Prakriti and Pulse: The two Mysteries of Ayurveda by Verma Vinod

Author:Verma, Vinod [Verma, Vinod]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2014-05-19T16:00:00+00:00

Part II Nadi Priksha: The Pulse Diagnose

1 Pulse Diagnosis and Ayurveda

In the Vedic tradition, all disciplines of knowledge are systematized and that is also true for Ayurveda. Like in the other disciplines, in Ayurveda also, any new knowledge was assimilated after experimentation and after long time research to fit in with rest of the system. The ancient scholars were also very particular about the terminology of the new discipline. Interesting part of the Ayurvedic wisdom is that it always assimilated wisdom from all over the world and sometimes this knowledge was lost in their home countries but conserved in Ayurveda. This is particularly true about medicinal plants. At present, the plants in Ayurveda are imported from all over the world.

Pulse diagnosis is not a part of the scriptural tradition of Ayurveda but was integrated into it later, probably around 3 Century AD. However, it seems that it was assimilated completely and officially into the system around 5-6 Century AD. A sacred quality of the Vedic tradition is that once a discipline is accepted into a particular system, it is protected and conserved. In fact, this is the only tradition in the world which has been conserved unaltered in many aspects since antiquity.

The integration of knowledge from outer sources into the Vedic tradition was always done over a long period of time but in such a perfect way that ultimately it did not seem foreign at all. The concepts or techniques were officially integrated into written scriptures only after they had been penetrated in the tradition for several hundred years and were already moulded in the tradition and customs of the country. Sages devised the appropriate terminology for new knowledge and wrote on its relationship to the fundamental Vedic thinking and thus, composing appropriate literature. The perfect tailoring of the concepts was to such an extent that a century later, it was hard to tell between the indigenous and foreign knowledge.

Pulse diagnosis, which is an integral part of Ayurvedic practice, has somewhat similar story. It is not a part of the Vedic tradition and nor was it mentioned by Charaka or Sushruta. It first appeared in the Ayurvedic literature from around 5-6 Century AD. Nevertheless, there are many Ayurvedic Acharyas who try to establish that the pulse examination is from Vedic times. I have discussed this theme in the next chapter to illustrate the origin of pulse diagnosis from the Chinese tradition. The descriptions of Ayurvedic pulse examination is very different as compared to the Chinese, but the origin of this idea that the pulsation of blood vessels carried unique information on our body system is most likely Chinese.

Exchange of knowledge between different cultures of the globe has always existed in human history. The only difference is that the pace was very much slower in the former times. I do not know whether Hippocrates ever met with Sushruta or his students, but following story shows that the scientific and

Pulse Diagnosis and Ayurveda medical wisdom of the world was integrated and synthesized from the times immemorial.

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