Health and Disease in the Vedic Tradition of India
Article by Jennifer Thomas
Some say that the Vedic tradition of India has a practical history of some 50,000 years or more. Whatever the period, however, it is clear that this tradition was first written down about 5,000 years ago. This was just before the epic Mahabharata war, involving everyone, took place. This culture was guided by the fundamental insight that we and our environment are really one.
This was realised in practice with direct observation and a capacity to communicate with the intelligences and powers of nature. The principles they established illustrate the wisdom and understanding of their original vision. They concern a life of harmony for the health and well-being of all existence. This tradition developed Ayurveda which accords with these ancient principles, and reflects the original observation and understanding that all is one appearing as many.
Ayurveda has been called ‘the mother of Medicine’ and ‘the sister of Yoga’; a science of human life and how to maintain it healthily. Health is the self-proposed attitude to maintain the balance of a day’s work as play without default. Disease arises in those who default and medicine is used to rectify the results of this default and it is discovered as an atonement. Proper behaviour maintains health while misbehaviour produces disease that results in some form of suffering.
Suffering or discomfort has a double function. It indicates that there is something wrong in the constitution and above all, it is also an atonement caused by nature which induces us to understand what to do and what not to do.
Treatment is rightly understood as the process of re-establishing health and not killing the pain or disease. All of these notions rely on the constitution of man and nature, which is based on three functional centres governing all of life.
Practical study and application of these principles involve diet and exercise, seasonal and daily routines to maintain balance, massage and its therapeutic uses, Panchakarma cleansing and purification techniques.
Massage in the Vedic Tradition
All massage stems from the instinctive impulse to rub and relieve the body whenever it is disturbed or hurt. Bathing involves similar instincts. Ayurveda’s unique and profound contribution of oil with massage, has refined and utilised these instincts to provide health and well-being.
According to Vagbhata – Astanga Hridaya: Sutra : 2 : 7-8 massage therapy should be used every day as it has the following benefits:
- It prevents and corrects the ageing process
- It helps overcome the fatigue of a routine of hard work in life
- It prevents and corrects disorders of the nervous system
- It promotes eye-sight
- It helps nourish the body
- It promotes longevity
- It helps one to get sleep
- It promotes sturdiness
Massage in India is a long-standing tradition from the first day of life, which continues to at least the third year. After three, once or twice a week up to the sixth year. Afterwards the child is able to massage others and receive massage in return. The child learns massage by massaging their grandparent’s feet, who in turn guide the massage. Massage pervades every aspect of life particularly in Kerala, wives are instructed prior to marriage, how to massage their husbands. Prior to marriage, ceremonial massage over a period of three days is given to a couple for stamina, psychic strength and to enhance beauty. After childbirth the mother is massaged daily for 40 days if the child is male, if female then 56 days.
Massage reflects the natural world constantly massaged by the elements. The Breath or Wind is understood to be the foundation of everything – Prana the life-giving or vital air. Disease begins with disturbed Prana. Massage directly deals with the blocked or agitated Prana promoting efficient circulation through the channels of the body to maintain health.
Massage ensures that the body can properly utilise a diet that promotes health and a sense of well-being. It nourishes by stimulating the inner resources of the body to maintain health. Ayurvedic massage belongs to an understanding that health and beauty rely on the circulation of vital life-fluids and appropriate removal of body wastes.
The skin and the digestive tract are the physical barriers which separate you from your environment. They control entrance into your system, permitting nutrients inside while refusing entry to pathogens.
Bodily wastes can also be excreted through both the skin and the gut. When excretion through other channels becomes inefficient the excess is directed out through the skin. Skin disease usually develops when the skin is clogged with toxic wastes. The health of the skin is thus intimately connected with the health of the digestive tract. Skin disease improves when digestive function improves, and when the skin is cleansed of all its impurities and toned to vibrancy, the digestive tract also becomes healthier.
Every human being needs regular oil massage. While self-massage is adequate for most people most of the time, everyone should seek professional massage from time to time.
Massage makes the skin soft and unctous reducing dryness, cold, rough and ageing skin. The rhythmic massage motion allays joint and muscle stiffness and makes all body movements free and rhythmic. The circulation of the blood increases, encouraging quicker removal of metabolic wastes. Massage also relaxes the body prior to more vigorous exercise.
Massage is particularly beneficial for those who work more with their mind than their body. With reduced anxiety and tension body-awareness develops leading to an expansive sense of ourselves or well-being. This state of ease brings an improvement of mental and emotional functioning, with a body felt as light and full of energy and vitality.
Snehana
An ancient practice of oeleating, anointing and lubricating, giving love and tenderness whilst removing dryness with the internal and external administration of medicated or non-medicated fats/oils. Snehana is used as the first stage in the process of detoxification before a client undergoes any of the five specialised elimination therapies of Panchakarma.
This preparation renders the body-mind more accepting of the coming purification by opening the channels and releasing the accumulated wastes of every form. The treatment is administered externally with Abhyanga Massage (Full Body Massage) and called Abhya Snehana or administered internally and is called Snehapana. Externally different types of Abhyanga are used with appropriate medications of an animal, vegetable or mineral origin.
The oils used such as sesame oil, preferably the black variety also help alleviate Vayu – the disturbed Prana, and promote digestion, metabolism and cleanses by helping the body to discharge toxins through sweat, urine and mucous. The body benefits by becoming supple and strong, vitality returns with a better level of functioning generally. Circulation of blood, lymph and Prana are stimulated to provide nourishment.
Effective with disorders such as diabetes, skin disorders, blood pressure, aches and pains in the joints as well as diseases of the nervous system. Chronic obstinate skin and urinary disorders.
Preventive massage rejuvenates and is an important part of Rasayana literally ‘the path of juice’- the regeneration of tissues. The preparation of medicated oil by boiling with other ingredients is a process that ensures the medicinal properties are retained – Ayurveda holds the view that oil can absorb the useful properties of various substances. Traditional tried and tested formulas with ritual procedures are used to ensure the treatment is effective.
Whilst used specifically as a preparatory procedure to further treatment, Abhyanga is ideally a daily ritual for the prevention of many disorders in the course of life particularly later life. The massage also cures many diseases as well. This profound treatment and method is therefore a specialised therapy in itself. Massage is the main vehicle for treatment and the goal as a part of Ayurveda, is to promote a healthy life without the need to cure disease.
Massage Oil
The role of oil in Indian life and in particular Ayurveda has provided an enormous body of knowledge of its properties and value in health. Medicinal oils make use of the wondrous variety of valuable medicinal plants in India. The methods of extracting the appropriate standard of drugs and preparation of the medicated oil involve attention to time-honoured rituals to ensure that the medicated oil is effective and wholesome without inflicting any harm. Careful measured methods ensure that the structure and integrity of the materials is not disturbed. Ayurveda always looks to care for the whole community. A lesson modern western pharmaceutical health ignores as superstition.
Modern medicine subjects plants and other raw materials to deliberate modification in the name of economics, as does the food industry.
Chemical fertilisers and pesticides used to support mono farming.
Pharmaceuticals used to maintain farm animals.
Commercial processes involving heat, vacuum, freezing, microwaves, irradiation and chemicals used to try to preserve appearance for market
Oils are an example:
Cold-pressed oil: using a press to extract gives the highest quality and flavour besides cost
Semi-refined oil: using higher pressure and temperature to extract more oil brings a loss of vitamins
Refined oil: whilst labelled ‘pure’ is an empty oil
Note: Fats are basically the same as oils but solid at room temperature
Using solvents to extract, removes any value besides bleaching and deodorising the oil. Vitamins have to be added as well as preservatives otherwise the oil will become rancid.
Proprietary Ayurvedic medicines make available to the public products that have a sound history and are effective, but too costly and difficult for individuals to prepare. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu where massage is still practised according to the indications in the medical collections of Caraka, Sushruta and Vagbhata, healers prefer to make their own and they are not willing to share methods or formulas. Indeed they only give their oil to their clients.
Doshas
Ayurveda understands man, nature and all of life as a dynamic matrix of the Five Great Elements (Panch Bhutas) namely: Space-Air-Fire-Water and Earth. Active aspects of these elements combine into three biological, organising principles called Doshas: Vata (space and air), Pitta (Fire and Water) and Kapha (Water and Earth). These bio-energetic forms of the elements make up the unique individual constitution of individual bodies or types. Briefly, Vata is the power of wind which sets the other two Doshas in motion. Vata is chiefly about movement, with activity, with breathing, animation and inspiration. Pitta is the power of fire, the energy released by chemical and biochemical processes. This inner fire is concerned with digestion, combustion, metabolic transformation, oxidation, visual faculties, regulation of body temperature and the colour of blood and skin. Kapha is the power of cohesion, involved in the construction of the bones of the body, joint formation, as well as in mental strength, endurance and in resistance to disease. Kapha brings body stability, firmness, flexibility, resilience and coolness.
Health and the diagnosis of disease therefore focusses on the condition of the Doshas and the accompanying symptoms.
The Doshas, Vata, Pitta and Kapha have their centres in the colon, small intestine and chest respectively. A weak digestive fire is the root cause of all diseases with the accumulating toxins called Ama as the chief nourisher of disease. The disturbed vital air (Prana) brings about six stages of the development of disease, namely: accumulation, aggravation, overflow, location, manifestation and specialisation.
This brief introduction to the Ayurvedic Medical system can only broadly outline the subject. However, its eight branches of study can convey something of its range and depth.
The eight branches:
- General medicine – Kaya Chikitsa
- Pediatrics – Bala Chikitsa
- Psychiatry – Graha Chikitsa
- Ears, eyes, nose and throat – Urdhwanga Chikitsa
- Surgery – Salya Chikitsa
- Toxicology – Visha Chikitsa
- Rejuvenation – Rasayana Chikitsa
- Infertility –Vrisha Chikitsa
Five Fundamental Sutras
Everything that exists in the external universe has its counterpart in the internal universe of the human mind-body-spirit complex.
Air, Fire and Water are the principles most fundamental to life. They appear in the body as Vata or ‘that which blows’. Pitta or ‘that which burns’ and Kapha or ‘that which sticks’. The cosmic urges of Movement, Transformation and Stability.Like increases like. Under certain conditions ‘like causes like’ and occasionally ‘like cures like’.
Food is medicine, medicine is food. Food is that which is digested, medicine is that which helps it to digest.
Whatever affects the body affects the mind and vice versa.
Ayurveda describes a subtle and causal structure for the body-mind concerning how we are made; an understanding that reveals we are not our bodies and the basis for life is in the source not the appearance, we commonly mistake appearance to the senses for existence.
Ayurvedic concepts of life have their roots in the Vedic chants that formed the foundation of subsequent Indian thought. A view based on sound not sight as in modern western thought and language. Veda is an oral-aural tradition using Sanskrit, as ‘the Lord’s language’ it reminds the user of the source and structure in the light of which subtle habits of mind are clarified. The original vision is sustained.
Listening, quite simply brought forth a vast body of knowledge to experience. Ayurveda with its large view eventually absorbed, modified and applied this knowledge. Its gross, subtle and causal themes involve the six great philosophical systems of Indian civilisation: Nyaya -Vaishesika, Sankhya -Yoga and Mimansa-Vedanta respectively.
Types of Massage
Ayurvedic Massage, whilst an important practice for every body, in the prevention of disease as well as the maintenance of health is also involved in the treatment of many diseases. The range of procedures is extensive and a massage practitioner plays an important role in treatment delivery directed by an Ayurvedic Physician.
Without considerable on-going study of Ayurveda and its foundations, the massage therapist, however practiced in technique is necessarily limited; they will not be able to penetrate the wonders of Ayurveda or offer what is possible for the patient.
Finally, I trust this brief introduction will encourage you to study as a means for your health and well-being this vast subject.
Future articles will explore Ayurvedic massage in greater depth.
Resources
Caraka-Samhita Vols 1+2, Jaikrishnadas Ayurveda Series, Sharma,
Priyavrat (Ed/trans) Chaukhambha Orientalia.
The Ultimate Medicine, as prescribed by Sri Nisargadatta,
Ed. by Robert PowellBlue Dove Press
The Supreme Yoga, Yoga Vasisthatrans, Swami Venkatesananda
Chiltern Yoga Trust
Non-Dual Yoga of Jean Klein, Interview with Stephan Bodian
The Yoga Journal
Secrets of Marma, The Lost Secrets of Ayurveda, By Drs. Lele,
Ranade and Frawley Chaukambha Sanskrit Pratishthan
To Heal or to Harm, The Vital Spots in Two South Indian Martial Arts,
by Phillip B. ZarilliUniversity of Exeter
Ayurveda for Health and Long Life, by Dr. R.K. Garde Taraporevala Sons & Co.
New Atlas of Human Anatomy, 3D Anatomy National Library of Medicine Visual Human Project, Ed. Thomas McCracken
Anatographic, Ashtanga-Hridayam, by Vagbhata Prof. S. Murthy
(Ed/trans) Krishnadas Academy, Varanasi
Science of Soul, Self and God Realisation Series, Yogeshwarananda Saraswati Yoga Niketan Trust.
Four-Dimensional Man, Meditations through the Rg Veda,
by Antonio T de Nicolás, Nicholas Hays Ltd.
Massage Therapy in Ayurveda, Pancakarma Therapy Ayurveda Series,
by Vaidya Bhagwandash, Concept Publishing Company.
Ayurvedic Beauty Care, Ageless Techniques to invoke Natural Beauty,
by Melanie Sachs, Lotus Press.
Ayurveda and Aromatherapy, The Earth Essential Guide to Ancient
Wisdom and Modern Healing, by Drs. Light and Bryan Miller, Lotus Press.
Ancient Indian Massage, Based on Ayurveda, by Harish Johari Munshiram, Manoharial Publishers.
Ayurveda: Secrets of Healing, Complete Ayurvedic guide to healing
through Pancakarma, herbal remedies,diet, seasonal therapies and memory,
by Maya TiwariLotus Press.
Jennifer Thomas RGN BA
Ayurvedic Lifestyle
Counsellor 35 years in Community Public Health
14 years Study/Practice Ayurvedic Massage
8 years teaching
Ayurvedic Massage at Ayurveda Elements
and Nature Care College
Currently part-time Practice Nurse withCommunity Medical Centre
Private practice in Willoughby for 14 years
Phone 02 9958 8839
Email greatgoona@westnet.com.au