A literary review of Medosara Purusha

Abstract

Ayurveda is an empirical science which had made its existence from the divine origin in the form of basic principles which are practically applicable. The Bala of the body is the base of life. It covers all areas of humans because it is the conjugative expression in the form of physical strength, psychological strength and immune strength of the body. Bala^[1] is essential for healthy body and mind. In patients it is the factor which decides the virulence of disease by providing the immunity to body. So, it is essential to judge the level of Bala in the body before considering the patient under treatment. The ten folded examination i.e. Dashavidha Pariksha^[2] mentioned in Charak Samhita^[3] for Atura Bala Pramana is a basic principle which has great clinical interpretation. It is an attempt to narrow the gap between traditional and modern practice of medicine by practically demonstrating the reliability and usefulness of the tenfold examination. Charaka has explained that sometimes physicians may be deceived only by looking the body of the patient such as patient is strong because of being corpulent he is weak because of leanness. But actually, it is observed that some persons having small body and leanness are stronger than the big and corpulent persons. Hence, inherent power of a person cannot be perfectly judged by the bulk of the body which is only and easily be assessed by the Sara examination. In Ayurvedic texts individuals are classified into eight types on the basis of predominance of Sarata in the body and named accordingly.