Saṁhitā-mentioned threefold or Śārṅgadhara-mentioned fivefold pāka, their purpose, ghana-sāra, Rasaśāstra, and daily household cooking
Picture credit: ChatGPT AI🖊⌨️ Author: Vaidya Hr̥ṣīkeśa Bāḷakr̥ṣṇa Mhetre
MD Ayurveda, MA Sanskrit
9422016871
Ayurveda Clinics @ Pune (Sunday) & Nashik (Tuesday to Friday)
27.12.2025 Saturday
1.
Snehapāka is to be known as threefold — soft, middle, and hard.
Hard pāka is remembered for abhyanga; soft for nasal procedures.
Middle pāka is to be employed for drinking and for basti.
☝🏼 Charaka Saṁhitā
There are three pākas — Mr̥du, Madhya, Khara.
Out of these, only “Madhya pāka” alone appears acceptable and usable for internal application.
2.
In Śārṅgadhara, description of the above three plus two other pākas is found.
Snehapāka when burnt becomes Dagdha-pāka, causing burning and being purposeless.
Ama-pāka is devoid of potency, causes diminution of digestive fire, and is heavy.
In Śārṅgadhara, apart from this, Ama-pāka means that water portion still remains in the medicine.
Therefore Ama-pāka is heavy = difficult to digest and causes weakening of digestive fire.
And Dagdha-pāka means due to excess of fire (in time or quantity), along with the water portion, the medicinal portion also burns, chars, and gets destroyed.
Therefore Dagdha-pāka is purposeless and burning-causing.
Picture credit: Google Gemini AI3.
Although at first glance these threefold or fivefold pākas appear to be meant for snehakalpanā, in reality these threefold or fivefold pākas apply to all medicinal preparations, that is, arishta, avaleha, guti, vati, and kvātha as well!
Not only this, but even modern kalpa = sugar granules (like popular Shatavari Kalpa) also fall under this!
And even in guti-vati preparation, for balādhāna process also this is necessary!
👇🏼
By fires one should cook till the juice is removed, then take it as “anupadagdha”
(Charaka Chikitsa 1/3/3)
4.
Whether it is sneha or any other medicinal preparation, if even a small portion of water remains, then within a few hours/days it develops sour smell, fermentation, rotting, decay, mold, fungal growth, and becomes “fit to be thrown away.”
Therefore Ama-pāka is rejectable.
5.
And Mr̥du-pāka being very close to it, its use is advised only for nasya, which is a delicate, sensitive, marma-like site; therefore Mr̥du-pāka medicine is used there.
6.
In Dagdha-pāka, the medicine itself burns, therefore it becomes purposeless and useless, hence rejectable.
And even if used, it will surely cause burning, because it is in vidagdha condition — burnt, charred, turned into ash and powder.
7.
Khara-pāka is slightly before Dagdha-pāka, but like it, it can have defects, potency issues, action side-effects.
Therefore its application is said only for external treatment like skin abhyanga, and that is correct and understandable.
8.
Thus the first two — Ama + Mr̥du, and the last two — Khara + Dagdha, because either water remains or medicinal portion burns, are not very acceptable.
9.
Therefore for internal use — meaning drinking, consumption, ingestion, and basti — only Madhya-pāka, also called “Chikkana pāka” in other texts, is advised.
This is the point where the extremely subtle, nearly invisible, crucial narrow thin line exists between water ending and medicine burning, where manually controlling fire and stopping instantly is almost impossible.
Therefore Madhya/Chikkana pāka has a standard deviation from Mr̥du to Khara, allowing limited acceptance elsewhere due to possible human error — but not as ideal.
10.
In short, when preparing medicine using water as a medium, if water remains → Ama = heavy, potency not fully extracted, digestive-fire weakening.
11.
On the other extreme, after complete evaporation of water, if fire continues and medicinal portion burns, it becomes purposeless and burning-causing.
12.
Between Ama-pāka and perfect ideal Madhya Chikkana pāka, Mr̥du-pāka is allowed with limited acceptance.
13.
Between perfect Madhya Chikkana pāka and burning into Dagdha-pāka, Khara-pāka is allowed with limited acceptance only for external use.
14.
Modern advanced pharmaceutical industry can definitely determine the exact moment just before medicinal burning, and stop heat precisely.
15.
Otherwise, if water remains, whether guti-vati, sneha, asava-arishta — sour smell and fungal growth appear within days.
16.
If water burns off and medicinal portion also burns, kvātha moves toward ghana-sāra, but many experience that such ghana-vati becomes sticky or soft later.
Thus ghana-sāra is actually kvātha’s Dagdha-pāka, or at least Khara-pāka — not for internal use.
17.
If sugar-based kalpa goes into Dagdha-pāka, no greater mental agony exists!
During granule formation, maintaining mild fire and constant stirring is highly skillful — otherwise it becomes rock-hard irreversibly.
18.
If sneha kalpanā goes into Dagdha-pāka, burnt black particles float on the oil.
19.
If asava-arishta goes into Khara-pāka, it becomes vidagdha = shukta (sour).
20.
Not only in profession, but even during digestion, vidagdha indigestion’s treatment is vamana.
Despite being pitta-dominant, virechana is not advised — meaning it must be expelled forcibly upward.
20A.
Exactly these two plus three = five pākas, daily thrice, even while cooking roti, vegetable, dal-rice, puran, kurdai, bhaji, shankarpale, anarse, omelette, pizza, are seen!
Every eater — and especially every cook — has experienced this.
Disclaimer
The author does not claim absolute correctness.
These are personal views and understandings; errors are possible and accepted.
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