Review Article: Advent of a Link between Ayurveda and Modern Health Science: The Proceedings of the First International Congress on Ayurveda, “Ayurveda: The Meaning of Life—Awareness, Environment, and Health” March 21-22, 2009, Milan, Italy
Abstract
The last session focused attention on health as the harmonic outcome of a proper balance among the systems of mutual relationships determining the reality of living beings. Dr. G. G. Gangadharan (Joint Director, Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions, Bangalore, India), who chaired this session, in his exploration on “How the Idea of Relationships/Srotas Can Determine the Concept of Diagnosis in Ayurveda,” talked about the gross channels particularly their clinical and pathological aspects reconnecting with Professor Singh’s emphasis on the basis concepts of Srotovijnan of Ayurveda. Physicians generally consider the Srotas (channels), which have physical expressions, as nutrients/biological fluid transporters. The body is free from disease when the Srotas functions normally. If the Srotas gets occluded or malfunctioned due to internal or external factors, the altered flow creates an accumulation of products, mainly toxic, leading to functional, and later, organic alterations. More deeply, the concept of Manovaha Srotas (mind-body channels) brings together the structural and nonstructural or physical and nonphysical Srotas. Thus, Ayurvedic physicians describe pathogenesis in terms of structural or functional alteration of the Srotas of body and mind. Dr. Gangadharan concluded that the analysis of Srotas plays a very important role in the diagnosis of disease.