Charaka samhita. Part I, Chapter 16 / Translation from Sanskrit, Preambular Part and Commentaries by D. Burba

The publication presents the first Ukrainian translation of the sixteenth chapter of the first part of the fundamental Sanskrit treatise on Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine) Charaka Samhita. (For previous chapters, see issues of The World of the Orient for 2017 and last year issues No. 2–4). In the opinion of contemporary researchers, the text was written in the 1st century AD. Its translation is of great importance for acquaintance of the Ukrainian readers because of not only medical conceptions and lifestyle of Ancient India but also respective religious and philosophical doctrines. Chapter 16 describes a “ready to treat” physician. Не is considered to be a “wise, learned and action-oriented” specialist but not a pretentious and ignorant healer (vaidya-mānin). When a patient undergoes cleansing procedures (which is one of the main methods of treatment in Ayurveda) under the guidance of a real physician he receives “bodily happiness” (i.e. health) but nothing good can be expected from visiting an “unwise” healer. The chapter gives signs of correctly performed treatment procedures as well as symptoms of those that turned out to be insufficient or excessive. The remedies for eliminating the complications and for the patient’s rehabilitation are briefly mentioned. The indications for cleansing therapy designed to remove an excess of a certain doṣa (one of the three bodily humors) are described and positive effects of this treatment are listed. The philosophical reflections on the naturalness of human death and the essence of physician’s business are quite interesting. Although a physician cannot make a patient immortal, he directly gives а person health and longevity and indirectly bestows (for the lifetime and the afterlife existence) dharma (righteousness), artha (wealth), and kāma (satisfaction of desires).