Aetiological Factors which increase Doshas, interaction of man and Environment to cause a Disease

Ayurveda for a healthy life ! – 21/2024     1.2.2024

3.       Dosha-vruddhi-karanani – Factors which increase various doshas

Various factors like diet, activities, environmental and psychological factors, medicines, age etc. affect the doshas. These are enumerated in the following table. For details the reader may refer to my book ‘Principles of Ayurveda’.

Aetiological factors which increase doshas

	Particulars	Vata	Pitta	Kapha
1.	Environment	Cold, dry breeze, storm, cloudy weather, cold climate	Heat, dust, smoke hot and dry climate	Rain, cold  and humid climate
	Season	Greeshma, Varsha that is summer and rainy seasons	Varsha, Sharad Greeshma that is summer, autumn and rainy seasons	Hemant, Shishir Vasant that is spring and winter
	Time of day	Evening 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.	Afternoon 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.	Morning 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.
	Time of night	Late night 2 a.m. to 6 a.m.	Mid night 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.	Early night 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
	Relation to  meals	After food is completely digested	During digestion	Immediately after meals

		Vata	Pitta	Kapha
2.	Diet
	Pulses	Chana (gram), moong (green gram), masur ( lentils), tur (pigeon peas), harenu, vatana (peas), beans	Kulith (horse gram), mustard,  udid (black gram), atasi (linseed), vatana (peas)	Udid (black gram), sesame seed (Til)
	Cereals	Vari, ragi, koradush		Yava, wheat, krushara, pruthuka (poha), shashkuli (karanji)
	Leafy-vegetables	Chuka, dry leafy vegetables	Shrunga, velika shaka	Mrunal-bisa, (Lotus stalk)
	Other Vegetables	Onion, carrot	Drumstick, elephant foot	Kasheruka, shrungataka
	Fruits	Jamun, tinduka, watermelon	Sour fruit, tamarind peelu, amrataka, jambir	Dates, coconut, mocha, sugarcane
	Fats & Oils		Til oil	Ghee
	Meat		Godha, fish, goat, sheep	Meat and fat of animals from wet region
	Milk and milk products		Curds, buttermilk kurchika, water over curds	Milk, curd, payasam, ghee, apupa, amaksheera, kilata, morata, kurchika, piyusha
	Alcohols and wines	Some types of wine		Most of the wines and alcohol
	Miscella-neous	Inadequate food, dry food, kanji	Cow’s urine, bhallataka, pepper, langalika	Preparations of sugarcane juice, jaggery, phanita
	Diet which aggravates the doshas	Light diet, fasting, irregular diet, inadequate diet	Fasting, penance, incompatible diet, indigestion, burnt food	Indulging in tasty food, drinking excessive amounts of water in general and at night, eating excess of nouri­shing diet, indigestion

Sr No.	Particulars	Vata	Pitta	Kapha
3.	Pancha-karma	Following excessive use of panchakarma
4.	Natural urges	Suppression or induction of natural urges
5.	Psycho-logical factors	Fear, sorrow, eagerness, anger, worry, study, trouble, excessive joy	Anger, fear, sorrow, envy	Laziness, excessive joy
6.	Qualities Taste	Astringent, bitter and pungent	Sour, salty and pungent	Sweet, sour and salty
	Veerya	Cold	Hot	Cold
	Qualities	Dry, light, clean and constipating food	Hot, light and fermenting food	Semisolid, oily, heavy, moist, soft, bulky, smooth and slimy food
7.	Activity
	Activity	Excessive activity	Excessive activity	Less activity
	Exercise	Excessive +	Excessive +	Lack of exercise, laziness, inactivity of body, mind and speech
		Injury, swimming, carrying heavy loads, traveling, controlling bullocks horses and elephants, adventures, wrestling	Exposure to sun	Rest in excess, Sleeping during day

	Speech	Loud and excessive	Excessive	Less
	Sex	Excessive	Excessive	Less
	Sleep	Less, keeping awake at night	Less	Excessive sleeping during day also
8.	Age	Old age	Youth	Childhood

4.       Pradnyaparadha

Not following dictates of one’s own conscience.

धीधृतिस्मृतिविभ्रष्टः कर्म यत् कुरुतेऽशुभम् ।
प्रज्ञापराधं तं विद्यात् सर्वदोषप्रकोपणम् ।। – च. शा. १.१२०

Not following dictates of one’s own conscience is the root cause of all the illness. One often follows a wrong path in spite of knowing its consequences. Even an intelligent man falls a prey to various desires and instincts. Then what to talk about less intelligent people, who cannot distinguish between the right and the wrong, the good and the bad etc. or those who have defective memory. The following are some of the examples of “Pradnyaparadha”.

A.     Suppressing natural urges.

B.    Undertaking unusual adventures.

C.     Excessive indulgence in sex.

D.    Rude behaviour.

E.    Not respecting elderly people and teachers.

F.     Indulging in cultivated tastes rather than following natural desires and aversions.

G.     Excessive indulgence in alcohol or other intoxicating items.

H.    Not following righteous path.

I.      Becoming angry, jealous, frightful and greedy and acting accordingly.

Lack of control over one’s desires and actions, not following the dictates of one’s own conscience and excessive indulgence in the worldly pleasures and non-religious acts are responsible for the decrease in life span as well as gradual decrease in health, vigour and resistance to diseases over ages that is through Kruta, Treta, Dwapara and Kaliyugas.

5.       Kalakruta karanarni that is environmental factors

Life and health depend on the continuous interaction between man and his environment. The environment is never steady and keeps on changing every moment example temperature, humidity, light, sound, breeze etc, at any place keep on fluctuating from moment to moment, morning to evening and season to season.

In summer, the dry air which we breathe in continuously and with which the skin is in constant contact increases the dryness of the body. This in turn would result in increase of vata dosha in the body which also is dry. The burning heat of October that is sharad season would tend to increase the heat in the body, which in turn would result in increase of pitta dosha, which is also hot in nature. The cold atmosphere of the winter would tend to lower the body temperature, which in turn would result in increase of kapha in the body, which is cold in nature.