n. 4/2000

Luisa Miccoli

In a world where culture has got to be spread by Internet, it’s important to look with full knowledge of the facts at cultures and worlds that up until now have been inaccessible, but for the privileged few, by cutting platitudes, conventional prejudices and images. In the medical field too it is required an open-mindedness that, not depriving of critical common sense, knows how to ascertain what is worthy out of the western scientific approach and which can be considered common and integration points.

A fascinating and complex land that has generated a dimension of being, a common philosophy of life and thought, very far from the European man or the north American one.

So it is proper patient’s interest toward these curing procedures that, even if having not the imprimatur of the western scientific caste, arise curiosity, disclose doubts, arise a prospectively wideness in curing that till few years ago were impossible and inaccessible.

Provided this interpretation key, let’s now know the ayurvedic medicine that is already at the top of the no conventional medicines “hit parade”, the most loved in Italy; we must move to India. It is required to deepen which is the heart of the Hindu philosophy, in order to understand where the spirit that animates the ayurvedic medicines starts from going on search of the patient’s psychophysical health and welfare.

By this way of looking at the matter, we met the maestro Amadio Bianchi, yoga, Hindu philosophy and ayurvedic massage teacher, who runs the C.Y. Surya Association in Milan.

L. M. - So now you will explain us in brief which are the principles the ayurvedic medicine lies on.

A. - It concerns a very ancient Hindu discipline, whose language is the Sanskrit; in this language the “ayurveda” term is composed by two terms “ayus” (life) and “veda”, whose stem comes from the verb “vid” (to know), and then due to a “sandy” concern, that is sound, ‘v’ turns in ‘r’ and becomes “ayu -r - veda” and so it can be translated as “acknowledgment” or “science of life”.

The interpretation the ayurveda gives about reality manifestations is dual kind, basing on the division of the elements it observes they are present in nature and therefore deemed as fundamental. The ayurveda has a contemplative soul, it directs to the contingent being and so it does not deal with the supernatural questions. It discovers two principles that in Sanskrit are defined as the “purusci”, the cosmic energy that we find in our body in the form of spiritual energy and the “practiri”, the material energy. These are the underlying principles that distinguish the ayurvedic medicine from the western one.

L. M. - Which are the possible synergies between the ayurvedic medicine and the western one?

A. - I believe that our culture has roots alike the ayurvedic. In Italy we say that we are made of body and soul and, if we want to look at the path of the concept underlying these two terms, we must start from the ancient India, than pass to Persians and following to the Greeks, till us nowadays!

In the ayurvedic medicine, the physician is somehow a scientist, a philosopher, a psychologist, and he is attentive to the individual as a whole. The psychosomatics, well then, is the key since many centuries to interpret the ayurveda physician’s approach to the patient, since there’s a close relationship between psyche and body, turning necessary a therapeutic approach on both, in order to bring back harmony, health and so welfare.

L. M. - Are there precedents in literature concerning this therapeutic technique?

A. - When “purusci” and “practiri” meet, life begins, being the “purusci” the male principle and “practiri” the feminine one. Universe, generated in a cosmic meaning by the unity of these two principles, is in act in all its qualities, that in Sanskrit has difficult names, but that, passing from the macro cosmos to the micro cosmos, are defined “kapa”, “pitta”, “vata”.

L.M - What do you mean by these three terms?

A. - These three forces that make universe run are the same that outline the body constitution.

We are in a universe where “purusci” and “practiri” live together, and in this fusion both must coexist harmonically in order to produce health and welfare. I’ll make you an example: nowadays man is unsatisfied by the point of view of the ayurveda because even if it is true that his physical part has solved in the sizeable cases his primary needs, it is true the same that he has neglected in the daily haste, his inwards part, making of stress his way of life.

Let’s go further beyond, standing that the manifestation put in act by the two elements in body has these three features: “rajas”, that is pure energy, “satva”, that is spiritual energy, and “tanas”, that is the most material energy.

L. M. - Where do these themes come from?

A. - These forces are translated in Sanskrit in further detailed terms and the “rajas” in the micro cosmos takes the name of “bitta”, the “tanas” becomes “kapa” and “satva” becomes “pitta”; they interlaces with the 5 natural elements of the Hindu culture: space, air, fire, water, earth. In order to understand each other we say that the “kapa” kind is a compound of earth and water mainly, the “pitta” is constituted by the fire energy, the heat, and the “vata” is space, air. In thin persons the ayurvedic medicine finds the ethereal of air, while in those better-built persons the ayurvedic medicine sees the prevalence of the earth element. It’s also real that starting from the constitutional basis we took with us along since birth, it can happen changes later making one element or another increase or decrease.

It concerns the life events, our mental and psychic responses influence a lot our being, unbalancing it and making it necessary the external help of the ayurveda physician, in order to bring the whole back to the harmony, where not only there’s the absence of diseases but there’s welfare.”

L. M. - Which are the diagnostic methods employed by the ayurvedic physician?

A - The ayurvedic physician, as already mentioned, looks at the individual he has in cure as a whole, and so he listens to him for a long time, he tries to frame the problems afflicting the patient in the work life, in the social environment or in family, he tries to bring comfort and to offer advises; a little as our ancient family doctors did, which accompanied patients since birth and shared with them joys and sorrows. That’s why the training of the ayurveda physicians was important, and still its is, at an extent that in India, in the past, they were educated in the so-called “ashiram” communities, where besides learning the medical practice, they could also approach the wisdom of the Hindu philosophy. Today there are famous universities as Poma, with university degrees and masters.

L. M. - How many are in our country the physicians that devote themselves to the ayurvedic medicine?

A. - This matter I would like to aware your readers against so many Hindus got to Italy that for the sole reason of being Hindu pass off as medical operators. Remind that India has an over a billion population and that in its medical class there are old hands and improvisers that can employ dangerous discoveries for health, if administered out of place! Indeed the ayurvedic physician has also the task to prepare drugs by himself, as our ancient pharmacists, being aware that the preparations have been derived always from natural elements and never from synthesis elements.

L. M. - Which are the herbs the most used within the ayurvedic medicine?

A. - Drugs come from everything you can see, watching at a tree, it’s over or under earth: from roots to bark, leaves, etc. To bring back to equilibrium the ayurvedic physician counts on a lot of those wisdoms that must later become good life habits, starting from a correct feeding, provided the patient’s constitution, the elements constituting it and those that are in excess or that lack; for example if an individual is “pitta”, that is particularly restless, he must avoid chocolate, being aware that this food stresses his ‘fire’ nervous charge!

So welfare starts-off from food then goes on with organism depuration by the means of the water element that eliminates toxins, and also with the intestine cleaning, as a preparation to be administered with real drugs. Well then the ayurveda introduces again the common sense hygienic rules, worthy all latitudes! It adds to them the undiscussed benefits of massage, mediation and yoga over body and psyche.

L. M. - All that provided we can go on now with some very important considerations with Maestro Amadio that we deem the utmost correct in evaluating the right space the ayurvedic medicine can find in the 2000 western society.

For example which role did the new age movement play in spreading this medicine?

A. - Without any doubt the new age contributed a lot to spread the message of the Hindu philosophy to the general public, by the means of a mass media information, unthinkable before, but all that happened to detriment of a serious approach, and by simplifying a lot and reducing all to the field of a mystic aspiration of modern man, disappointed by western models.

Many perceived the business and extemporized as ayurvedic operators, without any training, playing on the citizens’ ignorance. It is foreseen a law in order to rule all that; it seems to me dutiful besides urgent!

It has flourished centres lacking authorizations, physicians without degree, yoga operators and teachers with the only purpose to make money behind citizens’ back! I always recommend checking whom you apply for, for example bewaring of whom that besides the medical services sells homemade drugs. There are today in Italy serious enterprises that produce in an hygienic way and with controlled substances also the remedies prescribed by the ayurvedic medicine, and they can be easy found in our towns pharmacies.

Another point to underline strongly concerns the pathologies that can be approached by the ayurvedic medicine. It must be honest and say that for the diseases often affecting the western man, these therapies may be too mild.

To the liver of an alcoholist, for example the ayurvedic compounds must be ineffective! It is certainly true that in India alcoholism is not a problem and so it has not been ever necessary to deepen remedies. All that to explain two realities.

The first one is that the ayurvedic medicine is the result of the culture of a population, having features and problems sometimes far as different from ours, the second one is the necessity to collaborate, West and East, in the name of the health of men that rely on medical cures.

We’ve devoted this long excursus through the ayurvedic medicine, sure that standing the increase of the migratory wave, Italian physicians will have ever more often to deal with patients used to medicines that, even if traditional for patients, are instead deemed as “alternative” in the western scientific culture.

Provided its long history, the ayurvedic discipline cannot be exhausted in only an article, but it requires a further deepening we expect to give our readers in the next issues of the review.

Luisa Miccoli

Amadio Bianchi

And Gabriella De Marco