The first time Dr. J. R. Raju took my pulse, I felt calm pervade my body. His eyes are radiant and his skin smooth like someone decades younger. Dr. J. R. Raju, also lovingly known as Father Raju, is the preeminent master of Ayurveda. For twelve generations, his forebears have passed on Ayurvedic knowledge to each succeeding generation starting in their infancy.
“Pulse diagnosis requires sensitivity and we start our children at 2.5 years of age when the sense of touch is developing. Sensitivity is an important aspect for pulse diagnosis; children pick it up quickly.”
Father Raju has the great good fortune to have Ayurveda not only in his paternal lineage, but in his maternal lineage as well. His maternal grandfather was a renowned physician and would take Father Raju along with him to housecalls, herb collecting, and many shared meals.
Father Raju recalled a lesson about eggplants in his childhood. His grandfather playfully taught him the slokas [verses] that describe the use of eggplant as medicine and then pointed out the prickly crown atop the eggplant and the thorny circumstance in which the eggplant grew. Knowing how to notice the terroir of a plant gives one valuable knowledge about its properties.
What struck me as Father Raju described the way Ayurvedic knowledge is passed on, was the science’s keen reliance on observation and ecology. How does an organism relate to its environment and how does that environment, in both stasis and change, affect the organism?
Below begins an edited and summarized interview with Father Raju that we will share in three segments.
Q: What is Ayurveda?
A: Ayurveda is the pre-existing knowledge of health and wellness. The way a mother has intrinsic knowledge of the needs of her baby, there is intrinsic knowledge of wholeness and balance embedded in consciousness. In the UpaVeda of Ayurveda, there are slokas that describe the agents of balance from one state to another down to the most minute levels.
Q: Why does Ayurveda seem a little inaccessible?
A: During British colonization of India, Ayurvedic physicians practicing pulse diagnosis had their fingers chopped off. This is why, for some time, the teachings went into hiding and were preserved within families and in the kitchen.
The teachings themselves are not a secret–they are embedded in consciousness–however, they do take time to tune to. Just as when one goes walking in the forest, initially the many trees are only trees until one learns to discern, “Oh, here is a pine, there an oak, a maple, a vine of ivy…” Like this, Ayurveda is a specific tuning of our awareness to the subtleties of health and balance always available to us.
For a long time there was no organized way of sharing Ayurvedic knowledge, but this is changing now.
Of course, there are complexities in Ayurveda and certain aspects of it take longer to train. For example, Banana Treatment takes 22 years to teach and we begin training our children from the age of 7.
Apart from this however, there are easy things everyone can master like, for one, bringing attention to how we feel when we eat. There are foods that enliven us as well as foods that dull us. Start to notice.
Q: You’ve said that during British colonial rule, the knowledge of Ayurveda was preserved in the kitchen and that Ayurveda has stayed intact for this very reason. This is beautiful. Can you say more about this?
A: Kitchens protected Ayurveda in the form of food because: What we eat, so we become. If we eat good food, we promote good health. If we eat poison or toxins, we create disease.
We nourish our physiology with food and, from time-immemorial around the world, every family had individual kitchens for maintaining the family’s health. People ate with the seasons, on their land, and noticed that different foods appealed to different body types in sickness and in health.
Things began to change after World War II with the industrialization of food. To save people time, food began to be mass produced in one place to be distributed. Now, instead of different foods for different physiologies and in different seasons, we were trying to make the same types of food for everyone throughout all seasons.
Food was taken out of adaptable kitchens and put into rigid factories.
Collectively, many lost their sense for nuance and began to combine things that were not meant to be combined. For example, bananas are good for us, but when it is combined with dairy (milk or yogurt) it loses its benefits. When bananas are digested, their sour properties come to the forefront and when we mix the sour element with the sweet nature of dairy, curdling happens. This becomes toxic in our digestive tract.
After WWII, most countries embraced the industrialization of food. With some exceptions. Italy for example, embraced food industrialization without surrendering home cooking. In India, home cooking continued despite industrialization. Most Indian families, even as they add a little packaged foods here or there (a principle of Ayurveda is to adapt to what is available), they continue to insist on home-cooked meals no matter where in the world they are.
During Covid, for example, most Indians were safe from the complications of long-Covid because, embedded within the fundamentals of every Indian home kitchen are: turmeric, ginger, garlic, lassi (buttermilk) and other immune boosting superfoods.
Ayurvedic cooking understands that in every meal we should have six tastes: sweet, sour, pungent, astringent, bitter, salty. Having all six tastes ensures a balanced and nourishing meal for every physiology. In different seasons and regions, what offers up these six tastes changes and therefore, a well-balanced kitchen is one that adapts to the region, the seasons and the eaters.
Q: One of the most common questions we get is, “Can you tell me what my dosha is?” What is the best way for people to consider this subject?
A: Everything in the universe is composed of five elements. Space, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth in innumerable combinations. Ayurveda simplifies these five elements into three when referencing human physiology.
Vata is the combination of air and space.
Pitta is the combination of fire and water.
Kapha is the combination of water and earth.
Each of us are varying arrangements of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. For example, someone can be Vata dominant, Pitta secondary, and Kapha tertiary. An arrangement of attributes like this is called someone’s Prakriti or birth physiology.
Prakriti is determined at the time of conception by the nature of sperm and ovum, the season, time, and place.
Vata, Pitta, Kapha can be combined into seven distinct arrays; six permutations of Kapha-Vata-Pitta in changing hierarchies and one wherein the three are equal in a body.
Our physiological make-up explains why, even in a family with similar genetic make-up, there are divergent tastes for foods, temperatures, and activities. To come back into balance, we each have different needs. For example, when a Pitta dominant person is out of balance, they need to cool down. Meanwhile, when a Kaphic person is out of balance, they need a little movement and heat helps.
This explains why, when the same Western medicine is given to treat a disease, many different reactions occur. To the same medicine: some respond mildly, others no response, and another violently ill. Because different Prakritis need different things to maintain optimal health.
It cannot be one-size fits all. In Ayurveda, there are a thousand or more treatments for one disease, rather than one treatment for one disease in most healthcare systems.
Prakriti is not necessary for the individual to know; it is for the Vaidyas and perhaps mothers to know about their children.
When Ayurvedic physicians discuss doshas with their patients, they are not discussing Prakriti. Rather, they are discussing the dosha imbalance that has given rise to ill health.
Someone may be given a Pitta pacifying diet by their Vaidya [Ayurvedic doctor]; this does not mean that the person is Pitta dominant; only that at this moment, the cause of illness/imbalance in their body is due to too much Pitta.
In a different time of the same person’s life, they may be given a Vata pacifying regimen. This does not mean the Prakriti has changed, rather that the imbalance towards disease is now Vata in nature.
Ultimately, we do not need to think about Prakriti because whatever is our birth nature, that is where we are balanced. Just as a snake is not poisoned by its own poison, our Prakriti is our individual point of balance.
It is a mistaken idea to think: I’m Pitta dominant so everything I do or eat has to be Pitta pacifying.
We live dynamic lives in a world of change. Every organism adapts to the changes in its surroundings and itself. Humans are no different. What we should be more interested in is: what to do when we are out of balance? And is the imbalance Pitta in nature, Vata in nature, or Kapha in nature?
So, knowing how to do self-pulse diagnosis and the right tools to use when you notice the quality of your imbalance is what Ayurveda is all about.
Take the self-pulse course here.
Written by Cindy Wu for The Rajus Ayurveda.