Immunity in the Ayurvedic Translation
- dianadem
- Nov 7, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 14, 2023
We will try to bring out some keys around some seen and perhaps unseen concept of immunity from the Ayurvedic perspective with some additions from other knowledge bases.
The suggested reading of the previous Ayurvedic Translations can be found here
The term immunity in Ayurveda is best translated as vyadhikshamatva. Vyadhi in Sanskrit is to harm, to damage. Kshamatva in translation means resistance, keeping quiet and/or suppressing anger. The word together signifies being patient towards the disease and signifies the immunity towards the disease.
Immunity is also called more directly, Bala (power, strength), which can be classified into three categories:
Sahaja ("naturally born together") - congenital, natural, innate immunity
Kalaja ("derived from the time essence) - Seasonal, time and age-related immunity
Yuktikruta - acquired (also relates to humoral, adaptive) immunity
The Way of Life Force
Immunity is highly dependent on the ojas. The ojas is the purest essence of Kapha dosha, it is the quintessence of the tissues and is in other terms the purest product of all tissue metabolism. Ojas can also be called the life force. Sometimes in many articles the terms ojas and bala are told to mean the same thing, but first one is still the substance regulating immune factors, the latter is rather a force of potential to fight the diseases. Ojas carry the essence of cellular immune function regulation. The more ojas we have, the more substance we carry for bala to work well.
In a previous post here you can read more about the types of ojas.
It takes 40 days for ojas to be formed from initial nourishment, this is the process of full metabolism through the seven tissue levels: rasa dhatu (plasma, lymph)->rakta dhatu (blood)->mamsa dhatu (muscle)->meda dhatu (fatty tissue)->asthi dhatu (bone tissue)->majja dhatu bone marrow, nerve tissue)->shukra dhatu (reproductive tissue)->ojas
Ojas is related to electrochemical potential and it is told that after metabolizing in the heart (ojas regulates the rhythm of the heart), part of it also goes into the auric field.
By qualities ojas oily, sweet, cool, smooth, heavy. They have most of the qualities of milk and ghee.
As written in previous post, ojas is the substance of tejas. Tejas, pitta, and agni (digestive fire) are in many terms inter-related as is ojas, kapha and bala. It is described that "Agni is the blazing fire, while tejas, represents the transformation that happens when you go through the heat of practice and become the light of the fire."
To paraphrase, tejas is the pure essence of agni. It regulates cellular metabolism, cellular self-awareness or self-recognition, cellular intelligence.
Tejas qualities are light, sharp, hot penetrative, intelligent.
In a more poetic manner, tejas through it's light can bring up the true essence of ojas.
We need to discuss briefly the third component of vyadhikshamatva and that is prana. Prana relates to Vata dosha and in Sanskrit one of the meaning is "breath". It is the substance of our subtle body or etheric body and often also called the spiritual light. Prana is responsible for cellular regulation and communication as well as cellular consciousness. Thus, pranayama is a practice to improve cellular (and whole-body) consciousness and one of the results is better immunity.
If you ask what is the difference between the cellular awareness and consciousness. Well, that's a good question. We will try to open the topic up in later posts. Please feel free to send any questions directly or under comments for the future posts and discussions
Prakruti and Immunity
It is interesting to note that prakruti relates to the patterns of immunity, but it doesn't specifically define the overall power of immunity.
If for example you are Kapha dosha dominant person, your second dosha is Vata and third Pitta (K1V2P3). Accordingly, you would usually tend to have high ojas, medium prana and perhaps less tejas. This is importance in terms of susceptibility to certain types of diseases. For example, autoimmune disease are often causes by high tejas burning the ojas. That is one of the reason why Pitta dosha dominant person has to learn to guide and balance their fire.
We didn't discuss the tendencies to build up ama (the by--products) on the cellular surface and thus deficiencies of cellular recognition and communication. Hopefully there will be time created for going deeper into these topics soon
To conclude, immunity is a functional integration between the ojas, tejas and prana. These forces guide the body as a whole and guide each cell separately as well. These component together form the nature of vyadhikshamatva, in other word the patience to towards the disease
Wishing you patience and well-balanced immunity! Hope you have enjoyed this post
The References
1.The Concept of Immunity in Ayurveda Dr. M. Rathod, National Institute of Ayurveda
2.Kachare, Kalpana & Kar, Anukul. (2015). Concept of Vyadhikshamatva in Ayurveda- a key for healthy life. Indian Journal of Applied Research. 05. 425-426.
3. Modern and Gloab Ayurveda - Pluralism and Paradigms. Edited by Dagmar Wujastyk and Frederick M. Smith, 2008
4. Lecture notes from prof. Vasant Lad lecture "Immunity Simplified", November 2020
5. Ayurvedic Healing: Contemporary Maharishi Ayurveda Medicine and Science. 2012
6. www. sanskritstudies.org - The Importance of Agni and Tejas
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