Ravor. etc.. are appropriate (stitmyl which. while they are contrary to the (patient’s) constitu- tion. will not cause any trouble” [4).

We will return to this idea that the appropriate

circumstances. elements. ot- acts :tre contrasting influences that are to be compensated for or neutral- ized. For now we will simply note the rrdundaney between kdltr and rr~r. Qalhana’s commentar! (the standard authority) glosses each term in the series. including rrlr. but skips kciici. The latter term thus seems to be motivated by a kind of banal paralislism: place.. . and so you must have time. But rhc trci>,ni- cal term is indeed rrtr-siitrnj~.

“What sL7tm.w means”. says the commentator Da)- hana. “is that which gives ease to the drrwu”. stirrt7~~71

dtmdsukl7tr~ j’rcf kLli.ofi frfci ticrclrr [_‘I. .-itrntrft refers to the “self” of the sick person. This connotation is quite well rendered in some English translati~?ns by the adjective “congenial”-what is “connatura)“. 3s we would say. to the sick person’s self. the remedy appropriate to his case. a diet or physiotherapeutic program which the doctor has reasoned out to fit the pattent’s nature. It is thus clear that there is no question of adapting the person to his environment. but rather of proceeding in the opposite direction-~lppropriating external conditions to the exigencies of the case to be treated. appropriating them to the sick person himself. This kind of therapy aims to modify the idiosyn- crasies of the patient by giving him good habtts. The means of effecting this sort of appropriateness are of two sorts. food and medications on the one handy- their actions being of the same order (assimilation by the organism of substances bearing therapeutic virtues)--and bodily techniques on the other hand (physical exercise, daytime rest. unctions. etc.).

According to the passages that we have cited. it appears to be space. time. etc. which are appropriated to the nature of the patient by means of a regulatron of his life. Nevertheless. the most frequent formulation is d&n-sf?tm~cr. “appropriate to the place’.. or k&z- sdtmy. “appropriate to the time”. etc. as if the direction of the process were reversed. as if space. time. etc. were no longer to be made appropriate. but were themselves taken as models for what IS appropriate for the person to be. And Dalhana. glossing each word in the above passage. makes each a compound by adding the suffix -stirmrcz [s]. For example. yt~t.m-

mtutp ~urila-yrrabhillifam anruzpdnddi. “That ‘which is appropriate to the season. to wit: food. drink. etc. designated by the season”. There is a difliculty or an ambiguity here attaching to the fact that each of the features to which there is or is not to be appropriateness (space. time. etc.) is both subjective and objective. Thus on the one hand we have time as it is experienced by the sick person (the different phases of a disease). and on the other hand the objective framework of time (the seasonal cycle). The only aspect of time on which the doctor can act is time as lived by the patient, the evolutionary rhythm of his humors. his troubles. In this sense. the prescribed regulation is indeed an appropriation r$ time. But otherwise the objective calendar constitutes a framework that must be respected: the regulation and the remedies must thus be made appropriate 10 the time.

It is in this sense that Caraka. in defining time as a factor to be considered in prescribing a diet. distinguishes two meanings of the word k&r. “time”: kdlo hi nirrcrg& c&crsrhikai ~tr,,rrrtriifrrsrlziko &irtrm.

upek_wre. &wgcrs tu !‘t~tscrtrn?crprk.~trh~’ ; “Time is both the time that is perpetually flowing Inirwytr) and time

&II-srirmyu: the seasonal cycle 101

as a phase (~~~?~~sf~?;.~u); in this case. time as a phase has to do with a particular disease. while time which is perpetually flowing has to do with becoming appropriate to the seasons” [63. Thus on the one hand we have time as universal flow. and, as we shall see, as the power of change (pczriniimcr); this view of time is nothing other than the year, the cycle of the seasons tsamvutsaru). On the other hand we have the developmental rhythm of a disease, the various phases of accumulation or disorder of humors, the moments which are auspicious for a particular therapeutic action: this is lived time, unique to each patient. Thus Caraka repeats: lidu!~ punah saqwursar& cBturGvusthfi cvr; “Again. time is both the cycle of the seasons (sam_ mtsaru) and the phases of a disease (~fur~vusrhd~ [7J. The doctor’s task is thus to formulate an alimentary, gymnastic. climatic. etc. regimen in such a way that it will be appropriate both to such and such a phase of the sickness and to such and such a season, and thus restore accord between the patient and his life- environment. an accord that the sickness had broken.

In relation to the doctrine of the “three humors” (rrido$a). health is often defined as an equilibrium or an “equity” between wind (v&a), bile (pitta) and phlegm (k&u). The rule to follow, Sulruta says at one place, is to add to the humors that are too weak, calm those that are excited, and safeguard those that are “equal” or “congruent” (suma) [8]. Even more than an idea df equilibrium, an idea of congrrtencr imposes itself. and a whole cluster of words con- structed out of yogcc or sav)l_voga. “junction,” “connection,” specify this program of medicai work, which is to arrange appropriate relations-“congruent articulations” (snma-Jjogaebetween the patient and his iife- environment. One particularly interesting paragraph of Caraka specifies this program and makes an inventory of this vocabulary. in relation to a defini- tion of time as change or as the power to disorganiie all congruences:

“The year consists in (a cycle of the seasons) Winter- Summer-Monsoon. these being respectively characterized by cold. heat. and rain. This is what constitutes time (kala). If now a (particular) season (kdla) manifests its charadter- istics excessively. there is an excessive junction (utiyoga) with the time: if it manifests its characteristics insuffi- ciently. there is an insufficient (or non-) junction (ayoga) wrth the time; but if the characteristics that it presents are contrary to its normal characteristics, there is a bad junction (mir/l).tiw+r) with the time. Furthermore. time is called p~rrr~tiw. change. Thus the inappropriate junction (as&- m,~tr) of sense organs with their objects. errors of judge- ment. and chan_ee-these are the three causes of sicknesses, each cause being subdivided again into three. Inversely, the establishment of congruous junctions (sama~oga) is the cause of good health. Good and bad states of all things are never independent of these junctions-insufficient junctions. excessive junctions. bad junctions. For good and bad states depend on their respective conjunctions ( j,ukti)” [9].

What is in question here is above ail objective time, clearly identified with the seasonal cycle, a cycle here reduded to three terms (the three “extreme” seasons, as we shall see), and in particular time conceived as the play of a causality that destroys all yoga, all the junctions, i.e. all the regulations that constitute an accord between a living being and his life-environment. The doctor is unable to act upon this objective time. In another passage, where Caraka enumerates the various factors determining therapeutic action (including the time), we find the exact repetition of a formula cited above: ktilah punu6 par&ma ucyate; *‘again, time is called change” [IO]. The commentary of Cakrap~idat~ is invaluable here: purjn~~ iri pariqdmi ~tvuyun~d~r~pu~ kdlu~~tenu nit,vugu~ k&/up nirasyhti, tasva survaddh6raqatvena k&yam pruty anapeksani_vatvtitj/; “change: what causes change is the time which consists of seasons, years, etc. In this way the author rejects nityuga time, which. since it is common to everyone, does not enter into the caicuia- tions (unupek~niyu) for dete~ining action (ktiryam pruti)“. In other words, time as a cause of sickness is nityuga or parin&na time, objective time, the time that is common to ail; while time as a factor determining the modalities and the opportunity for a particular medical treatment is avusrhiku time, subjective time, the developmental phases of the sick person’s humors. Sickness is a kind of ~ing~ut-of-phase, and medicine an art of good conjunctions-maintaining or restoring in each particular person a good use of the time that is common to all.

Caraka presents the classical order of things at the beginning of his treatise, in the chapter entitled fasy&itiya: in this enumeration of the six seasons, he keeps .&+a (the seasons of frosts) and leaves out prt?uls (the beginning of the rains); in the medical texts, this arrangement is in competition with another one which, as we shall see, includes prdvy~. Transiat- ing its first words, this chapter “is concerned with that one (tasyu) whose strength and color rire increased by the food eaten. etc. (uSit&dycld rihdrad), because he knows what is appropriate to the season (~t~s~trnyarn) as far as bodily practices (ce@) and foods are concerned” [ 1 I].

Through his food, habitat, and bodily techniques, the living being is influenced, penetrated, immersed in the system of humors, flavors and qualities that makes up the atmosphere, the climate, the landscape in which he takes root. Rasu, a juice formed in the living body from all the substances assimilated by digestion, is first present in food, drugs, and plants (oqadhi). The sap (rasa) of plants comes from the combination of rainwater with the other major elements (muhabhtitu), earth, fire, air, ether. The Sun “captures” the rasa, and the Moon, “Master of o,sadhi,” exudes or frees the rusu. The combination of water with the other elements produces six “flavors” (rusa): sweet (madhura), sour (am/a), salty (lauuaa), acrid (kayuku), bitter (rikta), astringent (ka@ya). following the traditional order of recitation of this hierarchic series of technical terms. Thus the relations between a living being and its natural life-environment give .birth to a vast metabolism of saps and foods. One flavor pre- dominates in each season. and each flavor provokes the accumulation (sar)zcqa) or disorder (prakopu) of one of the three humors (doss), wind. bile. phlegm

102 FRANCIS ZIMMERMAN>

WTSTER (hemanta)

SUMNER -

CAPTIRE (adana)

Fig. 1. Annual cycle of fluids (mu).

(v&a. pittu, kuphu), following the cycle faid out in Fig. 1.

The year is divided into two series of three seaspns each: rains-autumn-winter, and frosts-spring- summer. The first corresponds to the Sun’s movement toward the South: it is the suumya period, wet and cold. The second is marked by the Sun’s movement northward: the ciynrya period, hot and dry. Two half- year periods, one called “release” (u~~r~a~the Moon emits rusa at this time-and the other “capture” (G?na~---when the Sun takes all the rasa, ail the sap of beings, “back to himself” (&We) [12]. In one period the Moon, is predominant: the winds don’t blow too strongly, and the Moon whose power is unchecked perpetually “fattens” (@y~yavati) the world on his cold beams. The other period is domin- ated by the Sun and the wind, who together destroy all the snehu, all the unctuosity and softness of the world. and imposes rtiksu. the dry and harsh. At this time human beings lose their strength: and the extreme term of this progressive weakening, the moment of greatest weakness, is the summer solstice.

The cycle in Fig. I, following the beginning of the Cu$ukusumh~t~, is a composite one, and its coherence is problematic. It will be noticed, for example, that’ humuntu and SiGru overlap, since both of these “two” seasons are marked by the accumulation of phlegm. The rainy season, vu@, is inversely overdetermined, since it is both a period of accumulation (of bile) and a period of troubles (of wind): the alternation between periods of accumulation and disorder is thus imper- fectly realized in this arrangement of the cycle, and we can already foresee other possible arrangements better suited to symmetry. In this version. the six r~su are the essential element [13]. This is a possible reason for the popularity of this schema outside the Ayurvedic medical tradition. in other branches of

Sanskrit literature, and especially in ktiq~. The series of six rusa (in the strictly Ayurvedic sense of the word) produces a regular distribution of seasonal “atmos- pheres” or “flavors”, which provides the poetic theme for a series of “tableaux”, each of which has a particular affective tonality [14]. Medicine and poetry are the two provinces of a single encompassing tradition: this was already demonstrated by Louis Renou who. in the article cited above, drew his proofs From a com- parison of medical doctrines and poetical treatises like the Kdvyumimci~s~, etc. To take only one example of this intimacy between medicine and poetry, we can cite the famous round oF,the seasons of the Rayhuvum~a, Book XIX, vv. 3747. The cycle of the seasons here appears as a framework necessary For the poet to make understandable that physicat and moral drcfinr whose fatal progress is achieved in the heart of summer (the period of greatest weakness. as we have seen) by means of the “royal consumption” (rtijuyukSman). a fundamental category of traditional pathology. A king who abandons his dharma and plunges into debauchery will be the victim of a more than medical sickness, a consumption or dessication of his existence, a sort of ontological disease, one which we would be mistaken to reduce flatly to phthisis. All the rasu, all the unctuosity that constitutes life disappears. In the Vedic texts this malady involves sin (pfipu); in smyti, it brings the king’s dharma into question.. . . Here is a point par rxcri- lrnw where all the threads of tradition are knotted together. At this level “medicine” and “poetry” cannot be distinguished.

But we must note that the annual cycle of predomi- nance of rasus is not the same as the annual cycle of dog.zs. In the medical texts themselves, we find at least two competing seasonal cycles. Both Caraka (uiti- ~.~r~r~~i~. Chap. 8) and SuSruta (s~t~ust~?~na, Chap. 6)

Rru-sritmya: the seasonal cycle 103

Seasons of extreme qualities Moderate seasons i Seasons of extreme qualities

I I

BILE : Rains (var+) .-+Aurumn (iarad) ---+ -

Winter (hemanta)

I

PHLEGM : Winter (hemanta) Spring (vasanta) Summer (grfgma)

WIND : Summer (grlgma) Beginning of rains Rains (var$i)

I (Prlvf?) -+ -

I

ACCUMULATION - i DISORDER - APPEASTNG treatment (samcaya)

i (prakopa) (Qamana)

I - f 1st type of therapy , Porifving treatment

Pharmaceutical techniques only

I (godhana) I hosDitalization I i and'nursing techniques 1

Fig. 2. MedicaI cycle

present a cycle in which SiSru (the cool season) disappears, and prrioys, “the beginning of the rains”, is added. This is sketched out in Fig. 2, following Hoernle, who was probably the first to compare accu- rately the two forms of the cycle [is].

In the difference between the two forms of the cycle, Rudolf Hoernle saw an opposition between the civil year and the medical year; this was probably because he considered o&y the second schema to be authenti- cally medical, since it is the one based on the seasonal evolution of diseases. It might be more appropriate to consider both schemata as equally pertinent, noting simply that they perform different roles. The first schema that we looked at was distributive in form, presenting each season equally. In the third part of this study we wit1 return to this version, since it provides a framework for the inventory of the different regimens (of food, clothing, etc.) characteristic of each season. The second schema is, on the other hand, transitive in form: it explains the evolution of humors and diseases by the action of distant causes, it justifies the recurrence of symptoms of a particular season in the next one, phenomena in which we see the most clearly the maturational power of time: aggravations and improvements; the phlegm accumulated in winter causes problems in the spring, but should normally ease off in summer, etc.

This cycle is important for two reasons. On the one hand, it determines the choice between the two great categories of purely medical therapy (with. surgery lying completely outside this scheme): Sodhana (literally “purifying”) therapy and Samana (literally ‘quiet- ing”) therapy. This opposition is fairly congruent with that between clinical and pharmaceutical medicine. In one case. hospitalization and the application of emetics, purgatives. sudatives. etc. In the other case, a simple prescription of medicines to be taken orally or externally. but always at home. In principle. the great Ayurvedic cures which require hospitalization and the mobilization of complex procedures (called Sodhana- cikitsii or paticakarman) can be undertaken only dur-

ing the ‘“moderate” seasons: when it is neither too hot nor too cold, too dry nor too wet, etc.

This cycle is also important for the geographer or the anthro~iog~st who is seeking to identify the con- nections between what he can observe on the ground and what is said in the classical Sanskrit texts. Anyone who has experienced the Indian climate, more specifically, knows that spring and autumn appear as geeting, almost imperceptible, periods. There are in fact three true seasons: winter, the hot season, and the monsoon. In the texts, the cycle is often presented in just this form: reduced to three terms, to the three “extreme” seasons, “very” or “too” (ati-) cold, hot, or rainy: winter (hemanta), summer (grisma), monsoon (oar@). How then can we interpret the texts’ presentation of three supplementary and interm~iate seasons, with “moderate characteristics” (s~dh~ra~a-laksa~a)? They probabiy represent the intermediate and fleeting periods which mark the transitions between the three strongly-defined phases of rigorous cold (in northern India in winter), torrid heat, and the monsoon deluges. The moderate seasons, in other words, fail when it is nor yet too cold, hot or wet, or in other words, when it isn’t too cold, hot or wet any more. In this perspective, Vsgb- hala’s prescriptions concerning the “juncture of the seasons” (rtu-sadhi) take on a very concrete meaning. The transition, he says, must be gradual and not abrupt, lest problems arise “because of non- appropriateness” (a~tmya~a) [16-J. In the last seven days of one season and the first seven days of the next, the regulation of life appropriate to the first gradually gives way to its successor. We could postu- late a ritual source for these prescriptions, for in ritual, as we mentioned at the beginning of this study, we find a fundamental need to order the articulations of time. But isn’t the more general idea simply to compensate for the excesses of the strong seasons by taking advantage of their alternation?

We have seen that time has two different aspects: an objective one (the seasonal cycle) and a subjective

104 FRANCIS ZIMMERMANN

one (the phases of a disease). But both of these are explained in the same way: by the changing of humors. normally following a three-part cyclic rhythm: accumulation (sascaya), disorder (prakopa).

appeasement (Samana). a rhythm which in abnormal situations may become blocked or entangled, producing a disease. The distinction between the two aspects of time is, for the doctor, a methodological one. On the one hand. the seasonal cycle gives him a framework for prognosis and hygiene: on the other hand. each phase of a sickness is a critical moment. Thus we have on one side the time of prevention, on the other the time of emergencies. The phlegm that has accumulated in winter should normally lose its dangerous force in the summer; the wind that has accumulated in the summer.. etc. One excess cures another. An appropriate alimentary and gymnastic program is usually enough to make minor ailments improve “spontaneously” (svabhtivaras). If Sodhana treatments are prescribed for the juncture between excesses, in the intermediary periods between the three extreme seasons, this is above all as preventive medicine. But in an emergency, in a serious crisis that requires im- mediate treatment, the cycle of the seasons can no longer be taken into account. In such a situation, medicine is able to recreate, artificially and against the flow of time. a propitious environment. Thus when Vagbhata states the rule that Sodhana treatment (emetics, purgatives, sudorifics, enemas. etc.) should be undertaken in a moderate season, he specifies: this rule applies “to the regulation of the life (urtta) of a person in good health”, suasthaurttam abhipretya [ 171.

But in an emergency, uyddhau tu tityayike, as the commentator says, “when the disease allows no’loss of time,” it is the state of the sick person that determines the opportunity for action:

lirfvci Sitosnmrstintim prutikiiram yath~yuthamlprayojoyrl kriycim prtiptcim kriytiktilum na hdpavet//

“First of all. (the doctor) should create a corrective (pruriktira) for cold. heat, or rain. depending on which pre- dominates, in order to practice the treatment indicated: he should not let the time for action slip by” [18].

Thus the doctor acts against the current of the seasonal cycle. artificially producing the climate appropriate to the required treatment (required by the particular stage of the disease). This is, if we may say so, an appropriation against the time (une uppropria- tion du contrrwmps). Aruaadatta’s commentary specifies the nature of the corrective to be employed:

krrrimam rtugunam yarhdyutham .samp&lya .sam.<odhan&Ii- lak+antim kriydm pruyoja~erlkrrrimagunopadhdnnm cu yathd--hemante garhhagyhtidi, grismr dharagrhtidini.

“(The doctor) should practice a treatment such as .~~~iodhuno, etc. only after having created the required seasonal atmosphere; an artificial protection (upadh5na) would be, for instance, a room in the center of the house in winter. in summer a room cooled by sprinkling water, etc.”

Now it is precisely such compensatory measures, such pratikrira, that make up the regimen appropriate to each season: heating in winter, cooling m the summer. etc.

The principle of rtu-sdtmyu thus operates on two Icvels. On the level of preventive medicine, the appropriateness of a life-regime to the articulations of time

is direct. Excesses of cold. heat. or rain are compensated by their own alternations: it is sufficient to follow the rhythm of this alternation (among the three strong seasons). being especially mindful of the transitions (the three intermediate seasons). But on the level of emergency treatment. compensation for climatic excess consists of intervention against time: reference to the cycle of the seasons is indirect. providing only the principle for an artificial procedure of compensating for contrasts.

Correctives. the means of making things appropriate. are of two sorts: foods and bodily techniques. These are sometimes indicated in the texts by a pair of words belonging to everyday language. but taken here in a special sense: cihtiru. “alimentation.” and uihara, “bearing” or “posture” of the body, or often the dual compound dhcirarihtirau. foods and bodily practices. We might say, perhaps over-schematically. that “alimentation” in the larger sense includes medications, and that “bodily techniques” also include physiotherapy, iodhana treatments such as bathings. scentings, sleeping positions. etc. Let us attempt to group into categories the seasonal observances whose inventory Caraka undertakes in Chapter Six of the Siitrasthtina, by inserting them into the classical schema of the seasonal cycle-the schema that we have called distributive. It now appears to be composed of a plurality of partial cycles: a cycle of soups. a cycle of meats, a cycle of liquors, a cycle of unguents, a cycle of habitats, a cycle of sexual activities, etc. For example, the intensity of sexual activity in winter responds to the intensity of the cold: in spring, one should enjoy “groves and women in flowers” (strip& ka‘nantind~ ca yauvanam); but with the coming of summer, a man “should enjoy groves, cold waters and flowers, abstaining from sexual relations” [19]. Another partial cycle is that of aloes and sandalwdod. In winter one should practice unctions of aloes (uguru), which are warming; in the spring one joins aloes (aguru) with sandalwood (can- dana), which is cooling; but in the summer. only the latter is used, in its most refreshing form: that of sandalwood water (candanoduka) [ZO]. Certainly. in the dozens of verses which Caraka here devotes to the inventory of deeds and actions appropriate to the different seasons, identification of the specific items is often very difficult. We can even wonder whether this treatment was ever actually practiced. requiring as it does the wealth and the leisure of a prince. Summer nights on the terrace of the palace. autumn evenings in the moonlight.. . Evidently. this is not a collection of empirical recipes, but an imaging of the world as idealized by poetic conventions. The details of these prescriptions are less important than the principles of their grouping: the alternation and compensation of opposites.

This text is far from unique. and a long labor would be needed to inventory all the cycles scattered through chapters on materia mrdica and therapeutics. The cycle of seasonal variation in water quality [21], or the annual cycle of fevers [22], for example, are avatars of the system that we have been studying, being respectively homologous with schemas I and II above. But what is given is often highly conventional. and rarely allows one to pose the question of its rr-

lurion CO rhr concrefr: what is the connection relating

gru-sdtmra: the seasonal cycle

“new” (nava) : kharif 1 105

(navaudana)

barley and wheat

flour mixeli with ghee and cold water

barley and wheat rabi rice kharif]

harvest]

Fig. 3. Cycle of cereal consumption.

what the texts say to what one can observe in India today? To give just one example, we have tried in Fig. 3 above to illustrate what Caraka says [23] concerning the cycle of consumption of cereals in the form of soup or porridge. A rather fine-grained example, one might say? Still, it falls into a pattern that will not surprise us. A first pair of contrasting elements opposes the wintry regime to the regime of summer: porridge (odana) vs cold drink (mantha),* the compact and nourishing porridge during the (more fluid) winter season, vs the light and refreshing bever- age during the (drier) summer. A second more ellipti- cal contrast makes reference, it seems, to the cycle of agricultural production (spring-summer harvest vs autumn-winter harvest): old vs new (grains); in the rainy season, “old wheat, barley and rice” (yaoagodlni-

madtilyah putYip+), probably drier (barley and wheat having been harvested in the spring, rice in the winter), vs the winter’s “porridge of new rice” (nauau- dana). which is probably more nourishing (being from the winter harvest) [24].

So we will not be surprised to find that the principle of appropriateness is explicitly defined as a compensation of contraries and as a habituation:

ityuktam rrusdtmyam yac cestdhdra~~apdira~am/ upaSete yadaucitytid oka~scitmyum rad ucpate/ deicinrim timaydndm ca ciparitaguaam gupaih/ slirmyam icchanri satmyujtiu~ crsfitam ccidytrm rra ~a// “Here is laid out what is appropriate to the season. in

the domain of bodily practices and foods. We call okahsrir-

mya (acclimatation. “acquired appropriateness”) that which

* Mtrnfha is a mixture of flour with cold water and ghee.

is beneficial to one after a process of getting used to it. To the qualities (guanih) of places and sicknesses. experts in appropriateness (scitmgcr+ia) strive to fit an alimentary and physical regimen (scirmyu) of contrary qualities (ripurira- guna)” [25].

Here again Cakrapanidatta’s commentary is invaluable. It allows us,to interpret the instrumental gunaih

by restoring the absent but understood postposition: gur.uzih saha, “simultaneously with the qualities” of the place where he lives, of the disease he suffers from, the patient must get used to the contrary qualities, so as to compensate for the excesses and insufficiencies at the root of his ailment. If a place is swampy, its excessively unctuous and heavy qualities (snehagaurauridi) producing troubles of the phlegm (elephantiasis. etc.) then the indicated foods are meats from dry lands and honey (btigalamdptsamadhvtidi), foods whose harsh and light qualities (rauk$yaldghauayuktam) compensate for the excesses of the climate [26]. In principle. the opposed pairs thus constituted find a place in the scheme of appropriate observances for the various seasons: we may cite, for example, the opposition between swampy, heavy, nourishing meats, to be eaten in winter, and the light astringent meats of the dry lands which are eaten in the hot or the rainy season. In this way the seasonal cycle furnishes the physician with a framework within which he may manipulate a dialectic of contrasts; it offers him a typology of all possible compensations. This is the idea expressed in the second of the two verses cited above. At this level, reference to the articulations of time is absent: the cycle .defines a closed series of climates, the cycle is a circle. a form. a system. “Appropriateness” here means compensurion.

106 FRANCIS ZIMMERMAN\~

But time must be reintroduced. Therapeutic action is slow, progressive, subject to the laws of time. Rem- edies, precisely because they are conrrar!: to what pre- dominates in the sick person, are at first dangerous: their efficacy and their innocuousness result from getting used to them gradually. as Caraka remarks else- where: s~tmyam n&a tad yat scitatyenopasevyamannm

upaiete; “What is called ‘appropriate’ is what is beneficial after a sustained course of consuming it” [27]. This is the sense of the first of the two verses cited above. .&u-stitmya, appropriateness to the articulations of time. brings in its wake ok&-sdtmya. appropriateness by habituation [28]. The cycle of the seasons is an education. a methodical development of habits, from which there results (as we would be tempted to say, considering the meaning of okas as “house, residence”) a well-regulated idiosyncrasy, con- sisting of reactions well-attuned to the stimuli of the external milieu.

Is it not this singular appropriateness of each living being to such and such a ciimate or symbolic landscape that the Indian poets suggest (in the Srtigdru. erotic, mode) by the metaphor of drunkenness? Thus the elephant in the rainy season becomes drunk with the new water and the rumbling of the storms because he finds himself. at last. once more in the time appropriate to his nature.

REFERENCES

1. Renou L. Un theme litt&aire en Sanskrit: les saisons. In Sanskrit et Culfure, pp. 145-154. Payot. Paris. 1950. Also Vtdique rtu-. Archiv Orienralni 18 431, 1950.

2. Silburn L. Insrant er Cause., p. 36. Vrin, Paris. 1955. 3. SuSruta.* S~~rasrh~na, Chap. 6. ~ginning. 4. Ibid.. Chap. 35, para. 39. 5. Qalhana. in SuSruta. Op. cir. Chap. 35, para. 39. 6. Caraka.? Vitinusth&na. Chap. 1. para. 22 (6). 7. Ihid. Chap. 8. para. 125. 8. Susruta. Cikitscisthrinu, Chap. 33. par. 3. 9. Caraka. S&rasrh&a. Chap. t 1, paras 4244.

10. Caraka. Vimcinu., Chap. 8. para. 76 (with Cakrapaioi- datta’s commentary).

11. Caraka. SUtra., Chap. 6. beginning (cf. [25] below). 12. A classic formula; cf. for example RaghuuumSa. 1, 18. 13. As SuSruta confirms, Stirra.. Chap. 6, para. 7, in oppos-

ing the two series urn/a-Itroazta-madhuru and tikra- kusLiyu-kutuka.

14. The six seasons thus detined are combined in a f;liriy complicated way with the “five landscapes” (&irni~~rl in classical Tamil poetry. Cf. Zbelebil K. T/SC S,niir of Murugan. p. 95. Brill. Leiden. 1973. There are interesting points of divergence here. The vernacular litera- tures of North India make use of another form of the cycle. that of the “twelve months”: cf. Vaude\iIle C. B&ahmcisti. Pondichery. Institut Francais. 1965.

15, In the first fascicles of a translation of the Str.<rriicr- samhira published in the Bihliotiwcu Irrtliccr in 1X97. While extremely valuable. this work was never com- pleted.

16. VBgbhata.: .4stdrigah~tla?.nsum/~~ra. SLirru.. Chap. 13, \ \. 58-59.

17. Vagbhata. S&m.. Chap. 13. v. 35. 18. Vagbhata. S&-a.. Chap 13. v. 36 (with the commentary

of Arupadatta). 19. Caraka. S&a.. Chap. 6. vv. 17. 26 and 32. 20. Ibid. VY. 17. 25 and 31. 21. Caraka. Stirra.. Chap. 27. para. 203 ff, 22. Caraka. Ciliirsd., Chap. 3. para. 41 ff, 23. Caraka. Srirra.. Chap. 6. vv. 13. 25. 28. 38 and 43. 24. Barley and wheat. sown after the rains. are harvested in

the spring. This is the r&i harvest. &iii rife. sown after the beginning of the rains, is harvested in the period November-January: the kharif harvest. .‘&/i is a winter grain,” says Cakrapanidatta (in Caraka. Surra.. Chap. 27. para. 81. It is thus new in winter. and old during the rains: this detail opposes Stili rice to other varieties (such as sastiku rice) harvested in the summer.

25. Caraka. S&ra.. Chap. 6. vv. 49-50 (the first words repeat the beginning of the chapter).

26. Cakrapgnidatta in Caraka. Op. cir. (Siifrcl.. Chap. 6. para. 50).

27. Caraka. Vimcinu.. Chap. 8. para. 118. 28. Okas or oku: what is pleasing. whence the place that is

pleasing. home. the house. Cakrapanidatta gives it the sense of “habit” (o~l~s~rrn~u~ ub~~~~sus~t~~~~m. In Caraka. S&rr~.. Chap. 24, para. 3).

BtBLlOCRAPHY

*SuSruta (with the commentary of Dalhanal. +Caraka (with the commentary of Cakraprinidatta). and XVagbhata (with the commentary of Arunadatta) are cited following the editions published by Nirnaya Sagar. Bombay. Hoer&e A.F.R. S~~r~~~as~fmhif~i. Translation. fast. 1. Cal- cutta, (Bibliotheca Indical 1897. Raghavan V. &ru in Sanskrir Litrrarrtrr. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Delhi. 1972. Vogel C. Die jahreszeiten im Spiegel der altindischen Literatur. Z. D. mor~~en/&id. Ges. 121, 284. 1072.