Introduction:
The Susruta Samhita was written by the famous physician and surgeon Susruta in the 6th century BCE who taught at the University of Benares on the bank of the River Ganges.
The following article is a direct extract of Chapter 13 of the Susruta Samhita, written around 2600 years ago, and is one of the oldest medical accounts of Himalayan Shilajit, and its potential to treat diabetes patients that had been deemed "incurable" by contemporary doctors.
"CHAPTER XIII.
Now we shall discourse on the medical treatment of Diabetes (Madhu-Meha).
I. Metrical Text:
The intelligent physician should adopt the following course of treatment in the case of a Diabetes-patient abandoned as incurable by other physicians.
2. Shilajit , its origin and properties:
A kind of gelatinous substance is secreted from the sides of the mountains when they have become heated by the rays of the sun in the months of Jyaishtha and Ashadha (the summer months). This substance is what is known as Shilajit and it cures all distempers of the body.
The presence of the six kinds of metal, such as tin, lead, copper, silver, gold and black-iron, in their essential form in the substance (Shilajit), may be detected by their respective smell and hence it is known to the people by the name of Shad-Yoni (literally translated to — having six different origins).
The taste of this shellac-coloured substance has the same taste (Rasa) and potency (Virya) as the metal to whose essence it owes its origin. It should be understood that as tin, lead and iron, etc., are progressively more and more efficacious, so the different varieties of Shilajit, originated from the essence of tin, lead, iron, etc, are progressively more efficacious in their application. All kinds of Shilajit have a bitter and pungent taste with an astringent after-taste (Anu-rasa), are laxative, pungent in their digestionary reaction, heat-making in their potency and possessed of absorbing and purifying (Chhedana) properties.
Of these what looks black and glossy, is heavy and devoid of sandy particles, as well as what smells like the urine of a cow, should be considered as the best. This best kind of Shilajit should be infused with the decoction of the drugs of the Śala-sárádi group after the manner of Bhavana saturation (for ten, twenty or thirty days). Then after cleansing the body (by the application of emetics and purgatives), it should be taken every morning (by the patient in adequate doses), well pasted with Sdrodaka. He should further be made to take a meal of boiled rice mixed with the soup of the flesh of animals of the Jangala group after the medicine had been fully digested.
A Tula measure of this hill-begotten panacea (Shilajit), when gradually taken, (in adequate doses) tends to improve the strength and complexion of the body, cures an attack of Diabetes and enables the user to witness a hundred summers on earth, free from disease and decay. Each Tula weight (4kg) of this medicine, taken successively, adds a century to the duration of human life, while ten Tula measures extend it to a thousand years. The regimen of diet and conduct during the period of its use should be identical with that described in connection with the use of the Bhalla'taka compounds. Cases of Meha, Kushtha, epilepsy (Apasmara), insanity, elephantiasis, poison begotten distempers, phthisis, edema, haemorrhoids, Gulma (internal tumours), jaundice and chronic fever, prove readily amenable to the curative efficacy of Shilajit.
Indeed there is no such bodily distemper which does not yield to its highly curative virtues. It acts as a potent solvent in cases of long-standing Sarkari (gravel) in the bladder as well as of (kidney) stones.
Shilajit should be treated (soaked and dried) with appropriate medicinal drugs by stirring it up with the same."
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