body and health in yoga, Ayurveda, and Tantra

8 religious therapeutics
Branches of Religious Therapeutics
1. Metaphysical and epistemic foundations
2. Soteriology (theory of salvation or liberation)
3. Value theory and ethics
4. Physical practice
5. Cultivation of consciousness
6. Medicine and health-care
7. Aesthetics
8. Community
dance, and art. Unlike classical Yoga, Tantra esteems nature, human
physicality, the feminine, and relationality. Classical Yoga, Tantra, and
Åyurveda are featured here in part because their somatic orientations
make their therapeutic dimensions more palpable. These three traditions
are in many ways iconoclastic within the larger context of Hindu views
of the body, and therefore they are especially interesting for extending
our insight into body and religiousness. Finally, Åyurveda, Tantra, and
other world traditions expand the model of religious therapeutics with
the notion of community: relationality and communication in the domains
of nature, culture, and the sacred.
Chapter 1, “Body and Philosophies of Healing,” examines Anglo-
European and Indian assumptions, setting the stage for analysis of the
meaning of health, and supporting the claim that ‘health’ is properly
predicated of the person, not the body or body/mind only. Chapter 2,
“Meanings of Health in Åyurveda,” presents determinants of health derived
from the text Caraka-saÓmhitā, and its commentary Åyurvedad¯ıpikā.
Åyurveda has a comprehensive view of health as a positive state.
It is concerned with physical more than spiritual well-being, yet it is
grounded in Hindu religio-philosophical principles, and expands the
model of religious therapeutics by providing a system of healthmaintenance
and medicine within a religious context. Fifteen determinants
of health are discussed under four headings: (1) biological and ecological,
(2) medical and psychological, (3) sociocultural and aesthetic,
and (4) metaphysical and religious. Criticism may be lodged against the
Indian emphasis on spirituality to the extent that mundane well-being is
neglected, but Åyurveda is an antidote to such a criticism, with its focus
on healthful life as holy life.