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Metaphysical fitness |
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Metaphysical fitness and Ayurvedic medicine - Medical Anthropology
Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, April, 2003 by Tim Batchelder Continued from page 3. Similarly, while seemingly more natural cold water baths are indeed seen as superior for promoting fitness and very hot water bathing is considered harmful, after a long trip or manual labor, hot baths are prescribed (Rao 1987:34.)Asesame oil body massage is often added to this hot bath which is considered body building and referred to as abhyanga and according to Rao (1987:35) is said to prevent aging, equalize the body constituents, pacify vata, cure intractable headaches, invigorate the sense organs, improves eye-sight, physical strength and mental cheer, make the skin bright, soft and free from dirt, remove fatigue, facilitate sleep, acts like a hair-tonic (preventing hair from falling or greying, and making the hair roots firm) and refresh the individual. In short, when you take one of these baths, you aren't just cleaning yourself, you're making yourself into a whole new person. Because health is intrinsically compromised by the natural order of things, physical fitness is the only logical alternative, as Alter puts it. A modern encyclopedia of Indian medicine explains that the bath (Sabda-kalpadruma, quoted in Rao 1987:34) gives strength, nourishes the body, gives long life, cheers the mind, improves semen, increases appetite, invigorates digestion, increases vitality (ojas), cleans the body, clears the skin of dirt and itches, reduces morbid heat in the body, stops fatigue, ends thirst and inflammation, and reduces the effect of toxins. Sleep is considered to lead to virility, longevity, strength, nourishment, happiness, balanced body constituents, alertness, good vision, complexion, and digestion. Alter suggests that all of these claims are ones of improvement -- not just treatment. Eyesight is not just maintained but improved; thirst is not just quenched but eliminated; drowsiness and fatigue are not just ameliorated but removed; and sleep does not just give the body rest but imparts happiness, nourishment, virility, and longevity. Food, Semen and the Metabolic Fire In Ayurveda all food is considered medicine (Khare 1976a, b, 1992a; Khare and Rao 1986; Nichter 1986; Seneviratne 1992; see also Caraka-Samhita, Sutrasthana, 27). Zimmermann (1987:203) notes that cuisine and pharmacy, nourishment and remedy are considered the same. Nutrition promotes more than just the homeostasis of the body's organic functions but a structural metamorphosis of its constituent properties. Using the principle of sympathetic magic in which like nourishes like, sattvic food promotes a sattvic personality; phlegmy food causes phlegm to predominate and consumption of fat promotes the development of fat, consumption of blood promotes blood etc. (CarakaSarhhita, Sarrasthanam). In the body food is cooked by digestion and its nutritive juices (annarasa) are transformed into chyle (rasadhatu) then into blood (rakta), flesh (mamsa), fat (medas), bone (asthi), marrow (majid), and semen (sukra). It takes 28 days for annarasa to become semen and since only a little bit of each of the seven dhatus is tran sformed into the next in sequence, a small amount of semen is distilled from a large volume of raw food. Thus the most condensed substances are the most subtle and closest to the universal essence (White 1984:5 0). At the apex of this hierarchy is ojas, the essence of all essences, and the physiological analogue of divine shakti and manifestation of power, vigor, fitness, and ultimate vitality. Foods are also ordered according to a pyramid in which carnivores are at the top of the food chain, herbivores in the middle and plants at the bottom, and meat is considered the most condensed, nutritious food because it contains all the virtues of the meats the animal ate which are added to those of their own flesh, producing a superconcentrate (Zimmermana 1987:160) and making meat the best food to produce plumpness.. The liver of a freshly killed, healthy young female animal is considered the best cut of meat (Singhal and Patterson 1993:7). However, the meat and blood of lions and leopards is considered of pharmaceutical quality and used for treatment of serious illness. Flesh is precondensed and enters the sequence of human digestion at a point closer to semen. According to the susruta-samhita partridge meat increases semen and memory, improves complexion and is constipating and sparrow meat cures bleeding and greatly increases semen (Siaghal and Patterson 1993). In Ayurveda you are not what you eat but greater and more refined than what you eat. Digestion of food entails the agency of fire (dhatvagnis) and eating and digestion (internal cooking) are metabolic sacrifice. The body's inner fire (antaragni) is the fiery liquid that is bile, phlegm is lunar (saumya) fluid, and the microcosmic wind bears the same name as it does in the macrocosm (vayu or vata) (White 1996:22). The meal is a sacrifice in which the maintainer of the fire (ahitagni) provides as offerings to his internal fire (antaragnaujuhoti) foods that are wholesome in order to escape disease (Zimmermana 1987: 205). The Brahmin tries to perfect himself on a deeply metabolic, biological level using cooking and eating as the ultimate form of self-sacrifice. Meals should include fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and young cereals prepared at moderate temperature in a kitchen that is supervised by a physician and eaten on a high seat in a quiet place and in a slow manner. Fruit is to be eaten first, followed by liquids, then solids. Sweet tasting foods should be first, then sour and salt, with the other tastes following this. The mouth should be washed frequently with water and water should be drunk after the meal and a toothpick used. Aromatics such as betel nut should be used to clean the mouth and prevent an increase in kapha. Finally, one should sit down for a while, then take a short walk and lay down on the left side (Siaghal and Patterson 1993:9). In Ayurveda, eating and digestion are considered a form of physical exercise, a metabolic and humoral workout that builds up transmutable substances just as we build muscles. More by way of food pharmacy, another important part of the ayurvedic daily routine is regular smoking and taking of snuff. Snuff cures facial paralysis, lock jaw, chronic rhinitis, and head tremors, and leads to metabolic strength and physiological fitness (Caraka-Samhita, Sutrasthana). Proper snuffing prevents decline in vision, and smell, and stops hair loss, making hair grow abundantly. It also strengthens veins, joints, ligaments and tendons of the skull, makes the face cheerful and well developed, the voice melodious, stable and grave. Lack of sleep causes misery, emaciation, weakness, sterility, and early death according to Vagbhata (Rao 1987). Similarly, devotional ingestion of special foods may serve as methods of physio-cosmological transmutation (Babb 1983:3051). Moreno (1992:148) explains that pancamirtam is a powerful elixir food offering that is used to wash the god Murukan's excess of cold and is thereby "enriched" with a subtle residue from his body allowing Cettiyars to restore in their natu res the greatness and goodness (sattvika perumai) qualities they lost in the past (1992:166, 167; see also Babb 1983:307.) Exercise and Digestive Power
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