Åyurveda classifies diseases as exogenous(caused by external factors,
such as fire), and endogenous(caused by impairment of the doÓsas). There
are four major subgroups of disease, because exogenous and endogenous
diseases may manifest in mind or body [CS 1:20.3]. As regards pain:
The exogenous diseases begin with pain, and then they bring about dis-
turbance in the equilibrium of the doÓsas. The endogenous diseases on
the other hand, begin with disturbance in the equilibrium of doÓsasand
then bring about pain.
CS 1:20.7Pain more often than not accompanies illness and injury; we associate
pain with disease, and freedom from pain with health. However, pain
and disease are not coextensive: Pain may occur to persons in good
health, and illness may be present without accompanying pain or imme-
diate suffering, for example, in the case of hypertension. Drew Leder’s
phenomenological analysis of the body and its “dys-appearance” in its
ordinary states of well-being reveals the experienced dimensions of pain
and disease:
The body stands out in times of dysfunction only because its usual state
is to be lost in the world—caught up in a web of organic and intentional
involvements through which we form one body with other things. To
say that the body is “absent,” a “being-away,” thus has a positive signif-
icance; it asserts that the body is in ceaseless relation to the world.^49Our associating pain with disease, Leder says, is not due merely to their
occurring together in time. A phenomenological association occurs as
well. “Disease tends to effect many of the same experiential shifts as does
pain”; disease and pain bring about disruption of our intentional links
with the world, and can constrict our spatiotemporal horizons.^50
An ambiguity regarding pain exists in the fact that pain, while gen-
erally undesirable, is critical to health, for it signals the presence of
threats to health.^51 Another ambiguity pertinent to pain is the fact that
pain often goes unrecognized. This claim might seem surprising, for the
meaning of ‘pain’ connotes the characteristic of being felt. However, it
commonly occurs that persons experience pain without accompanying
awareness of its existence, location, and severity. Diminished or delayed
awareness of pain can be a sign of a low degree of body awareness, some-
times caused by a high degree of involvement in one’s mental processes.
(However, the ability to mentally control pain can be an aspect of healthi-
ness.) In either case, awareness, discussed subsequently, presents itself as
62 religious therapeutics