Abstract

A CRITICAL REVIEW ON CONTEXT DEPENDENT INTERPRETATION OF THE CONCEPT OF AGNI

Narathota SNL* and Somarathna KIWK

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Abstract

Ayurveda makes life understood, a claim made in Caraka Samhita. Additionally, the complexity of the human body coupled with the unpredictability of Tridosha mandate a considerable amount of effort in understanding life. Thus, much of the systematization of the Ayurveda knowledge has been done to overcome this difficulty of learning Ayurveda, even providing a detailed literary key to the precise textual interpretation under Tantrayukti. The authors of this study found the word “Agni” renders various interpretations in Samhita, whereas most of the published research papers on the concept of Agni are mainly centered on digestion and metabolism. Hence this study was undertaken to derive the context specific interpretations of "Agni" under the directives of Tantrayukti by exhaustively compiling the evidence from three major Ayurveda Samhita, Caraka, Sushruta and Ashtangahridaya. The resulted data were analyzed and categorized to highlight the key contexts and obscure facts where Agni surpasses its general interpretation as digestive fire. The analysis revealed that the word "Agni" has been used in various contexts, ranging from the divinity or God, to human physiopathology and to medicine and to treatment, particularly not limiting to digestion. Application of Tantrayukti or methodological literary directives results in deriving the context-dependent interpretation of Agni, leading to proper comprehension of Ayurveda concepts.

Keywords: "Agni", Digestive fire, Pitta dosha, Metabolism.