The thirteenth chapter of Kalyāṇa's Bālatantra turns from herbs to a goddess. Entitled 'The Account of Śītalā's Treatment,' it pairs the Śītalā Aṣṭakam — a hymn from the Skanda Purāṇa in praise of the deity who cools eruptive fevers — with a set of distinctly practical cooling remedies.
Śītalā, 'the Cool One,' is invoked as the one who alleviates severe fevers, quenches insatiable thirst, and heals eruptions and sores. The hymn promises that whoever recites the eight verses with faith remains free from the fear of terrible eruptions, and that merely meditating on her overcomes all fevers.
Herbs Alongside the Hymn
The devotional verses sit beside straightforward pharmacy. A paste of sandalwood, dūrvā grass, mustā, and tamasi mixed with ghee and milk cools a body overheated by fire; sauvīra paste relieves itching and pain. Offerings of jambu, neem, and kadamba leaves with lentils are prescribed for the months of Chaitra and Āśvina, and the text warns against entering places with remnants of food during eruptions.
You alone are the nectar for those afflicted with eruptions and sores... There exists no mantra or medicine for sinful diseases — you alone, O Cool One, are the mother.
Medicine and Devotion in One Frame
The chapter is a window into how classical Ayurveda held empirical and devotional therapeutics together. The same manuscript that measures pediatric doses in guñjā and māṣaka here invokes a goddess for diseases — like smallpox — that outran the physician's pharmacopeia. Both responses, the herbal and the ritual, belong to a single medical world, and the Bālatantra makes no effort to separate them.