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Immunity
And
Ayurveda
Parameters
The
Basic Constitutions
There
are three basic constituent - complexes, called the Doshas or the
Dhatus. These two words may be considered synonymous for the purpose
of this article. They have often been interpreted as humours (analogous
to the humours of the Greek Medicine) but, as you will see shortly,
the interpretation falls short of the full content of terms.
So
far it has been easy to find the English equivalents for the Ayurvedic
terms used here. But the words Dosha and Dhatu ( the irreducible
ultimate basic metabolic principles governing the entire psychosomatic
structure of the living organism) and their classification into
Vayu (or Vata), Pitta and Kapha (or Shlesma) which constitute the
hard core of the Ayurvedic concept of the living matter as, also
of health and disease, can not be easily rendered into modern medical
terms. How ever, an attempt can be made to give a fairly clear idea
of psychosomatic picture intended to be conveyed by these terms.
Doshas
or Dhatus (We need no go into the etymology of the terms) are the
three irreducible basic classifiable metabolic psychosomatic constituents,
or rather, constituent - complexes, of the living matter is twofold:
animate and inanimate. Ayurveda divides the animate matter into
two categories namely, the Jangama (animal) and the Sthavara (plant)
Kingdoms.
The
following translation from four verses from Vriksha Ayurveda - (a
chapter in Sri Sivatatvaratnakara) will give the modern biologist
some idea of the extreme limits to which the Ayurvedic physicians
of yore had stretched their psychosomatic classification in case
of even the lowest forms of life, such as plants.
The
(health and) disease in plants, as in human beings is based on their
respective (normality and the abnormality of the functions of )
vaya, pita and kapha. Therefore, the doshic abnormalities should
be removed. Whether tall or short, when a tree exhibits the characteristics
of leanness, dryness, sleeplessness and subnormal sensibility, and
is deficient in bearing flowers and fruits, its constitution is
vatic. Again, if a plant cannot tolerate the heat of the sun, is
pale, deficient in the branches, prone to ripen before time, it
is paittic in nature. A plant which has fully developed with a heavy
stem and branches, is resplendent with flowers and fruit, has a
large girth and is covered with creepers, is of kaphaic constitution[8]
Exidently,
the Ayurvedic pioneers had given serious thought to the task of
sonatotyping not merely the humas but every form of life they had
to deal with, including the plants. The inclusion of plants within
the doshic life structure shows that the doshas are not the humours
of Hippocrates which are confired to the human, or at the most,
the animal metabolism. The doshas are the ultimate irreducible systems
of every type or living protoplasm.
Along
with all other living beings, the humans were divided into three
somatotypes or, to be nearer the Ayurvedic concept, psychosomatic
types namely, the vata- prakriti, the pitta -prakriti, and kapha
-prakriti. It is interesting to note that the observations of Dr.
W.H.Sheldon who in his modern classic on somatotyping, The
varieties of human physique, has divided the humans into three
basic types ; ectomorphs, mesomorphs and endomorphs, bear, in some
respects, a resemblance to the observations made by the prehippocratic
texts of Agnevesha and Sushruta. To a certain measure, this holds
true even in the case of R.W.Parnells threefold classifications
of men into Linear, Muscular and the fat types.
It
will be convenient (and adequate for the purpose of this article)
to translate the complex Sanskrit term, Prakriti (constitution,
temperament, nature) as type, it being etymologically more flexible
than the term morph the latter being too confined to
physical forms to embrace the psychic attributes of a type. We will
therefore refer to vata, pitta and kapha-prakritis as V.P.and k
types. And the use of he words vatic, paitic and kaphaic as adjectives
will be an apt and useful compromise between Sanskrit and English.
The differences between the psychosomatic characteristics of the
three(V,P and K) types, both inherent and acquired, arise from the
respective predominance of the influence of the vatic,paittic and
kaphaic factors, be they physical physiological or psychological,
on the living organism as a whole.
Since
medicine covers thought, action, word, experience or
substance that exists in the world, there is nothing we can think
of that shall not fall into one of the three categories of the vatic,
paittic and kphaic kingdoms.
Thus,
sun is paittic and the shade is kaphaic or vata-kaphaic in nature.
A stimulant is a paittic drug and a sedative a kaphaic drug. An
alcoholic drink, being paittic will increase the paittic activity
in the body, and the anti - paittic or kaphaic cocoanut water will
counter the action. Again anger will promote the paittic activity
in the body and cheerfulness the kaphaic and the anti - paittic
activities.
No
true mono-doshic individual exists. Matter, in order to be animate,
has to be tridoshic. Life is inconceivable in the absence of even
one of the doshas. An ideal balance between the activities and structure
of the three respective doshic factors constitutes the absolute
normality of the constitution. I.e. a perfectly normal state
of health from the metabolic viewpoint. In reality, however, such
a norm dose not exist as the psychosomatic and metabolic structure
is not fixed and rigid. It fluctuates not merely from individual
to individual but within the individual himself. Therefore it is
the general predominance of the activity of a particular dosha in
an individual that decides his type and not the absence
of the other doshas. Even where dosha is predominant the activities
of the non - predominant doshas can not fall below a
certain minimum. If the imbalance exceeds the limits of the latitudes
within which the minimum tridoshic euulibrium must be maintained
to make the possible, the organism cases to live. Between
this lowest limit and absolute normal, there exist innumerable
permutations and combinations of the tridoshic activities which
represent as many deviations from the normal.
No
psychic, physiological or physical phenomenon can exist without
having a doshic bearing on the living matter. The three organic
phenomena-complexes, vata,pitta and kapha are collectively called
tridosha which merely means the three dosha. The term dosha
has been used here as the adjectival form of dosha.
In
attempting to understand what exactly the three doshas are, it is
essential to know what they are not - they are not the humours of
Hippocrates. A dosha is more of a synergistic hormonal psycho -
physical - complex than a humour.
No
thought, word ,action ,experience, occurrence or substance, coming
into physical or psychic contact with the living organism, fails
to exert as influence, howsoever small, on its doshic equilibrium.
The P type, when subjected to purely physical factors like hot weather.
Sunshine, tropical climate, or drug-diet factors such as makaradhwaja
(a heating Ayurvedic stimulant),musk, asafoetida, ginger,
chillies, brinjals, or their modern counterparts, such as adrenaline,
thyroid, hydrochloric acid, etc., fish, pistacio and walnut, stimulants
and hot spicy foods or emotional factors like an upsurge of courage
or anger and wrath, will find them acting adversely on his constitution
as all of them, being paittic in nature, will aggravate his already
pitta-dominating metabolism. Contrarywise, these very factors will
prove beneficial to the K-type and they will counter his proneness
to kaphaic disorders.
Since
every conceivable physical, physiological or psychological phenomenon
in its relation to the living organism influences the three ultimate,
irreducible basic psychosomatic constituents of the living matter,
the tridosha complex could be covered by the expression physico-physio-psychological
organismal phenomena-complex, or merely,`biological phenomena-
complex.
It
may be re-emphasised that the Ayurvedic division of the humans into
the three doshic types dose not mean that there exist any ppurely
unidoshic types.
It
may be re-emphasised that the Ayurvedic division of the humans into
the three doshic types dose not mean that there exist any purely
unidoshic types.
The
human being, like all living matter, is essentially tridoshic in
constitution. The three doshic categories have to maintain certain
doshic equilibriums for the organism to be alive, although
within the limits or the latitude of the equilibrium, variations
in the overall dishic balances exist or occur leading to the respective
verities in the physical and the mental make-up of the individual.
Just
as a moving automobile ( howsoever inferior its make) cannot be
conceived purely in terms of its motion, or the heat generated by
the motion, or the lubrication or cooling systems which counter
heat generated by motion, which would otherwise destroy the machine,
even the most primitive protoplasmic matter cannot be conceived
without the three balancing psychosomatic basic structure-function-complexes
which are roughly analogous to the three respective phenomena of
motion, heat and lubrication-preservation in the foregoing example
of the imaginary automobile.
It
has been stressed that a strictly unidoshic or didoshic type is
non-existent and inconceivable. However, permutations and combinations
of the psychosomatic activities and manifestations of the three
doshas have resulted in the existence of innumerable types, and
types within types, and once the disturbances in the equilibrium
cross the limits of the wide latitudes provided for the concept
of health as defined earlier, the prakriti (normal condition of
psychosomatic health) changes into vikriti (vitiated normality,
disease).
The
doshic manifestations themselves are twofold, healthy and unhealthy.
Enthusiasm and fear, courage and anger, cheerfulness and dullness,
exemplify the respective healthy unhealthy manifestations of the
three doshas, vata, pitta and kapha, respectively, on the psychic
plane. Similarly, physical agility and lightness of limbs on the
one hand, and pains and aches in the body on the other, are both
vatic characteristics but the former is a manifestation of the vata
dosha functioning in a healthy state in the body, the latter manifests
the vitiation of the vata dosha. The degree of vitiation is determined
by the degree of the deviation from the normal (vikriti)
and the severity of the resulting symptoms. The aim of treatment
is always to correct the deviation, and restore and maintain normality.
At the psychic plane, a single emotion may be didoshic, e.g., cheerfulness
is a kaphaic emotion, but if it turns into intense joy, the happiness
is kaphaic and the keenness or the thrill or it vatic. In steady
courage, courage is basically paittic but the attribute of steadiness
is kaphaic and, if the emotion partakes of the attribute of enthusiasm
which is vatic, the emotion becomes actually tridoshic in its psychic
type-structure.
If
reader can keep in mind the essentials of Ayurveda contained in
the brief and rapid survey outlined above, he will not find it difficult
to grasp the more detailed treatment of the subject at the end of
the Historical Survey which follows immediately. |
| 7.3
DOSHAS
The
essence of the practices of Ayurveda lies in developing a knack
or a feel for the dosha (see the next paragraph) patterns and relations
existing between the disease or to be more Ayurvedic, between the
patient on the hand and the drug, diet, practice or environment,
seasonal, climatic or any other factor having a possible bearing
on the state of health of the patient, on the other.
Doshas
or dhatus are the three irreducible basic bio-complexes outside
which no phenomenon, which has any bearing whatsoever on life, can
exist. The domain of each of the three bio-complexes constitutes
a leg of the tripod of life. For life to exist, even as a cell,
animal or vegetable, the three bio-complexes should support each
other in a harmonious balance which should be maintained within
certain permissible variations or latitudes. The live protoplasm,
whether of animal or vegetable origion, has got to be tridoshic.
Otherwise, it will be a mass of inanimate matter.
While
the three doshas of Ayurveda are considered by some to be analogous
to the four humours of the Greek medicine, even the scholars of
modern and Greek medicine, and of medical history, who have actually
studies Ayurveda, assert that they do not constitute identical concepts.
The
late Captain G. S. Murty, an eminent Indian doctor, who exercised
equal mastery over modern medicine, in which he had graduated, and
Ayurveda, which he had assiduously studied, had this to say on the
fallacy of identifying the Ayurvedic doshas with the Greek humours,
in a memorandum on The Science and the Art of Indian Medicine, submitted
by him to a Government Committee on Indigenous Systems of Medicine:
The first thing to note about them (the doshas or the Ayurvedic
bio-complexes) is to learn what they are not. Hence I consider it
necessary to repeat at the very outset that the three Dhatus ( i.e.,
Doshas, functioning normally) - Vata ( Vayu ),Kapha - are, most
emphatically, NOT the three humours Wind, Bile and phlegm.
What then are they ?
they are metter in evry
sense of the term - not mere abstractions
Next
,they are the three elementary units from which the whole and every
part from minutest to the grossest of our body is built; as it is
that they are called Dhatus, which literally means supporters;
they are, in literal truth the mainstays and supports of the body,
where they are not there the body itself is not; without their constant
support everywhere in the body will perish; when they are in normal
equilibrium it is health, and ill-health when they are not, in which
case the Dhatus are technically known as Doshas, literally faults;
this is because, in this condition they give rise to faults or ill-health
in the body. Some however use the term Dhatu and Dosha as synonyms
[41].
For the purposes of the present treatise the words may be treated
as synonyms.
It
is the all pervading tridoshic unity, in the diversity of existence
of all that the mind or the body can sense and experience, that
constitutes the bedrock of the Ayurvedic definition of medicine
(in the sense of a therapeutic agent and not of medical
science) that nothing exists that is non-medicine.
The ancient Ayurvedists observed the heating emotions
like anger and wrath, heating physical factors like
sun or proximity of fire, heating drugs like ginger,
musk, asafoetida, adrena;in, alcohol, etc., or heating
foods and spices like walnut, cashew, Pistachio, chillies, brinjal,
etc., and found that all these different categories of phenomena
- physical, physiological and psychological - had some similarity
in their respective effect on an individual, even though all the
individuals did not react to these common-factor-phenomena in an
identical manner. Thus, all these synergistic factors will have
more or less an identical action on a mesomorph or an endomorph,
but their action on the mesomorph will not be the same as on the
endomorph (please read the Introductory Summary given earlier).
The
Pitta-prakriti, referred to as P type in the Summary, will experience
a similarity of effect when subjected to the influence of these
paittic, i.e., roughly (and imperfectly) speaking, thermogenic or
thermometabolic factors. All emotions, diseases, medicines, foods,
hereditary factors, seasonal and climatic conditions have been divided
by Ayurveda into three doshic (not humoural) categories, vis-à-vis
their bearing on the human together without producing or losing
energy. In the case of the moving automobile, the energy is produced
in the form of heat . To control the heat thus produced, the machine
has to be provided with an anti-heat factor to save it from disintegration
through uncontrolled heat. The water in the radiator, the oil in
the engine and the grease for lubrication of various parts are some
of the constituents of the cars total anti-heat complex.
In
this extremely simple and crude example, if we compare the motion
with vayu, the heat with pitta, and the lubricants with kapha or
shleshma, of the human body, we will have a base to dwell upon and
explain, at a lower level, the structure of the tridoshic equilibrium.
Ayurveda
used the word dosha for each of these three complexes. It will now
be easy to understand why no living being can exist in a strictly
monodoshic state. In the analogy of the moving car, the existence
of the single factor of motion is inconceivable. Apart from the
fact that pure motion without a body can have no base to exist;
even in relation to the body it cannot exist outside certain norms.
For example, if the car desides to move at the speed of light, it
will cease to be a car. It will become a streak of light. The heat,
too, has to act within its norms. When it falls below a certain
level, the car refuses to move. During the winter season in the
north we have to put hot water in the radiator and cover the bonnet
with a blanket to be able to start the engine. But, conversely,
the car cannot be overheated. If the automobile turned unidoshic,
for example, just heat and nothing else, it would be automatically
burnt out and destroyed, and without heat and motion there will
be no moving body but a lifeless mass of inanimate matter.
Even
the lubrication has to remain within certain limits, otherwise the
oil will clog the plugs, part of the engine, etc., through excess
or overflow.
There
is plenty of latitude for the equilibrium to fluctuate within the
normal limits, but the fluctuation must not exceed the permissible
limits. Even in the case of the car, an imbalance indicating disturbance
beyond the maximum permissible limits, will stop the efficient functioning
of the car. In case of excessive deviations, the car will stop functioning
altogether.
An
Ayurvedic physician, in collaboration with modern experts, working
in a hospital unit or wing, maintaining correct data from both the
modern and the Ayurvedic angles, will be a good proposition for
the moderns to study and evaluate Ayurveda; as only by continued
observation and practice can the proper knack be developed by the
western physician to practice the Ayurvedic medicine successfully.
In the practice of Ayurveda there is very little danger of injudicious
medicational deleterious side-effects. The only drawback in the
pure observational and intuitional approach, howsoever well-developed,
lies, in certain cases, in diagnostic mistakes. For example, a cerebral
tumour, undetected by the physician in the absence of modern diagnostic,
can be mistaken for migraine. This can be prevented by the collaboration
technique offering hospital diagnostic facilities, as suggested
above. Such an experiment conducted in the West, with the characteristic
efficiency and thoroughness of a western scientific effort, should
pay rich therapeutic dividends.
Of
course, the analogy of the car, which does not go even as far as
experimentation on animals, cannot go very far in the matter of
comparison with the human being. The automobile, unlike 5the man,
is incapable of auto-repair. It can not adjust itself to changed
conditions. Every car of a similar brand behaves identically, consuming
the same type of petrol. It has none of the complexity characterizing
human nature and functions. There are no male and female cars, nor
is one car attracted by another beautiful car, creating a number
of psycho-somatic complexes. They do not laugh or cry. They are
not jealous. They do not tell lies. They do not want to destroy
each other. As already stated above, even the analogy of an animal,
subjected to vivisection or other experimentation, is not entirely
adequate to describe the human complexities under identical circumstances.
The analogy of a car is bound to be much more inadequate, but it
can serve as an elementary example to help the reader to understand
a highly generalized pattern of the three doshas which is to be
explained in greater detail in following pages.
An
example of widely different capacities for adaptation to undesirable
conditions among human being will be found in the studies of anaemia
conducted by the Ayurvedic Research Institute at Jamnagar, Saurashtra,
India. Generally ,when haemoglobin falls below 3 grammes per 100
c. c. of blood, the condition is considered incompatible with life.
The Jamnagar Institute, while conducting research on anaemia, received,
among their patients, a number of women whose haemoglobin was found
to be as low as 2.5 grammes; and yet they walked the distances from
their houses to the Institute, to receive treatment, carrying children
in their arms and even cooking meals in their homes. When people
who have been meet-eaters all their lives decide to become vegetarians
all of a sudden, many of them suffer acute symptoms of indigestion,
flatulence and abdominal distress. But if they persist in sticking
to vegetarianism, in spite of this suffering, they get over the
symptoms without any treatment as the system adjusts itself to the
changed conditions. In countries conquered by stronger nations,
particularly by despots or totalitarians, the proudest of the land
learn to live in subordination and indignity. This, too, is an adaptation,
howsoever painful to the individual. Those who refuse to adapt themselves
to such degradation, are eliminated. Reverting to the complexity
of man, even these differences of behavior do not fall outside the
activity patterns of the three doshas which are all pervading.
Therefore,
the vata, pitta and kapha of the human being are a far cry from
the motion complex, the heat complex and the counter-heat complex
of the car. The variety of the last complex, for example, is be
confined to merely the water in the ndriyatva) radiator, the oil
in the engine, the grease in the axies and the excellence of the
heat resistant material or the workmanship which makes a superior
car comparatively more resistant to the destructive effects of high
temperatures. In a certain sense, even the solid body of the car
itself constitutes an anti-heat principle.
The
doshic types differ in health. They also differ in disease. They
differ in susceptibility to disease, to action of the drug, to allergies
to various substances, emotions and conditions. One may get urticaria
due to anger, another due to cashew nuts, yet another due to pollen
or dust, to humidity, to dryness, to heat, to cold, to sun, to rain,
to the absence of ones spouse or to the proximity of ones
spouse. In each case, the doshic constitution and the doshic relationships
play the major role, and amelioration or restoration of the doshic
equilibrium constitutes a cure. By and large, one type is prone
to one set of diseases, and another to another. This holds true
in case of seasons, foods, climates, emotions, all factors that
have a bearing on the psycho-somatic mechanism of the being. The
physicians job is to evaluate the doshic picture of the patient
and the disease. In the modern medicine, it is important to know
what type of disease the patient is suffering from. In Ayurveda,
it is even more important to find out what type of patient is suffering
from the disease. The Ayurvedic physician has to elaborate the tridoshic
pattern of the deviation from the normal in relation to every drug,
diet or practice-factor, also the vitiating or doshadisturbing causes
- physical, physiological or psychological - and then endeavour
through the administration of drugs, diet and \or practices to restore
the doshic equilibrium is attainable in the case of curable (sadhya)
diseases and unattainable (or partially attainable) in the case
of incurable (asadhya)diseases. The amelioration (shamana) is a
matter of degree - amounting to mere improvement, relief, or cure
and immunity, the last being permanent or impermanent, depending
on the relative effectiveness of the dosha-prashamana (pacification
of the vitiated dosha or doshes) and the subsequent correct behavior
(jitendriyatva) of the patient.
Viewing
everything from the doshic angle, one should familiarize oneself
with the type of the disease he is suffering from (i.e., to which
doshic category the disease itself belongs), the types of drugs,
diets and factors that would counter the doshic imbalances.
We
will take up the classification of some of these categories as viewed
from their doshic attributes.
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