Prakriti and Vikriti are elementary ideas in Ayurveda that assist perceive a person’s inherent constitutional physique kind and their present state of well being. These ideas are used to advertise stability and wellness by means of personalised approaches to food regimen, way of life, and therapy.
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 based mostly on the three doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, which kind the physique’s structure. Every individual 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 purposes 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 individual’s structure is predetermined at delivery and influenced by varied 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 line with Ayurveda, this occurs as a result of an individual’s Prakriti is set at delivery 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, generally known as 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 kind is taken into account inferior (heena).
- Pitta physique kind is taken into account average (madhyama).
- Kapha physique kind is considered superior (uttama).
- Dwandvaja Doshaja Prakruti – That is the commonest kind 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 sorts, people with a Sama Doshaja Prakriti have a balanced mixture of all three doshas. That is thought-about the best (sreshta) physique structure. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to keep up as a result 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. Consequently, an individual’s Manasika Prakriti may be categorised as Satvik, Rajasik, or Tamasik.
Understanding Manasika Prakriti is essential for selecting the best strategies to assist psychological and emotional well-being, akin to yoga, meditation, or tailor-made dietary and way of life practices.
Equally, figuring out an individual’s Doshaja Prakriti helps an Ayurvedic practitioner perceive their persona, temperament, traits, and total well being, enabling them to advocate acceptable therapies and interventions.
What components decide the Prakriti of a person?
The formation of Prakriti is linked to completely different components, akin 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 apply of wholesomeness by the mom (throughout being pregnant) and youngster within the postnatal interval, and several other others.
Owing to the above, the next are the first components that decide the Prakriti of a person:
- Sukra-Shonit Prakruti (circumstances of sperm and ovum)
- Kala-garbhasaya Prakruti (time of the season of conception and circumstances of the uterus)
- Matu-ahar Prakruti (food regimen and way of life 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)
Tips on how to establish a person’s Prakriti?
A questionnaire is often used for Prakriti evaluation. It contains questions on your habits, look, physiological processes akin to digestion and excretion, in addition to your moods and total nature.
The evaluation includes a medical examination utilizing three strategies: scrutiny (Darshan), palpation (Sparshan), and questioning (Prashna). It examines three elements:
- 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’s endorsed to seek the advice of an skilled Ayurvedic practitioner. They will assess your physique kind based mostly on the solutions offered in the course of the Prakriti evaluation check.
Whereas there are quite a few on-line questionnaires, quizzes, and assessments out there, they need to be used with warning, as they might lack the precision of knowledgeable evaluation.
Significance of Prakriti in Ayurvedic therapy
In fashionable utilization, the time period Prakriti typically refers back to the bodily structure, generally known as Deha Prakriti. This structure is set by the distinctive dosha ratios that every individual is born with.
The Ayurvedic idea of Prakriti is important for sustaining well being, understanding illness, and guiding therapy. Ayurveda emphasizes that by understanding your Prakriti, you’ll be able to establish the components that affect your well being and well-being, enabling you to guide a wholesome, completely satisfied, and fulfilling life.
Understanding your Prakriti helps you preserve well being by following the suitable food regimen and each day routine. It additionally lets you recognise what would possibly disrupt your stability, resulting in illness or sickness. With out this self-awareness, it’s possible you’ll wrestle to keep up stability, forestall sickness, or handle imbalances to revive well being and wholeness.
Moreover, data of your Prakriti can assist you in a number of methods:
- Adapting your way of life 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.
- Guaranteeing you eat the precise meals in the precise quantities and on the proper instances.
- Personalizing your sleep patterns for higher relaxation and restoration.
- Choosing the proper 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 may be influenced by their setting from the second of conception.
A Vikriti evaluation in Ayurveda is used to establish how exterior components have impacted an individual’s bodily, psychological, or emotional well being. Vikriti may be regarded as the manifestation of any present doshic imbalances.
After fertilization, the human embryo is uncovered to and influenced by its setting. Optimum improvement happens when the embryo grows in a secure setting. Equally, after delivery, a baby thrives in a perfect and nurturing environment, selling well being and well-being.
Nevertheless, in an setting or way of life that’s lower than preferrred, the three doshas can fall out of stability, inflicting a deviation from the person’s Prakriti. This state of imbalance is Vikriti.
In contrast to Prakriti, which stays fixed all through life, Vikriti is dynamic. It will probably change from each day, with the seasons, or throughout completely 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 permits us to acknowledge what has gotten out of stability or what has collected.
Vikriti or doshic imbalances can happen as a result of a number of components akin to weather conditions, dietary habits, way of life, sleep patterns, frequency of train, stress, and lots of exterior components.
The aggregation of a specific dosha may be felt throughout quite a few seasonal modifications. We ceaselessly 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 secure thoughts. Nevertheless as a result of a seasonal change, your digestive system might flare and it’s possible you’ll expertise psychological fog, an indication of Vata vitiation. In such circumstances, despite the fact 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 therapy
Understanding an individual’s Vikriti after which determining what parts of that individual’s setting have led to the disruptions is likely one of the key aims of Ayurvedic therapy. The time period “setting” right here refers to each the individual’s way of life and the inputs they get by means of their 5 senses.
To establish the foundation signs of a illness, vikriti evaluation is step one in all Ayurvedic therapies.
One strategy to establish 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 evaluate it to the individual’s inherent prakriti and have a look at operational indications like digestion, elimination, or sleeping patterns.
As soon as understood, the aim is to remodel the setting.
Figuring out an individual’s Prakriti is necessary for understanding their elementary tendencies, however understanding their Vikriti is necessary for making a therapy 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 reside in accordance with that construction is named Vikriti.
- Prakriti refers back to the mind-body form 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 appeared into the imbalances or vitiations occurring within the doshas structure inside the Prakriti.
- Understanding our Prakriti helps us grasp what our elementary nature is. Studying our Vikriti offers us with the power to take cost of our well being path.
- To find out prakriti, components akin to circumstances of sperm and ovum, time of the season of conception and circumstances of the uterus, food regimen, and way of life habits of the mom, and affiliation of the 5 fundamental components are seen. Whereas, the components appeared into when figuring out vikriti are – the foundation explanation for the dysfunction, vitiating variables, vitiated components, structure, location, time, energy, and signs.
How do imbalances in Prakriti and Vikriti manifest?
Doshas play an necessary position with regards to imbalances within the physique and thoughts. Though most of us are a twin doshas structure (bi-doshic physique kind), the Prakriti is dependent upon the dominant dosha.
So, when your dominant doshas are vitiated it may well result in a ton of bodily and psychological sicknesses, illnesses, or illnesses. Furthermore, the imbalance can be precipitated when the second dosha overpowers your dominant dosha.
For instance, you’ve been recognized as having a Vata-Pitta physique kind with vata because the dominant dosha. Which means that you’ve a Vata Prakriti. When your Vata is imbalanced, you’ll expertise restlessness, fatigue, poor circulation, bloating, joint ache, and so on. There may additionally be an opportunity that the pitta dosha has turn into imbalanced and also you would possibly expertise signs like indigestion, acidity, pimples, pores and skin rashes, anger, irregular sleep, and so on.
Nevertheless, you must also perceive that we might or might not have the ability to hyperlink our imbalances to our organic construction. There are additionally probabilities 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 could counsel that they might be experiencing kapha vitiation.
The manifestation of imbalances in Prakriti and Vikriti additionally is dependent upon the present way of life, seasonal modifications, and the setting you might be residing in.
Merely put, the imbalances within the prakrit and vikruti are manifested within the type of bodily and psychological issues on account of vitiated doshas.
- In case your vata is imbalanced, it could 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 damaging feelings, and so on could also be skilled.
- Individuals 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 so on 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 properly. It is because Vata is answerable for circulation inside the physique and between the organs. So if the circulation is blocked, the organs won’t be able to work on the optimum stage.
Conclusion
To sum up, Prakriti is the mix of doshas you might be born with, influenced by components such because the circumstances 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 modifications based on your setting. It’s usually thought-about an imbalanced state of the doshas.
An Ayurvedic practitioner diagnoses your well being situation based mostly in your Prakriti and Vikriti by means of a collection of questions. This helps decide which doshas want consideration to revive stability.
From the traits of Prakriti and Vikriti, it’s clear that the aim 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.
