This blog is based on my concern that ayurvedic system is not getting a clean focus as one of the mainstream system of medicine. I am not a Subject Matter Expert in Ayurveda and hence any unintended mistakes in this blog are purely coincidental that I am willing to correct.
I looked up the proper definition of the western system of medicine – allopathy. Here it goes (from https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/allopathic-medicine).
A system in which medical doctors and other health care professionals (such as nurses, pharmacists, and therapists) treat symptoms and diseases using drugs, radiation, or surgery. Also called biomedicine, conventional medicine, mainstream medicine, orthodox medicine, and Western medicine.
The allopathic medicine derives its knowledge from the body of science. In this regard it is purely focussing on the representation of human body and mind in the dimension-1 (the manifested universe).
Let us now look at the definition of the ancient ayurvedic system of medicine primarily originating from the Indian sub-continent.
A western definition from the same cancer.gov site above goes like this –
A medical system from India that has been used for thousands of years. The goal is to cleanse the body and to restore balance to the body, mind, and spirit. It uses diet, herbal medicines, exercise, meditation, breathing, physical therapy, and other methods. It is a type of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) therapy. Also called Ayurveda.
From a knowledge source deeply rooted in ayurvedic principles (e.g. https://ayurveda.com/ayurveda-a-brief-introduction-and-guide/ ), the same definition goes like this –
Ayurveda places great emphasis on prevention and encourages the maintenance of health through close attention to balance in one’s life, right thinking, diet, lifestyle and the use of herbs. Knowledge of Ayurveda enables one to understand how to create this balance of body, mind and consciousness according to one’s own individual constitution and how to make lifestyle changes to bring about and maintain this balance.
This is expected to be balanced by balancing vatta, pitta and kapha constituents of a human body.
In Ayurveda, body, mind and consciousness work together in maintaining balance. They are simply viewed as different facets of one’s being. To learn how to balance the body, mind and consciousness requires an understanding of how vatta, pitta and kapha work together. According to Ayurvedic philosophy the entire cosmos is an interplay of the energies of the five great elements—Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. Vata, pitta and kapha are combinations and permutations of these five elements that manifest as patterns present in all creation. In the physical body, vatta is the subtle energy of movement, pitta the energy of digestion and metabolism, and kapha the energy that forms the body’s structure.
But there are some issues in the current practice of Ayurveda as seen from an indian context. Some of them seems to be the below ones:
1. They are treated as complimentary system of medicine and not as one of the major ones.
2. At least a significant portion of the practitioners of Ayurveda has been subconsciously forced to accept that their practice is an extension or addendum to the allopathic system of medicine.
3. Because of the ease with which allopathic system medicine can be reached out to along with the ‘swift’ results, general public has largely gravitated to this system of medicine and hence potential practitioners of ayurveda do not possibly have a strong supporting revenue generating mechanism or incentive to practice ayurveda.
4. At least in India, there are quacks and charlatans who masquerade as ayurveda healers, and the liberal use of the term ‘Ayurveda’ is not strictly regulated like the term M.B.B.S – the title given to persons graduating from the allopathic system of medicine learning in India.
5. The ayurvedic body of knowledge is not well developed and curated or organized like the body of knowledge that exists in allopathic system of medicine. R&D operations/data, documentation, creating a unified body of knowledge etc., is perhaps, still rudimentary, or unintegrated in the system of ayurveda even in India. Variations in the form of treatment is not properly explained. I wonder if, even, somebody has collected all the good ancient literatures that espouse the ayurvedic principles and the body of knowledge.
6. In Ayurveda, primarily certain types of food and herbs are identified as the medicines for consumption for addressing malaises. Besides, the patients are taught to practice certain yogic practices like pranayama and meditation to heal the mind. But I fear that a lot of information on herbs, and on the styles of administering food as medicine are lost in time. Moreover, I am deeply concerned that, lot of species of medicinal herbs may have been lost from the gene pool itself or is not identified still or whose information is also lost over time.
I think the below may be true:
1. Allopathic system of medicine is primarily focussed on physical body and mind.
2. Ayurveda system of medicine is supposed to be focussing on physical body, mind, astral body, consciousness (am not talking about the sub-conscious mind) and chittam too. (Please refer to my blog - https://www.mayoan.com/post/11-the-construct-of-a-human)
Please note that there are other herb/plant based medicinal systems practiced around the other parts of the world - like in china-that are not covered in ayurveda. I think it helps if we integrate these knowledge bases into a unified ayurveda body of knowledge post proper due-diligence to benefit the whole mankind, since we now consider ourselves as citizens of a global village!
Having said that, we can now look at the concept of Tri-doshas or 3-Malaises.
The idea of diseases in ayurveda is given below-
The cause of disease in Ayurveda is viewed as a lack of proper cellular function due to an excess or deficiency of vatta, pitta or kapha. Disease can also be caused by the presence of toxins.
Diseases can also originate in the mind.
About Vatta, Pita and Kapha:
The 3-doshas does not mean or refer to vatta, pita and kapha. The 3-doshas are related to the imbalance that comes out of these 3 effects because dosha is a Sanskrit term which means – fault!
In the reference-1 site, the concept of Ojus, Tejas and Prana is also referred to while talking about Vatta, Pita and Kapha.
It is given as below:
Prana, Tejas and Ojas are subtle forms of Vatta, Pita and Kapha respectively and they have influence over the mind. The same factors that create 3-doshas can also disturb these mental forms.
Ojas is responsible for immunity, Tejas is the heat and light energy of Ojas and Prana is the energy and strength that comes from Ojas after it has been kindled into Tejas.
In the physical body, vatta is the subtle energy of movement, pitta the energy of digestion and metabolism, and kapha the energy that forms the body’s structure.
In general, it is believed that a health human body will have the vatta, pita and kapa properly balanced.
The supposed effects of a balanced and unbalanced vatta, pita and kapa effects are given below. Sometimes it is thought that some diseases manifest internally in astral body before showing up in physical body. Similarly, an injury from accident may cause external body injury and this may damage the astral body too. We do not have any data or corroborating evidence as of now.
Thus, we can see the benefits of using allopathy and ayurveda in a synergistic way to treat people with diseases aiming for rapid recovery.
References: