Adjusting to Context-Based Thinking in Indian Sciences
Indian sciences are so personal, there is never one clear answer!
One of the most defining features of Ayurveda is how individual and personal it is. If three patients come to an Ayurveda Vaidhya presenting with the same symptom (e.g. constipation), they will all walk away with different medicines and treatment plans. That is because Ayurveda is a context-based science.
An Ayurveda Vaidhya considers the full context surrounding the disease - the person’s age, occupation, day-to-day lifestyle, diet, the current season, vitiated Doshas, vitiated Dhatus, Agni level, Ama level, current planetary positions, mental strength, etc. Based on the full knowledge of the combination of all these factors, treatment is prescribed. Since each person would have a different combination of all these factors (despite the end result manifesting as the same disease), they will get a different personal treatment.
For the same reason, there are no absolutes in Ayurveda - such as “this food is always bad”. The same food that is good for you in the summer might be poison for you in the winter. The happiness of mind you get from eating the worst junk food once in a while might be more important than the poisonous qualities in it. Mercury in its unprocessed state is poison. But when processed via the procedures as outlined in Rasa Shastra, becomes the most potent medicine.
This is why it is so hard to learn Ayurveda as a Westerner. We want to know the “one correct answer”, but the more we study, the more likely completely opposite answers to the same problem emerge, leading to more and more confusion about “what is right”. One day the teacher will answer in one way. Another day he will say the exact opposite or something completely different.
Even the same Sanskrit words can have completely different meanings in different parts of the same text. And even the “same” words that are consistent across Ayurvedic texts, can take on another meaning in a different text. For example, as A. K. Ramanujan points out, the words rtu, dosha, dhatu, rasa that we might associate with Ayurveda in a very specific way, are also used in Vedic music and poetry, but have different meanings specific to these disciplines!
While rasa in Ayurveda is most often associated with the 6 “tastes”, in music or poetry it would mean “emotional essence” of the piece - sad, happy, angry, etc. The language used to describe Vedic sciences is itself context-based!
Contexts in Different Disciplines
In my MA Sanskrit Studies program, we were reading the text Is there an Indian Way of Thinking? An Informal Essay by A. K. Ramanujan, which argues that this context-based way of thinking is not just special to Ayurveda, but is in fact a defining feature of Indian society!
Some other examples he includes are in the fields of:
Law - when looking at the ancient legal text Manusmṛiti, we can see that most laws have very specific contexts. For example, it is illegal to defame a Brahman. But instead of listing one universal punishment for committing this crime, the punishments are divided based on the context of caste:
members of the Kshatrya (warrior) caste are fined 100 in local currency
members of the Vaishya (agriculture / business) caste are fined 150 - 200 in local currency
members of the Shudra (those who clean / burn bodies) are given corporal punishment
Law is decided based on the specific context of who committed the crime and for what reason instead of being just generic or standard one punishment to fit all.
Love - the Indian text on love, Kamasutra, breaks down how different people of different genders, different body types, and different characteristics need to be pleasured differently to gain satisfaction. There is no “one size fits all” way of making love!
Dharma - Itihasa texts Ramayana and Mahabharata can be seen as strong texts exploring the concept of dharma (this shouldn’t be translated, but could be losely be translated as one’s moral responsibility). The characters are put into impossible moral situations and have to figure out what to do. The guidance of past stories with similar context are provided many times to help the character understand their own context and make the right decision. The interesting thing here is that, once again, what is the “right action” varies from situation to situation.
For example, while killing your own family is ethically wrong, Arjuna was encouraged by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita to fight in battle against his own cousins because his cousin’s actions were adharma (immoral). By allowing the immoral cousins to stay kings would result in corruption across the kingdom. So in this case, killing their family was the “right choice” in order to save the integrity of the kingdom for the “greater good” of society. So even one’s “right action” has to be judged based on the context of the situation one is in.
Rethinking
If you really think about it, context-based thinking actually makes a lot of sense. We can all agree that morally, one should always tell the truth. But if you’re hiding Anne Frank in your attic and the Nazis ask you if there are any Jews in your house, telling the truth leads to someone’s death and is clearly the immoral choice compared to lying and saving a life.
We don’t live alone in a single bubble, but in a relationship with others (family, friends, neighbors, society, etc) and our environment. That is why, in the Indian way of thinking, the context has so much importance to everything from health to law to pleasure to dharma and everything else!
But as Westerners, who are used to the absolutes “one way” or “right way” of doing things, learning Vedic sciences is super frustrating.
While Indian teachers seem inconsistent and even hypocritical to us, we have to simply pause and rethink. What was the context of what they said yesterday and what is the context today? Then we can actually start rethinking and truly learning!