The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c10.68

c10.68

We should also take note of the nature of entities arranged besides the breaths in the preceding litanies; these are the organs or the psychic faculties or they refer to psychic activity. Now according to the physiology of the Āyurveda, the breaths are the agents or the motors of these faculties and of these organs in the body. It is not by accident that they are put side by side in the litanies of the Yajurveda. Moreover the speculation of the authors of the Brāhmaṇas and the Upaniṣads has given rise to numerous texts which give us an insight into relations conceived in ancient times between organic breaths and psychic phenomena, particularly sensorial ones. The “prāṇic”, “pneumatic” nature of the ātman, of the soul is a major principle of Vedic philosophy. It is not, therefore, surprising that from the epoch of the Yajurveda, the organic breaths have been placed beside the elements of psychic activity. The medicine of Suśruta and Caraka, in explaining the psychic activity in terms of the interplay of the prāṇas, was once again following the organic tradition of Vedic antiquity.