ABSTRACT
The ideas of health, body and disease in ayurvedas are discussed in this chapter. The different concepts used for describing the body in healing practices with their inherent meaning related to each context are analysed. The humoural constitution sees a healthy body as one with an equilibrium of the three humours, vata, pitha and kapha (wind, bile and water). Another perspective views the body through ninety-six principles while yet another foregrounds the channels in the body. The body is also seen through pulses and vital spots. These positions in the discursive field of nattuvaidyam shared certain common ideas. While not coalescing into a united corpus they did provide certain basic premises to define the body and health. However, by the twentieth century, all forms of ayurvedas claimed to follow the humoural principle as a result of the notion of standardisation that emerged in the early twentieth century. The chapter also takes a look at the notion of standardisation and classification that existed in assorted health practices through vishavaidyam and kalarividya. The perspective that existed had combined the possibility for universalisation without reducing the specificity of a human body.
