Last week’s article discussed the influence Ancient Greece had in forming the foundations of what we know of as “fitness.” You can read the article here.
Yoga Is for the Spirit
This week’s focus is on the origins of exercise in India. Yoga will not be the focus of this article, because it wasn’t designed as a form of exercise. The poses and breathing techniques were designed as part of a larger spiritual framework.
A collection of writings known as the Vedas describe the ancient practice of yoga as a spiritual path. “Yoga is thus best understood as a cluster of techniques, some more and some less systematized, that pervaded the landscape of ancient India” writes the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
In the Mahabharata, an epic poem central to Indian philosophy, yoga is mentioned roughly 900 times. Only twice are those references used to describe poses or physical practice. That shows you how insignificant exercise was to yoga.
Ayurvedic Medicine
This article will instead focus on an Ancient Indian system of health and medicine called Ayurveda, which means the system (or science of) life. It dates back to at least 3,000 BC, but it’s possible it existed before then. Indians passed down knowledge through spoken word before that time, but began writing and recording around 3,000 BC. It’s possible that these concepts existed before the time they were written.
In Ancient Indian texts like the Upanishads, matter was broken into 5 elements (space, air, fire, water, earth). They reasoned that the human body was made up of three combinations of these elements: air and space, fire and water and earth and water.
Each of these combinations is one dosha. Combined, they make up the tridosha doctrine. According to Ayurveda, health is the balance between these three systems. If any system becomes too weak or strong relative to the others, your risk for developing health problems increases.
This is very similar to Greek medicine and the philosophy of Hippocrates, who focused on what the body consumes (air, water, food) and what it excretes. Ancient Indians were also very interested in what people consumed (food, air, water) and how it affected their health.
It’s important to note Ayurveda was separate from religious practice. Unlike early Greek physicians, Indians were careful to separate religious beliefs from medicine. Evidence shows that they were scientific, even though their techniques weren’t very advanced compared to modern medicine.
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health reported that Ayurvedic cures for osteoarthritis and type 2 diabetes can be effective. However, they also found that most of the herbal remedies in Ayurvedic Medicine are ineffective (some are even dangerous). Modern medicine is far more advanced in terms of pharmaceuticals.
Vyayama
The basic exercise recommendations prescribed thousands of years ago in India are still used today. Vyayama is a sanskrit word which means “to move.” It’s the term used for exercise in Ayurveda, and it has a very specific purpose.
Since Ayurveda is a system of medicine, exercise was used to cure disease and improve health, as opposed to using it for aesthetic purposes. Many exercise recommendations in India can be traced back to one man, who lived somewhere between 1,000-600 BC. His name is Suhruta, the brilliant surgeon and physician.
The Sushruta Samhita is a collection of his writings. It includes cures for disease, surgical techniques and exercise recommendations. The way Sushruta viewed exercise bears an uncanny resemblance to Hippocrates, who would write incredibly similar exercise guidelines over 100 years later.
The Exercise Prescription
The Sushruta Samhita describes how exercise can be used to treat obesity and diabetes. They recommended exercising daily, usually in the morning on an empty stomach.
According to their guidelines, Vyayama (exercise) shouldn’t include heavy weight training or exercise that could be too strenuous. At the same time, workouts had to bring about “tiredness or exhaustion in the body.”
As Hippocrates would later observe, exercise had to strike a fine balance between too much and not enough. Some signs that the exercise was of appropriate intensity were sweat and heavy breathing. After all, it had to be enough to burn fat and build muscle.
Sushruta cautioned against excessive exercise, which could lead to illness and injury and defeat the purpose of working out. If someone became sick during exercise, or if they lost too much weight, they knew the workouts were too intense.
Whereas the physical practice of yoga is meant to increase your energy and prepare you for meditation and spiritual practice, vyayama was meant to make you tired. Brisk walking, wrestling, gymnastics and moderate weight training were all used as possible exercises.
They took care to prescribe the right amount of exercise to each person. Based on things like age, ability level and health concerns, they modified the intensity of the workout and the exercises.
The benefits of exercise were obvious to Ancient Indians. Ayurvedic texts point out that exercise makes the body more resilient to elements like cold and wind. It also boosts the immune system and can even slow the process of aging.
Exercise is an important part of Ayurvedic Medicine because it improves balance between the three doshas. Hippocrates also spoke about keeping the body in balance. Today we might call this sort of balance “homeostasis” or “health.”
Next week we’ll discuss Galen of Rome, who continued the work of Hippocrates and Ancient Indians.