Holistic Healing in the Rigveda
Keywords:
Cultural context, Holistic health, Illness experience, Rigveda, Medical humanitiesAbstract
Background: The Rigveda presents health as holistic harmony of body, mind, environment and cosmic order (rta). It asserts that wellbeing results from the integration of physical, mental, ethical and natural dimensions into a holistic model of health. Medical humanities recognize lived experience of the people, meaning and context. It also focuses on how culture, emotion, narrative and social conditions shape illness. The objective of the study was to explore parallels between Rigvedic healing and medical humanities.
Materials and Methods: The research employs a qualitative approach and examines narrative review of primary text and relevant scholarly research articles as secondary text.
Results: Both models present health as multidimensional. Both include biological, psychological, social, environmental factors. Both emphasize meaning, ethics, lived experience. Differences appear in reliance on cosmic order versus clinical evidence.
Conclusion: Both models support holistic understanding of illness. However, the Rigveda does not introduce clinical application whereas medical humanities do.
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