Chapter 5 - The Ethical Note in Ayurveda

It is remarkable that despite the wide divergencies in their conclusions regarding the nature of reality, the religions of the world are unanimous in their sense of the ethical values of life. Elimination of envy, hatred, covetousness and wickedness and the practice of goodness, love and self-sacrifice are universally acclaimed as the right way of life. These lead to the control of the senses and mind and imply the necessary discipline and inner purity. The various and principally the six systems of Indian philosophy as also the Buddhistic and Jain systems of thought are united in their upholding of righteous conduct and mental and emotional purity as the means to liberation whatever be the nature of that liberation. A theistic belief is not essential to the upholding of such a high ethical ideal of life. Buddhism, as well as Sankhyaism and the Mimamsa doctrines are avowedly ethical in their ideal and uphold rigorous discipline of the mind and the heart in the interests of the supreme fulfilment of life. It is quite evident from the ethical history of man that there is an inner compulsion that extorts his instinctive allegiance to what is right, good, and virtuous Despite man’s inability to believe in a creator God, he accepts the mystical efficiency and fruit-bearing power of the good and evil ways of life. The faith in the invisible power of action, known as ‘Karma’, is the product of the same instinct and here in Caraka, we find ample witness to that early faith of man in the efficiency of good and evil actions.

The Vaisheshika doctrine with the expounding of which the Caraka Samhita virtually begins, is concerned primarily with teaching righteous living. The Sutras of Kanada begin with the aphorism “we shall now expound the nature of virtue”, The origin of Ayurveda curiously is also for the preservation of humam lives that they may be dedicated without hindrance to austerity, meditation and discipline of mind. It is the feeling of love and compassion for suffering humanity that first gave rise to the sages’ efforts to discover the science of medicine. (Caraka Sūtra VI, 7).

Notwithstanding the absolute nature of the inner compulsion for goodness and duty, the generality of mankind is impelled only by the fear of evil effects and the hope of happiness resulting from vice and virtue respectively. This is the hypothesis or the concept of Karma, the inquiry of whose teleology is futile. It must therefore be regarded as beginningless though it is given to man to put an end to it. The diversity of the initial circumstances and equipment with which men are brought into this life is accountable only in terms of the diversity of the causal actions and tendencies of their previous lives. This total causal force by whose residual energy a person is catapulted into this life is known as destiny (Vidhi or Daiva). In Caraka it is called Daiva and the fresh initiation of action in the present life ‘Purusakara’. This doctrine of previous incarnations implied by Karma is made out effectively according to Caraka by all the four methods of ascertainment viz., scriptural testimony, direct perception, inference and common sense. The great sages possessed of infallible vision, by virtue of their meritorious life, have declared the existence of rebirth unequivocally. (Sūtra 11.28-29).

From direct perception we find the following:

[Sūtrasthāna 11.30]

“The children are unlike their parents. Those born of the same conditions are possessed of different traits of color, voice, shape, mind and intellect. People are born of higher and lower castes Some are born slaves and some overlords, they are endowed with varying degrees of happiness, grief and life-span. New born babies without any acquaintance before, seek for the mother’s breast, weep and cry and show fear. This would not be possible in the absence of memory coming from previous births. The children are born with various marks on their bodies. They show a variety in their skill and tendencies, and sometimes possess a memory of previous birth. Cakrapani, the commentator on Caraka, in his note on the phrase, suggests that it may also mean that some men return to their bodies after death being sent back by the messengers of Yama who had taken them as a result of mistaken identity”.

The above are agreed facts of direct evidence in life and justify the faith in a previous incarnation which explains these varied phenomena.

Taking now to the method of inference, it must be known that the actions of a previous birth must be fully experienced to put an end to them. And in every life fresh action is also undertaken. Hence there is a continual residue of action whose fruits are yet to be reaped. This is known as ‘Daiva’ the unseen factor that ushers in life in the present birth One has to infer the nature of the seed from the fruit as the fruit is always true to the nature of the seed. Common sense speaks to the same effect. It is only the action that has already been accomplished that bears fruit Fruit cannot come out of nothing. The fruit of action is similar in nature to the causal action, for we see that a particular fruit and not a different fruit comes out of a particular seed. (Sūtra XI, 31-32)

This leads us on to the further problems of the predestination of the nature of this life. As a supreme example of this, Atreya discusses the problem of the span of life of a man. If this life and all its happiness be totally the result of action in the previous birth hts life span must be already determined and neither spiritual or physical healing will avail anything. In such a case the science of healing is utterly useless and has no place in a world where a life can be neither prolonged by medicine nor shortened by disease. It is useless to talk of either saving or killing a man but Atreya has a way out of this m morass of predestination. He describes three kinds of action the powerful, the moderate and the weak actions. (Vijnana III 31)

This life is not wholly in the grip of the past for there is scope for fresh initiation of new action which is known as Purushakara. This latter too is of three kinds—powerful, moderate and weak. If past action be moderate or weak, it can be overcome by powerful fresh action in this life. If the present action be moderate or weak, only the powerful action of the past will assert itself and have its full effect. It is therefore possible by powerful action in the present to neutralise and overcome the result of moderate or mild past action. Hence man must pursue the righteous life intensely. He can be his own architect by action in the present life. This is a great and hope-inspiring positive provision that Atreya holds up for mankind without which there would be no justification for any good and reformist effort in life, and particularly for a reformative and curative science like medicine. This is a very significant contribution to metaphysical thought that Atreya has made while discussing the ways and possibility of averting the results of past action. He says that ‘Daiva’ gets nullified by stronger ‘Purusakara’ and similarly the stronger ‘Daiva’ overpowers the ‘Purusakara (Vimāna 3.33-34) This mutual counteracting is inevitable but sometimes does not occur according to the relative strength of the two kinds of action and also due to the time factor. But it is wrong to take either of them to hold the field exclusively. (Vimāna III, 34-35).

With this background in view we shall find the necessity for an intense, almost frantic pursuit of the good life. The Smrtis say that man must pursue righteousness as if death had caught him already by his forelock.

[Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 17.113]

[gṛhīta iva keśeṣu mṛtyunā dharmamācaret]

In Caraka, all mental and spiritual evils like the bodily ailments are regarded as diseased conditions due to volitional transgression (prajñāparādha). That is as it should be. Modern philosophers regard crime and wickedness as pathological conditions and that punishment is to be accorded from a reformative and therapeutic point of view. Atreya’s view has all the freshness, humanity and scientific nature of the modern outlook on moral evil.

Rajas and Tamas are the ill-humors of the mind even as Vata, Pitta and Kapha are of the body. Self-restraint, moderation, dedication to the study of scriptures and meditation are described as constituting the psychic or divine therapy. This divine therapy is described in great elaboration and is called ‘Sadvritta’ (Sūtra 1.58).

Atreya declares that all action results from the operation of speech, mind and body. That is of three kinds: excessive operation, non-operation and wrong operation. This is based on the threefold divisions of sense-contact with the external objects which are excessive contact, non-contact and wrong contact, all of which constitute the factors of disease. Complete suspense of action of speech, mind and body is non-operation. Excessive exercise of them is over-action. Forced suppression or forced excitation of the natural urges, awkward stumbling, falling and posturing of limbs, abusing the body, injuring the body, violent kneading of the limbs and forced holding of the breath and other kinds of self-mortification are misuse of the body Misuse with reference to speech is indulgence in language that is insinuating, untrue, untimely, quarrelsome, unpleasant, incoherent, unhealthful, harsh etc. The misuse with reference to the mind consists of giving way to fear grief, anger, greed, infatuation, self-conceit, envy, deluded thinking etc.

These should be corrected and the way of correcting the defects of the body and mind constitute medicine in general. But those of the mind require the practice of a regimen of conduct, made up of mental and emotional discipline. This is otherwise known as the good life (Sadvritta) or ‘Dharma’, or righteous behaviour. The inclination for righteousness must be continually kept up by effort for there is a natural decline of that tendency in men from age to age.

Atreya says elsewhere,

[Vimānasthāna 3.24-25]

“In every succeeding age there is a fourth part of righteousness dwindling down, and similarly the qualities of-things. In the world and the lifespan of people too go down at the rate of one year for every hundredth part of the age”.

Man must therefore be ever vigilant in countering this tendency and pursue the good life with all his strength, with all his mind and with all his soul. Atreya described the good life as constituting the factors for happiness and long-life in this world and also for liberation of the spirit (Sūtra 8.18).

Thus the good life is not only that which gives spiritual fulfilment and final liberation but also one which is fraught with good in this life avoiding the ill-tempers of the mind which may even culminate in psychic diseases such as insanity, epilepsy and other diseases and make the body subsceptible [susceptible?] to somatic disease also. The good life therefore from the points of view of happiness in this life as well as in the next, and final liberation, must be assiduously practised, for Ayurveda is the science in which the well being in both the worlds is established, as well as the means of final liberation of man, the aggregate being. (Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 1.41)

“That is named the Science of Life wherein are laid down the good and the bad life, the happy and the unhappy life, and what is wholesome and what unwholesome in relation to life, as also the measure of life”