Caraka Samhitā

3 ideas

1. Madness sorted by dominant humour signature

   Unmāda is split into vāta, pitta, kapha, combined (sannipāta), and exogenous types, each read from a behavioural signature. Vāta madness shows restless movement, inappropriate laughter, and emaciation; pitta shows anger, aggression, and craving for cold and shade; kapha shows silence, inactivity, poor appetite, and a wish for solitude. When the symptoms fit no humoral pattern, the madness is attributed to an external agent such as a spirit or a transgression, and is treated differently.

2. Three categories of therapeutic intervention

   The book names three kinds of treatment: divine or ritual therapy using mantras, offerings, and vows; rational therapy (yukti) using diet, drugs, and purification such as oleation, sweating, emesis, purgation, and nasal medication to clear vitiated humours; and sattvāvajaya, which restrains the mind from harmful objects.

3. A strong counter-emotion can reset the deranged mind

   Once purification has cleared the body, a disordered mind can be jolted back by a stronger opposing emotion. Physicians frightened patients with defanged snakes, tamed beasts, or threats of fire, whipping, and confinement, on the reasoning that fear for one's own life outweighs every other mental preoccupation. The same logic of replacing one state with its opposite is applied to grief, desire, and anger, which are countered with consolation, substitute objects, and calming measures.

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