Prakriti and Vikriti are basic ideas in Ayurveda that assist perceive a person’s inherent constitutional physique sort and their present state of well being. These ideas are used to advertise steadiness and wellness by means of customized approaches to food regimen, life-style, and remedy.
In easy phrases, Prakriti refers back to the pure structure we’re born with, whereas Vikriti represents our present well being situation
Each Prakriti and Vikriti are primarily based on the three doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, which kind the physique’s structure. Every particular person is a novel mixture of 1, two, or all three doshas.
This text delves deeper into the ideas of Prakriti and Vikriti, explaining their significance and functions in Ayurveda.
On this article, we’ve got defined the ideas of Prakriti and Vikriti intimately.
Understanding Prakriti
The phrase Prakriti is derived from three parts: the prefix ‘Pra,’ that means “origin”; ‘Kri,’ that means “to do”; and ‘Ti,’ that means “to accentuate.” Collectively, Prakriti refers back to the entity that manifests on the time of origin.
Prakriti represents the unique physique structure or the inherent mixture of doshas that an individual develops on the time of conception.
It’s the nature you might be born with and is exclusive to you. Every particular person’s structure is predetermined at start and influenced by numerous traits, together with look, persona, habits, and dietary preferences. Prakriti determines an individual’s bodily and psychological traits and stays fixed all through their life.
In keeping with Ayurveda, this occurs as a result of an individual’s Prakriti is set at start by the panch mahabhutas (air, hearth, water, ether, and earth), doshas (vata, pitta, kapha), and trigunas (sattva, rajas, and tamas).
Doshaja Prakriti
On the time of conception, the predominance of 1, two, or all three doshas determines a person’s Prakriti, often called Doshaja Prakriti.
Doshaja Prakriti is additional categorised into three classes: Eka Doshaja Prakriti, Dwandvaja Doshaja Prakriti, and Sama Doshaja Prakriti.
- Eka Doshaja Prakruti – Because the identify suggests, people with a predominance of 1 (eka) dosha have an Eka Doshaja Prakriti. This sort is comparatively uncommon. Amongst these:
- Vata physique sort is taken into account inferior (heena).
- Pitta physique sort is taken into account average (madhyama).
- Kapha physique sort is considered superior (uttama).
- Dwandvaja Doshaja Prakruti – That is the commonest sort of Prakriti, the place a person has a mix of two doshas. There are three variations:
- Vata/Pitta (or pitta/vata) – Vata main and Pitta secondary (or Pitta main and Vata secondary).
- Pitta/Kapha (or kapha/pitta) – Pitta main and Kapha secondary (or Kapha main and Pitta secondary).
- Kapha/Vata (or vata/kapha) – Kapha main and Vata secondary (or Vata main and Kapha secondary).
- Sama Doshaja Prakruti – Among the many rarest Prakriti varieties, people with a Sama Doshaja Prakriti have a balanced mixture of all three doshas. That is thought of the very best (sreshta) physique structure. Nonetheless, it’s difficult to keep up on account of fashionable unhealthy existence and dietary habits.
Manasika Prakriti
Manasika Prakriti refers to a person’s psychological or psychological structure, which is set by the mix of the three Gunas Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. In consequence, an individual’s Manasika Prakriti will be categorised as Satvik, Rajasik, or Tamasik.
Understanding Manasika Prakriti is essential for selecting the best strategies to help psychological and emotional well-being, equivalent to yoga, meditation, or tailor-made dietary and life-style practices.
Equally, understanding an individual’s Doshaja Prakriti helps an Ayurvedic practitioner perceive their persona, temperament, traits, and general well being, enabling them to advocate acceptable remedies and interventions.
What components decide the Prakriti of a person?
The formation of Prakriti is linked to totally different components, equivalent to earlier karmas, the bodily and psychological well being of the mom and father on the time of conception, the mom’s food regimen and train routine, social milieu, the follow of wholesomeness by the mom (throughout being pregnant) and little one within the postnatal interval, and a number of other others.
Owing to the above, the next are the first components that decide the Prakriti of a person:
- Sukra-Shonit Prakruti (situations of sperm and ovum)
- Kala-garbhasaya Prakruti (time of the season of conception and situations of the uterus)
- Matu-ahar Prakruti (food regimen and life-style habits of mom)
- Pancha Mahabhuta Vikara Prakriti (affiliation of the 5 fundamental components)
Different components that additionally affect the Prakriti are:
- Jatiprasakta (Race/caste/ Occupation)
- Kulaprasakta (household/ancestry)
- Desha-anupatini (geo-climatic components)
- Kala-anupatini (time scale)
- Vaya-anupatini (age) – determines the dominance of dosha
- Pratyatmaniyata (individuality)
How you can determine a person’s Prakriti?
A questionnaire is often used for Prakriti evaluation. It contains questions on your habits, look, physiological processes equivalent to digestion and excretion, in addition to your moods and general nature.
The evaluation entails a medical examination utilizing three strategies: scrutiny (Darshan), palpation (Sparshan), and questioning (Prashna). It examines three features:
- Construction of the physique (Rachanaanusari) – Bodily traits.
- Physiological (Kriyaanusari) – Bodily features.
- Psychological (Manoanusari) – Psychological and emotional traits.
The variations in these traits collectively outline a person’s Prakriti.
To precisely decide your Prakriti, it is strongly recommended to seek the advice of an skilled Ayurvedic practitioner. They will assess your physique sort primarily based on the solutions offered throughout the Prakriti evaluation check.
Whereas there are quite a few on-line questionnaires, quizzes, and exams out there, they need to be used with warning, as they could lack the precision of an expert evaluation.
Significance of Prakriti in Ayurvedic remedy
In fashionable utilization, the time period Prakriti typically refers back to the bodily structure, often called Deha Prakriti. This structure is set by the distinctive dosha ratios that every particular person is born with.
The Ayurvedic idea of Prakriti is important for sustaining well being, understanding illness, and guiding remedy. Ayurveda emphasizes that by understanding your Prakriti, you possibly can determine the components that affect your well being and well-being, enabling you to guide a wholesome, completely happy, and fulfilling life.
Understanding your Prakriti helps you keep well being by following the suitable food regimen and each day routine. It additionally means that you can recognise what would possibly disrupt your steadiness, resulting in illness or sickness. With out this self-awareness, chances are you’ll battle to keep up steadiness, stop sickness, or handle imbalances to revive well being and wholeness.
Moreover, data of your Prakriti may also help you in a number of methods:
- Adapting your life-style to stop or handle dosha imbalances.
- Making use of preventive well being measures to keep up equilibrium.
- Customizing your food regimen based on your dosha to boost nutrient absorption, digestion, and elimination.
- Making certain you eat the appropriate meals in the appropriate quantities and on the proper occasions.
- Personalizing your sleep patterns for higher relaxation and restoration.
- Selecting the best train routine to remain match and wholesome.
Understanding Vikriti
In Ayurveda, a person’s state of well being or imbalance is known as Vikriti. The Sanskrit phrase Vikriti, that means “after creation,” refers to an individual’s organic state, which will be influenced by their surroundings from the second of conception.
A Vikriti evaluation in Ayurveda is used to determine how exterior components have impacted an individual’s bodily, psychological, or emotional well being. Vikriti will be considered the manifestation of any present doshic imbalances.
After fertilization, the human embryo is uncovered to and influenced by its surroundings. Optimum improvement happens when the embryo grows in a steady surroundings. Equally, after start, a toddler thrives in an excellent and nurturing ambiance, selling well being and well-being.
Nonetheless, in an surroundings or life-style that’s lower than best, the three doshas can fall out of steadiness, inflicting a deviation from the person’s Prakriti. This state of imbalance is Vikriti.
Not like Prakriti, which stays fixed all through life, Vikriti is dynamic. It might probably change from daily, with the seasons, or throughout totally different life phases. Thus, whereas Prakriti displays a person’s inherent structure, Vikriti represents their present state of imbalance.
What components decide the Vikriti of a person?
To make selections to revive our equilibrium, it’s useful to grasp the traits of every of the doshas. This enables us to acknowledge what has gotten out of steadiness or what has amassed.
Vikriti or doshic imbalances can happen on account of a number of components equivalent to weather conditions, dietary habits, life-style, sleep patterns, frequency of train, stress, and plenty of exterior components.
The aggregation of a specific dosha will be felt throughout quite a few seasonal adjustments. We steadily purchase traits of the prevailing dosha all year long due to how carefully tied our physiology is to the world round us. Because the seasons change, this accumulation is most noticeable.
For instance, your prakriti is Pitta which comes with good digestion and a steady thoughts. Nonetheless on account of a seasonal change, your digestive system could flare and chances are you’ll expertise psychological fog, an indication of Vata vitiation. In such circumstances, regardless that your Prakriti has not modified, the dominance of the vata dosha is figuring out the imbalances precipitated in your physique.
Significance of Vikriti in Ayurvedic remedy
Understanding an individual’s Vikriti after which determining what parts of that particular person’s surroundings have led to the disruptions is likely one of the key goals of Ayurvedic remedy. The time period “surroundings” right here refers to each the particular person’s life-style and the inputs they get by means of their 5 senses.
To determine the basis signs of a illness, vikriti evaluation is step one in all Ayurvedic remedies.
One strategy to determine the underlying causes for sickness or illness is to correlate the ratio of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha in an individual at any given second with their physiological composition. One can examine it to the particular person’s inherent prakriti and take a look at operational indications like digestion, elimination, or sleeping patterns.
As soon as understood, the purpose is to rework the setting.
Figuring out an individual’s Prakriti is essential for understanding their basic tendencies, however understanding their Vikriti is essential for making a remedy technique.
Distinction between Prakriti and Vikriti
Now that we’ve got understood some fundamental ideas of Prakriti and Vikriti, we are able to summarize the distinction between the 2 beneath:
- Our intrinsic structure is named Prakriti, and the imbalance that develops once we don’t dwell in accordance with that construction is named Vikriti.
- Prakriti refers back to the mind-body variety or structure. Vikriti interprets to the current scenario.
- Within the Ayurvedic perspective, one’s Prakriti is often considered from the attitude of dosha predominance within the physique structure. Then again, the vikriti is regarded into the imbalances or vitiations occurring within the doshas structure throughout the Prakriti.
- Understanding our Prakriti helps us grasp what our basic nature is. Studying our Vikriti supplies us with the power to take cost of our well being path.
- To find out prakriti, components equivalent to situations of sperm and ovum, time of the season of conception and situations of the uterus, food regimen, and life-style habits of the mom, and affiliation of the 5 fundamental components are seen. Whereas, the components regarded into when figuring out vikriti are – the basis reason for the dysfunction, vitiating variables, vitiated components, structure, location, time, power, and signs.
How do imbalances in Prakriti and Vikriti manifest?
Doshas play an essential function relating to imbalances within the physique and thoughts. Although most of us are a twin doshas structure (bi-doshic physique sort), the Prakriti depends upon the dominant dosha.
So, when your dominant doshas are vitiated it may result in a ton of bodily and psychological sicknesses, ailments, or illnesses. Furthermore, the imbalance may also be precipitated when the second dosha overpowers your dominant dosha.
For instance, you’ve gotten been recognized as having a Vata-Pitta physique sort with vata because the dominant dosha. Because of this you’ve gotten a Vata Prakriti. When your Vata is imbalanced, you’ll expertise restlessness, fatigue, poor circulation, bloating, joint ache, and many others. There can also be an opportunity that the pitta dosha has grow to be imbalanced and also you would possibly expertise signs like indigestion, acidity, zits, pores and skin rashes, anger, irregular sleep, and many others.
Nonetheless, you must also perceive that we could or could not be capable to hyperlink our imbalances to our organic construction. There are additionally possibilities that you just might need a vata-pitta prakriti with each doshas dominant when in comparison with the kapha prakriti.
In such circumstances, if an individual reveals indicators of sudden weight achieve, it might counsel that they could be experiencing kapha vitiation.
The manifestation of imbalances in Prakriti and Vikriti additionally depends upon the present life-style, seasonal adjustments, and the surroundings you might be dwelling in.
Merely put, the imbalances within the prakrit and vikruti are manifested within the type of bodily and psychological issues because of vitiated doshas.
- In case your vata is imbalanced, it might result in extreme issues with circulation, broken tissues, crackling joints, improper digestion, constipation, extreme weight reduction, psychological chaos, or insomnia.
- In case of pitta imbalance, ulcers, extreme sweating, sunburn, acidity, hair fall, vertigo, egoism, a rise of detrimental feelings, and many others could also be skilled.
- Folks with a kapha imbalance will discover lethargy, weight achieve, lack of urge for food, oily pores and skin and hair, despair, lack of motivation, stubbornness, and many others as signs.
One other level to recollect is that in case your vata will get vitiated, there’s a excessive risk that the opposite doshas would possibly get affected as effectively. It’s because Vata is answerable for circulation throughout the physique and between the organs. So if the circulation is blocked, the organs will be unable to work on the optimum degree.
Conclusion
To sum up, Prakriti is the mix of doshas you might be born with, influenced by components such because the situations of the sperm and ovum at conception, the well being of the mom’s uterus, and the time and season of conception.
Vikriti, then again, refers to your present state of being, which is dynamic and adjustments based on your surroundings. It’s usually thought of an imbalanced state of the doshas.
An Ayurvedic practitioner diagnoses your well being situation primarily based in your Prakriti and Vikriti by means of a sequence of questions. This helps decide which doshas want consideration to revive steadiness.
From the traits of Prakriti and Vikriti, it’s clear that the purpose of Ayurveda is to amass the data obligatory to acknowledge when a Vikriti imbalance arises, serving to to stop sickness or illness. Ayurveda additionally aids in growing practices and rituals that preserve our Prakriti balanced.
