Chapter TwoMEANINGS OF HEALTH INA ̄YURVEDA
In Western philosophy of medicine, inquiries into health tend to focus
more on the meanings of disease, in part because disease demands con-
crete problem-solving for a variety of ills, while health is assumed to be a
unitary state equivalent to the absence of disease or dysfunction. This
chapter examines the notion of health as a positive state, rejecting the
narrow definition that health is simply the absence of disease. Contempo-
rary scientific medicine is oriented to treating specific syndromes to the
neglect of addressing the well-being of the whole person. This approach
to health and healing is being questioned by many patients and practi-
tioners.^1 Ancient and traditional health-care systems—such as India’s
Åyurveda—have roots in religious cosmologies that regard the person as
more than body or body/mind, but as inclusive of a spiritual dimension,
and as part of the natural world and the social world. An Åyurvedic
understanding of ‘medicine’ incorporates not just pharmacology, surgery,
and the other empirical disciplines we associate with the word. The close
relation of medicine and religion is reflected in the etymological fact that
the Indo-European root med, ‘to take appropriate measures,’ is the
source of the words ‘medicine’ and ‘meditation.’ Among med’sdescen-
dents are the Latin meder ̄ı,‘to look after,’ and meditar ̄ ̄ı ‘to think about.’
Traditional healing systems can broaden our views of the nature of
the person, and of religious, social, and environmental implications of
health and illness. They can also open perspectives for a more compre-
hensive understanding of health. The commonality of medicine and reli-
gion—at root, the perpetuation of human well-being—underlies concern
for both psychophysical and spiritual health in traditions across lands
and times. While Åyurveda has much to offer as a system of medicine and
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