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What are Vata, Pitta and Kapha

The 3 popular globally recognized terms of ayurveda are Vata, Pitta and Kapha. These are called as doshas by Ayurvedic clinicians. To understand a little bit about where these pieces fit into the puzzle of Ayurveda, I highly suggest you to checkout my blogpost on what is ayurveda first and then come back here. The literary meaning of dosha is fault. You’ll get to know the why sooner.

Vata, Pitta and Kapha meaning

Vata, Pitta and Kapha are 3 elements which are recognized by certain group of qualities. They are as follows:

Vata means the combination of the following 6 qualities

1. Ruksha (Dryness)
2. Laghu (Lightness)
3. Sheeta (not so cold, not so hot in this context)
4. Khara (Roughness)
5. Sukshma (Minuteness)
6. Chala (That which facilitates the movement i.e. both voluntary and involuntary movements)

Pitta means the combination of the following 7 qualities

1. Sa Sneha (not too unctuous, not too dry)
2. Teekshna (Sharpness)
3. Ushna (Hotness)
4. Laghu (Lightness)
5. Visram (Unpleasant smell)
6. Saram (Spreadable)
7. Dravam (Fluidity)

Kapha means the combination of the following 7 qualities

1. Snigdha (Unctuous)
2. Sheeta (Coldness in this context)
3. Guru (Heaviness)
4. Manda (Stagnant)
5. Slakshna (Smooth)
6. Mritsna (Sticky)
7. Sthira (Stable)

Role of Vata, Pitta and Kapha in Health and Disease

Three Doshas as Contributing Factors of Health

If we look at all the above-mentioned qualities closely, every organ of human body is made up of the combination of two or more of these characters only. To make this clear, I’ll quote a few examples.

Hair: It’s mostly can be rough, tough and strong. (purely vata)

Lungs: surrounded by fluids, they contain minute air-filled sacs called alveoli (combination of vata and kapha)

Stomach: Secretes Hcl (Hydrochloric acid) which is hot in potency. This Hcl is fluid and spreadable in nature (purely pitta)

Three Doshas as Contributing Factors of Disease

Diseases are caused when the natural qualities of these doshas become abnormal such as

1. Excessively dry or oily hair
2. Difficulty in breathing
3. Hyper acidity or Indigestion

Vata, pitta and kapha are superiorly known for their disease-causing ability rather than their role in health maintenance in a balanced state. This is because just a slightest deviation in them for a considerable period of time, can even cause death. Hence they are identified as three doshas than just vata pitta and kapha.

Three doshas and Prakriti

This is the most confusing section in this whole blogpost but I will do my best in making this super easy to digest for you. Prakriti is the genetic makeup of an individual which is decided at the time of the fertilization itself. There are 7 broad categories of prakriti based upon the predominance of qualities of doshas and we all fit into any one of it. They are as follows:

1. Vataja prakriti (A person born with majority of qualities leaning towards vata dosha)
2. Pittaja prakriti (A person born with majority of qualities leaning towards pitta dosha)
3. Kaphaja prakriti (A person born with majority of qualities leaning towards kapha dosha)
4. Vata-Pittaja prakriti (A person born with majority of qualities leaning towards vata and pitta doshas)
5. Pitta-Kaphaja prakriti (A person born with majority of qualities leaning towards pitta and kapha doshas)
6. Kapha-Vataja prakriti (A person born with majority of qualities leaning towards kapha and vata doshas)
7. Vata-Pitta-Kaphaja prakriti (A person born with balanced doshas- very rare)

We’ll see an example: There is a person who is having dry, frizzy and curly hair and have breathing problems since birth and is obese since childhood. The characters dryness, frizzyness and curls are leaning towards vata dosha, where as having breathing problem indicates the involvement of both vata and kapha doshas. Finally, obese means kapha hence this individual can be of Vata-Kapha Prakriti.

Uniqueness of ayurvedic consultation

Let’s say initially you are born with a combination of qualities of vata-pitta doshas, but over time due to the influence of food and lifestyle habits, you turned out to be an individual with qualities leaning towards vata-kapha doshas which is causing so much disturbance in your health status then how are to supposed to know what is your actual prakriti? Prakriti is your genetic makeup and it’s there from the moment you took birth as a single cell and it will remain until the moment you die but your food and lifestyle choices confuses your current state with the actual prakriti that you are born with.

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In an ayurvedic consultation, a qualified ayurvedic doctor is capable to distinguish what’s natural to you from the current symptoms of a diseased state and helps you to cure the disease without disturbing your actual prakriti. This is why it’s very crucial to have a proper ayurvedic consultation with a qualified ayurvedic doctor before you decided to purchase some over-the-counter ayurvedic herbal blends, ayurvedic herbal teas, ayurvedic protein powders etc., and use them.

Ayurveda is never about one size fits all

Summary

Please watch the youtube video attached below which summarizes this blogpost