Water

Water
Water is one of the oldest known beverages and one of the first to be medicinally characterized with respect to effect on health. The Chakara-Samhita document is the oldest known Asian medical text (1500 BCE). The text presents a classification of common beverages for physician and addresses their presumed medical properties and attributes:

“Water by nature has six qualities: cold, pure, wholesome, palatability, clean, light. When water falls to earth it depends for its properties on the containing soil. Water in white soil is astringent. Water in pale soil is bitter. Water in brown soil is alkaline. Water in hilly areas is pungent. Water in black soil is sweet. Water derived from rain, hailstone, and snow has unmanifested ‘rasa’ (taste); Fresh rain water of the rainy season is heavy blocks body channels and is sweet; ….Rivers with water polluted with soil, feces, insects, snakes, and rats and carrying rain water aggravates all ‘dosas’.”

The Nei Ching dates to Han dynasty times (207 BCE – 220 CE) in ancient China and demonstrated the wide range in beverage choices that had rapidly become available and how they were closely associated with medicine and the healing process. The ancient Chinese medical system defined five organs (heart, liver, lung, kidney and spleen) and integrated factors of hot cold, wet dry, male-female, set within a complex integration of Yang, Neutrality and Yin. Alcoholic beverages (except beer) and coffee are classified as Yang or hot/heating, whereas fruit juices, milk, tea and unboiled water are classified as Yin or cold/cooling.

Furthermore, Chinese Buddhist monks followed strict dietary codes that limited their eating time to morning hours, and the foods/beverages forbidden to them included: fermented items, milk, cream, fish and meat.
Water