Psychological healing and faith in the doctrine of Karma.

Tags:

• Faith
• healing
• HINDU philosophy
• KARMA
• MENTAL representation

Metaphor and Illness Classification in Traditional Thai Medicine

Cognitive Process: A Buddhist explanation of information process and its congruent reactions

Notes:

• Applies Buddhist philosophy to cognitive processes; positions BUddha as a cognitive psychologist meditation The author presents a Buddhist understanding of the cognitive process of incoming information, its circulation and its congruent reactions based on the Buddhist spiritual meditative tradition of South and Southeast Asia. He asserts that Buddha can be credited as the first cognitive psychologist who propounded one of the most comprehensive analytic systems of cognitive process with an ultimate aim of achieving an altered psychological state of positive change and equilibrium reaction. Abstract from a paper given at the Epilepsy, Brain and Mind conference in March 2010, in Prague, Czech Republic.

The Buddha as a fully functioning person: toward a person-centered perspective on mindfulness

The Indus Valley Origin of a Yoga Practice

"Science" vs. "Religion" in Classical Ayurveda

Tags:

• Medicine, Ayurvedic
• Science and religion

Notes:

• This paper evaluates claims that classical Ayurveda was scientific, in a modern western sense, and that the many religious and magical elements found in the texts were all either stale Vedic remnants or later brahminic impositions. It argues (1) that Ayurveda did not manifest standard criteria of “science” (e.g., materialism, empirical observation, experimentation, falsification, quantification, or a developed conception of proof) and (2) that Vedic aspects of the classical texts are too central to be considered inauthentic or marginal. These points suggest that attempting to apply the modern western categories of “science” and “religion” to ancient South Asian medical texts at best obscures more important issues and, at worst, imports inappropriate orientalist assumptions. Having set aside the distraction of “science” vs. “religion” in classical Ayurveda, the paper finds support for claims that brahminic elements were later additions to the texts. It concludes by arguing that this is best explained not in terms of a conceptual tension between religion and science but in terms of social and economic tensions between physicians and brahmins.

On the Meaning of Yoga

Samādhi in Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras

Āyurveda and the Hindu Philosophical Systems

Tags:

• Medicine, Ayurvedic

Ayurveda: a historical perspective and principles of the traditional healthcare system in India

Tags:

• History, Ancient
• Humans
• India
• Medicine, Ayurvedic

Notes:

• Ayurveda, the science of life, is a comprehensive medical system that has been the traditional system of healthcare in India for more than 5000 years. This medical system was well established around 2500 to 600 BC, when it evolved into 2 schools: the School of Physicians and the School of Surgeons, similar to allopathy. Charak Samhita, Susrut Samhita, and Ashtang Hridaya Samhita are the Senior Triad texts, and Madhav Nidan Samhita, Sarangdhar Samhita, and Bhavprakash Samhita are the Junior Triad texts. Around 600 BC. Ayurveda was branched into internal medicine; pediatrics; psychiatry; surgery; eye, ear, nose, and throat; toxicology; geriatrics; and eugenics/aphrodisiacs. The body is composed of 3 body doshas, 3 mental doshas, 7 dhatus, and malas. The harmony among the body doshas of vata (nervous system), pitta (enzymes), and kapha (mucus) and the gunas, or mental doshas (which are human attributes: satogun [godly], rajas [kingly], and tamas [evil]), constitutes health, and their disharmony constitutes disease. The management of illness requires balancing the doshas back into a harmonious state through lifestyle interventions, spiritual nurturing, and treatment with herbo-mineral formulas based on one’s mental and bodily constitution.

Inspiration and Expiration: Yoga Practice through Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of the Body

Notes:

• An interpretation of the yoga practice of pranayama (breath control) that is influenced by the existential phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty is offered. The approach to yoga is less concerned with comparing his thought to the classical yoga texts than with elucidating the actual experience of breath control through the constructs provided by Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of the lived body. The discussion of yoga can answer certain pedagogical goals but can never finally be severed from doing yoga. Academic discourse centered entirely on the theoretical concepts of yoga philosophies must to some extent remain incomplete. Patañjali’s “Yoga Sutra” is itself a manual of practice. For this reason, the commentary of the scholar-practitioner T. K. V. Desikachar has been chosen as the basis for this study, rather than a more exclusively theoretical commentary. In so doing, yoga will be approached as an experience or phenomenon, not just in the context of a series of academic debates.

Medical science in ancient Indian culture with special reference to Atharvaveda

Tags:

• History, Ancient
• India
• Medicine
• Medicine, Ayurvedic
• Science

Notes:

• A high quality of Medical Knowledge was prevalent in ancient India. The present day Archaeological evidences of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa imparts the high civilization in matters of sanitation and hygiene. An analysis of the material in the Vedas reveals that, all the four Vedas replete the references regarding various aspects of medicine. The Atharva Veda is deemed to be an encyclopaedia for medicine “Interalia”, and Ayurveda (the science of life) is considered as Upa Veda (supplementary subject) of the Atharva Veda. A few glimpses of medical Science as prevalent in the ancient India have been presented here.

The Development of Modern Yoga: A Survey of the Field

Introduction to Garudapurăna with reference to Ayurvĕda

Tags:

• Encyclopedias as Topic
• History, Ancient
• India
• Medicine, Ayurvedic

Notes:

• The Puranas are the encyclopedic works of the ancient and medieval Hindu religion, philosophy, history, politics, ethics, sciences etc. There are 18 (Astadasa) puranas, which are, considered as mahapuranas, among which Garudapurana is popular one. The Garudapurana is divided into two parts viz., Purvakhanda and Uttarakhanda. The first part, which is also called Acarakhanda consists of 240 chapters. The greater part of the Purvakhanda occupies the descriptions of Vratas (religious observances), sacred places dedicated to the Surya (sun), Lord Siva and Lord Visnu. It also contains treatises on various aspects like astrology, palmistry, politics, Sankhya, Yoga, anatomy, precious stones and extensive information on vedic medicine i.e., Ayurveda. The Uttarakhanda consists of two khandas viz. Dharmakhanda and Brahmakhanda, which are divided into 42 and 29 chapters, respectively. The Dharmakhanda is also known as the Pretakalpa which contains directions for the performance of obsequies rites. The Pretakalpa portion of the Garudapurana is generally recited during the period of mourning and so its importance is self-evident. It is almost impossible to narrate within such a small framework, the wide range of splendid truths scattered in the pages of this noble puranam. Little information is available from internal evidence to establish its exact period. However, it is supposed to be quite ancient in its origin.

Yoga and Freedom: A Reconsideration of Patañjali's Classical Yoga

Notes:

• Rather than follow along the lines of many scholarly interpretations of Patañjali’s “Yoga-Sutra,” which views Yoga as a radical separation or isolation of “spirit” or pure consciousness (purusa) from “matter” (prakrti), this essay suggests that the “Yoga-Sutra” seeks to “unite” or integrate these two principles by correcting a basic misalignment between them. Yoga thus does not advocate the abandonment or condemnation of the world, but supports a stance that enables one to live more fully in the world without being enslaved by worldly identification.

The Evolution of Anatomical Knowledge in Ancient India, with Special Reference to Cross-Cultural Influences

Notes:

• Ludwig Edelstein’s study of the history of Greek anatomy will be used as a model to examine the evolution of anatomical knowledge in ancient India. The earliest evidence of Indian anatomy is found in the Vedic literature, dating from 1500 B. C. to 200 B. C. It provides a clear picture of the acquisition of anatomical knowledge by means of the sacrifice of animals, principally the horse, and of men; chance observations contributed a comparatively small amount to the body of anatomical knowledge. As a result of these sacrificial rites quite accurate lists of bodily structures of the horse and of man have been recorded and transmitted by means of the traditional religious texts. These catalogues remained the principal sources of anatomy until the first centuries of the Christian era, when we find a codification of Indian medical knowledge in the surgical text, Susruta Saṃhitā. Isolated in a chapter on anatomy, a new approach to the study of the bodily parts is recommended: in order to acquire the most complete understanding of the human body the author prescribes that first-hand observation of the parts should be combined with textual learning and proceeds to detail the correct method to dissect a cadaver. This precept, reflecting a characteristically non-Indian attitude, may well have had its origin in the Alexandrian school of medicine, in particular in the teachings of Herophilus in the first half of the third century B. C. The instruction which added a wholly new dimension to Indian anatomical thought could have been transmitted to India around the time of Alexander. As in the Hellenistic world, scientific dissection was not readily accepted by the Indian medical community and its practice quickly vanished. During the short time it was known and performed in India, some advances seem to have been made in the understanding of the inner parts of the human body, increasing the store-house of anatomical knowledge already possessed by the Indian physicians. A similar technique of dissection is detailed in the twelfth century Salernitan anatomical text, Anatomia magistri Nicolai phisici. This remarkable occurrence poses questions, the answers to which cannot be definitely given until more evidence becomes available. The paper concludes with a critical translation of chapter five on the “enumeration and distinction of the bodily parts” in the book of anatomy of the Susruta Samhita.

The Science of Respiration and the Doctrine of the Bodily Winds in Ancient India

Tags:

• Medicine, Ayurvedic

Notes:

• The following historical and philological study traces the science of respiration and the doctrine of the bodily winds through ancient Indian religious and technical literature. Basic notions about respiration and bodily winds appear in the literature of the vedic samhitas and brahmanas. By the end of the principal upanisads these early ideas begin to be codified into two separate systems. One, emphasizing a physiology of bodily winds, reaches its traditional formulation in the classical medical literature of Ayurveda, the other, focusing on respiration, attains its classical formulation in Yoga. The two unite later, when Yoga integrates medical theory into its science of respiration. Asceticism is the common thread connecting the various stages in the development of respiration and bodily winds.

Religious Healing in the Veda