Ayurveda

The word Ayurveda is a combination of two words,one is AYUH the meaning of which we have seen and the second is Veda means knowledge.

Ayurveda is knowledge of life. It if a life style rather healthy life style. The word AYU means life and the word VEDA means knowledge. Knowledge of life, with utter happiness is Ayurved Now to get this knowledge one must know what is life. Ayuh.

The word Ayuh means life. The span human being is alive. What is life? Is the big question in front of us. According to different thinking of human being it may differ. If some body is singer, singing is his life .If some body is dancer, dancing is his life. Scientifically speaking life is time span between death and birth or conception. But is this enough? No! The time span between death and birth or conception with utter happiness or joy physically as well as psychologically is life. This happiness is reflection of health. That’s why health is defined as beneficial happiness on both body and psyche. To achieve this one should work hard.

Then the question arises what is health? Health is mentioned by the word “SWASTHA”. This words it self speaks a lot. It can be divided in two parts “SWA” and “STHA”. “Swa” means me, the person him self and “Stha” means staying inside or stabilized. It means the person himself staying in the body with happiness. This is the insight too .If while reading this, somebody has pain in the abdomen, he will not be able to read the book. Or cannot concentrate on that. It means he lost his insight in front of the pain. So he is not staying inside .It is definitely not the happiness so as not the health .It means that he is not healthy. This is the broad meaning of SWASTHA. Most of the people are not staying inside but are always in comparison with others. They are either having hatred ness or love with others. Again this is creating unhappiness which ultimately tends to disease or unhealthiness.

To be “SWASTHA” is a big work. For that first we should has the knowledge about ourselves, the mankind. Who we are? How we are here? What we are supposed to do? And so on… There is a chain of unanswered questions. For this one should know about what is life or get knowledge of life. For this the divine science AYURVEDA helps us.

The first and foremost goal of ayurved is to be healthy or to maintain the health. In other words to prevent from to be sick. So the duty of Doctor was to take care of health not only to treat when sick. In fact no body should sick. For this purpose they have advised daily regimen, seasonal changes, dietary instructions and qualities of food elements, Natural urges, epidemiological factors, habitual things behavioral patterns and so on.

Still if some body is sick then to cure the sick one. By using some therapies, internal as well as external, avoidance of causes and rejuvenation of body are the ways of cure and maintain the health.

By all this means health is maintained. Now again for this one must know that what is beneficial and joyous. One more definition of Ayurved is knowledge of beneficial, unbenificial joyous and sad things related to life and knowledge of span of life. Now the things which are beneficial to health may be or may not be joyous so as for unbenificial things too. In contrast the things, which are joyous, may be or may not be beneficial. All this is explained to us by AYURVED, the science of life. For ex. Eating ice cream in the night after dinner in winter may be joyous as far as taste is concern but it is definitely not beneficial for the health. So such things are advised clearly. And we have to follow the beneficial and healthy things.

Ayurved is divine science memorized and brought on earth to help the people suffering from disease and pain. The divine origin indicates its purity and level of intellectual. Also it underlines the spiritual aspect too. The story of this evolution is quite interesting as well as giving some guidelines. When diseases start to trouble people as well as saints who were involved in some meditative activity, they start crying and shouting with the pain and other symptoms. Which ultimately sought attractions of different Sadhus. They all gathered at the lateral base of Himalaya, the mountain and started discussing about how to get ride of and make people happy and healthy. Then the idea of getting the solutions from god especially king of god Lord Indra came. Now who will go and get that knowledge? This was the key question. Because to get this from god, one should competent enough. The selection criterion was the person should be highly meditative, knowledgeable, humble and pure. They selected one of them and they got the solution called ayurveda.

This is the story in short. But it under lines that Ayurved was brought from pure, highly respectable as well as knowledgeable person. In front of whom the world bows down. So the science it self has this capacity. Secondly it will be fruitful only if a competent person who is meditative, spiritual, highly knowledgeable, humble and pure. In the present world this is difficult job. So get the proper knowledge of the science one should be competent enough. So the Vaidya ( Ayurvedic doctor ) at least should bear these qualification. The person wants to get knowledge and follow the advise should also be holy and keep faith in it.

CONSTITUTION

Each and every individual in this world has its own specialty, Whether they are animals, herbs or human. It doesn’t matter of which category or race they are. Why there is so much variation in this world? If there is difference between an animal and tree, one can understand. But when the both are same means either both are animal of same race or same trees still they differ in physic or growth or maturity and so on. Even most of the times the twins though are look like each other, but they have some basic difference, which actually identify or demark them from each other. This is a key question why this variety is there? In modern era of average, this approach is bit lost or neglected. Research systems of this era deal mostly with masses and communities which in a way missing this individual approach. So this is one of the important thing to know is who I am? How my body whether psychological or physical is built? As each individual borne and grown separately, it has some special things to express. May be these are in a way identity marks of that particular individual.

We always find so many differences in the human being of same family, mother- father, same caste, same area, and same country. In rainy season some person of the same family same area reflects different reaction. Few may get cold / sneezing, while few feel better and few doesn’t bother even. Why it is so? In a party same food may nourish somebody, may create indigestion other and may create diarrhea / Vomiting to the third. Again same question arises why it is so? Is there any difference between every person? If you observe neatly the answer will be positive. Each and every person differs from other by physic, by nature, by habit etc. This difference is there because each person constituted in mother’s dooms separately. So it has its own individual existence. This individual existence gives that person a certain personality and he / she reacts accordingly. “AYURVED” believes in this rather act according to this principle.

This is called “PRAKRUTI”. Prakruti means the nature, original constitution of that human being. It is reflection of natural built of his/her body on both physical and psychological level. It is decided in mother’s dooms actually at the time of conception but expressed after birth and confirmed by minute observation of knowledgeable persons. So the constitution is decided by following factors. 1 male seed or semen 2 female seed or ovum 3 Dietary habit of mother when pregnant 4 behavior / movement of the mother 5 the season, climate, and others In this the most important factors are mother and father. They carry their reflection through the seeds to the baby, which is going to be borne. The exact situation of mother and father along with their constitution has influence on the baby. The dominance of some body elements in mother and father at the moment of conception, plays important role in deciding prakruti / constitution. In Ayurved it is called Dosha. Then the embryo starts growing in mother doom. So the diet, behavior of mother also plays an important role in the growth of embryo and like this also affect on the decision of constitution of that embryo.

There are actually seven different types of constitution explained by the ayurvedic scientists. These types are explained on the dominance of the active element called dosha. This dominance may vary from person to person. That’s why every body has its own existence, own reaction to nature etc. According to the dominance of dosha the characteristics of each varies. These characteristics are judged on the minute physical observation and body built up as well as psychological reaction too. These all observation put together and underlined the dominance of that particular dosha etc. Here the minute observations mentioned in the text of all the constitution are having own importance as well as they are the guidelines for all of us to decide the prakruti. By using these guide lines we can decide better prakruti

TYPES OF PRAKRUTI As explained before there are seven types of prakruti according to dominance of dosha. They are as follows Single dosha dominance 1 Vata prakruti 2 pitta prakruti 3 kapha prakruti Combination of two dosha 4 Vata Kapha dominance prakruti 5 kapha Pitta 6 Pitta Vata All the three dosha dominance

Here one important thing we should keep in mind that dominance means excess of that particular dosha . It doesn’t mean that, Only that particular dosha has in your body. No! There are also other dosha but in subsided form. So one has to think of that also. As body is combination of all the three dosha it is necessary to see all three not to only the dominant one. But you can concentrate bit more on the dominant one. Second important thing is that constitution or prakruti is your nature. You get it by birth. It is not imbalance. It is not some thing to treat or take care of. It is your basic configuration. So you can not change it by some mean. In fact if you try to change it you may create an imbalance. You can implant some other characters or qualities, which you feel, are good. For example Vata dominance person is weak in muscle or thin. So by doing some exercise etc the person of Vata dominance may get some musculature but it doesn’t mean that the prakruti is changed. It is an adaptation. It can stay for period and in the end it disappear. This can be achieved by some efforts and processing which is termed as SAMSKARA. It is a process which implant some qualities which one don’t has or improve or express the qualities which are not expressed or revealed. Like this you can adapt some qualities. For ex Pitta dominance person is reactive or always boiling in the anger. By Samskara he can adapt calmness. But though some where, some how he expresses his anger, still it give him and others a smell of change.

But except that it is not possible to change. Also if you have the dominance of particular dosha prakruti doesn’t mean that you have to consume the opposite qualities all the time. There is a big misunderstanding about this in modern world. For ex. People who come to know that, they have Vata dominance prakruti, always consume oily, soft, heavy food. Actually as we discussed before prakruti is nature and can not be changed. So by consuming such foods the person may create imbalance or increase in Kapha dosha.

It is like seeing a movie on white and green screen. On white screen you can see red as red while on green screen you can see red as black. It is normal as far as green screen is concern. You can change the colour, but you have to realise that the screen is green, otherwise by trying to change you can create a colour imbalance.

As we discussed before, to decide prakruti we have to think of mother, her regimen during pregnancy, father etc. Also we need to ask questions regarding this to the close relative or friends. Lastly we have to compare the present situation and the previous one. Like this it will give complete idea of that person since birth which will make easy to decide correct prakruti. In the texts, there elaborate explanation of single Dosha Prakruti on physical and somewhat psychological ground. Also in the end they give similarity with animals to see the tendency. For ex Kapha prakruti person is like Elephant. It means that this particular person is having strong built like elephant, bit slow, patient walk in the street with special rhythm, also may have big buttock. But when it becomes angry which actually a rare case then the reaction will be strong and destructive. So like this if we interpret we can get the correct features of kapha prakruti.

Now the question arises about combination of two or more Dosha. How to judge? It is a tough job. Because All the Dosha has some qualities matching, while others are contrast. For ex. Vata and Kapha have almost opposite qualities except cold ness so to judge this is bit difficult. But according to person to person this varies. So what we can do is to combine the qualities of single Dosha dominance and then subtract the inapplicable by asking questionnaire. Like this we can judge the combined prakruti. By judging this it is easy to follow the advice for maintenance of the same. Here once again when we think of dominance at the same time we should keep in mind the non-dominant one too. The general aspect and questionnaire is given below for the judgement of correct prakruti with help of which you can compare too.

Tabular analysis of prakruti

	Body parts	Vata	Pitta	Kapha
1	Hairs	Cracked, cloudy, Curly, Blackish, crowed, dry	Brown, glorious, less in numbers, slim, soft become early mature or easily crackable	Thick, Black, excess, soft,
2	Scalp/head	Big or small, irregular,	Small, regular, neatly arranged	Big, large
3	Eyes	Unstable, cloudy, dead look, rough, egg like, Not good looking, remain open in deep sleep	Small, unstable, sharp, well defined round reddish tinge,	Stable, white watery, oily, huge, long, big sclera and iris too, with reddish edges. Clear
4	Face	Irregularly arranged, dry , having blackish shade	Regular precisely divided and arranged.	Big, egg round, neatly arranged
5	Built	Long/tall or dourf, thin, bony can see the bones and joints, cracked organs	Medium, medium built, soft organs	Dorf or not tall, healthy may be obese, soft oily organs
6	Nose	Big, long irregular	Medium, sharp, straight	Small, like japanese big in width