J. P. Balodhi
In understanding a cultures perspectives on various aspects of life, much is dependent on its understanding of the phenomenal world. In this paper, a brief overview of the Indian perception of the phenomenal world and its approaches to psychological dysfunctions is presented.
Whilst referring to psychological dysfunctions, contemporary western psychology refers to various kinds of dysfunctions, such as delusion, hallucination, paranoia, withdrawal, and categorizes them to enable us in mapping their field. In classical Indian thought specific manifestations of each dysfunction is not found except vague classifications available in the Ayurvedic medical literature.
In Indian thought, psychological dysfunctions are understood as symptoms of the greater misunderstanding of the phenomenal world. The phenomenal world is explained at three levels: adhibhuta (matter), adhyatma (mind) and adhidaiva (higher power). Hence, disturbance, imbalance, or dysfunction will occur at three levels, the physical, psychological and the spiritual. These three aspects of dysfunctions are independent but they interact with and have an impact on each other. In this paper, we discuss the Indian approaches to psychological dysfunction at these three levels. They will be discussed from the medical, psychological, and transpersonal methods.
In the earliest literature of India, (Vedic period), all the psychological functions including cognition, emotion and volition are known and described singularly through the concept of mind. The Rig Veda is a collection of poetic hymns in which numerous gods and goddesses, who are the personifications of different aspects of the forces of nature, are invoked and glorified. These hymns appear to be simple prayers to the deities. Yet, couched in highly symbolic language, they contain great philosophical and metaphysical meaning. All the thoughts of Indian philosophy flow from the profound origin of the Rig Veda (Tigunait, 1983, p. 10). It is the first available document of Indian literature in which mythological and religious meaning is attached to psychological dysfunctions. Rudra (Lord Siva), Agni (God of Fire), Marut (the fierce hosts of Siva) are the deities representing the phenomenology of aggression, violence, wrath etc. (Balodhi, 1984).
This treaty is followed by the Atharva Veda, whichcontains mantras that are believed to have great supernatural power. Unlike the mantras of the Rig, Sama, and Yajur Vedas, whose purpose is spiritual, most mantras of the Atharva Veda deal with the mundane world and are for material gains. In the Atharva Veda, psychological dysfunctions are listed and understood as an act of possession by a demon or divine agent, sorcery and witches, an effect of an evil eye cast on the individual and a curse by deified souls of departed ancestors (Balodhi and Chowdhari, 1986).
In this period, the birth of psychiatry is registered as an independent branch of knowledge. It flowed in three broad streams: the religious, the medical, and the psychological. The literature of the post Vedic period namely the Brahmanas, the Tantras, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Puranas form the religious part of it, wherein, innumerable references are available on the positive/negative emotions of humans. Mahabharata, for example, consolidated its psychic formulations in terms of traits or innate attributes of personality, giving rise to psychological well being and dysfunction. According to it, mind will be always active with one of three vedanas or feelings - pleasure, pain, and indifference - due to the three gunas (attributes or states) sattva, rajas, and tamas. In the sattva or sattvic state, which is a state of well being, joy, bliss, pleasure, happiness and peace of mind are experienced. The rajasic state includes feelings such as dissatisfaction, anxiety, grief, greed, and intolerance. The tamasic state is characterized by carelessness, infatuation, laziness, and dullness (Shanti Parva Chapter 94). The rajasic and tamasic are said to be dysfunctional states, as due to external and personality factors, they become a part of individuals.
The Bhagavad-Gita, which is the culmination of the Mahabharata (Bhisma Parva) gives an account of guna theory in detail. The sattvic nature aims at light and knowledge, the rajasic nature is restless, full of desires and tamasic is dull and inert. The rajas and the tamas gunas give rise to all psychological dysfunctions. Greed, unrest, craving etc. spring up when rajas increases; and tamas, dullness, which is born out of ignorance deludes all people. Its qualities are negligence, indolence, and sleep (Bhagavad-Gita, 14.7-10). All these functions, termed as doshas, originate from kama (desire), krodha (aggression) and lobha (greed). A beautiful sequence of these doshas are expressed in two couplets.
“Sangat sanjayate kamah kamat krodabhi jayati krodhat bhavati sammoh, sammohat Smriti bibhramah Smriti bhranshat buddhi nashah buddhi nashat pranash yati”
The man dwelling on sense objects develops attachments for them, from attachment springs up desire and from desire ensues anger, from anger arises infatuation, from infatuation confusion of memory, from confusion of memory loss of reason and from loss of reason one goes completely ruin (Bhagvad Gita 2, 62- 63)
A well classified system of medicine called Ayurveda with full psychological bearing emerged after the Vedic period. The ayurvedic system of medicine is still practiced in India. Vivid descriptions of diagnosis, etiology, psychology, treatment, psychopharmacology, and prognosis of physical and psychological dysfunctions is available and being practiced.
Dysfunction psychological or physical has a common law for its origin, existence, and treatment. The fundamental ayurvedic concept is that the processes of three humors (vat, pith, kapha) are regulated by the types of these governing principles, which are inherited in individuals from his parents. Pathological formations, exothermic reactions or impulses are the result of the influence of these physiological processes of vitiating substances, which have entered the body either through ahara (food) or vihar (environment), they give rise to nija (metabolic) or agantuja (external/ineffective) diseases.
Psychological dysfunctions according to Ayurveda are due to rash and evil impulses of passion and delusion (rajas, tamas). When mind is enveloped by passion and delusion, the retention of true knowledge (dhi) is lost. His will power (dhriti) is weakened and there will be derangement of memory (smriti). All the processes and faculties involved in it are technically called prajna aparadh or volitional transgression, because they come under the ken of mind.
The Upanishads speak altogether a different language as far as psychological dysfunctions are concerned. According to it, it is not the concept but percept, darsana (seeing) and philosophy (wisdom). Psychological functions or cognition is just abstract which prevents it being interpretative. No doubt, it can be interpreted in relation to some concrete system (behaviorism) as no explanatory principle can be got by abstraction. It is remarkable that Upanishad texts speak of cognition as experience at different levels. It does not matter whether this is called perception, intelligence, imagination, intuition, or insight. As the Isha Upanishad (1-7) states, ‘what delusion (moha), what sorrow (shoka) is there for the wise man who sees all beings as his own self?’
Truth is knowing one’s own divinity (satyam, jnanam, anantabrahm); and one existential truth is interpreted in many ways by scholars (ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti).These two fundamental Upanishadic instructions further gave rise to different schools of philosophy. The different philosophical schools include the Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Mimamsa, Vedanta, Jainism, and Buddhism. All these systems claim to be valid in their approach.
Samkhya, which means enumeration or investigation of the categories of the phenomenal world, is attributed to Kapil Muni. It accepts two basic categories “purusha” or the intelligent principle whose essence is consciousness; and “prakriti” or the unconscious principle, the ultimate cause of the world/universe. Prakriti is composed of three constituents collectively called gunas, viz sattva, rajas, and tamas. Sattva contains knowledge, rajas activity, and tamas passivity. They are inseparable but the dominance of one over the other two will decide the nature of production. When sattva dominates, light, knowledge, intellect, and emotion equanimity prevail and there is no psychological dysfunction. However, when rajas and tamas dominate, emotional imbalance such as pain dullness, inertia occur and the individual self (which in its true essence is pure, unattached), identifies itself with prakriti (matter) and gets caught in the suffering. Following the same theoretical view, the Yoga school of Patanjali further explained that this failure to realize that consciousness is faulty and volitional, initiates four processes leading to psychological dysfunctions called kleshas or afflictions:
Coster (1934) compared these kleshas or afflictions with the primary anxiety and insecurity in the light of psychoanalysis. Patanjali has further described the general symptoms of these psychological dysfunction as vyadhi (disturbance on system), styana (gloominess), samasaya (doubt), pramada (procrastination), alasya (sloth), avirati (craving for sense pleasure), bhraritidarshan (hallucination), alabdha bhumikattva (failure to attend with concentration) and anavastha (instability). While mapping the cognitive field, Patanjali declared all but one psychological dysfunction as erroneous or dysfunctional. Except for pramana (right knowledge), others, viz. viparyaya (a state in which mental image does not correspond with the object), vikalpa (an image conjured by words without any substance behind it), nidra (sleep, in which psychological functions cannot be validated) and smriti (memory which cannot be eliminated) are psychological dysfunctions.
The Nyaya-Vaisesika schools of philosophy are atomistic – realistic. According to Nyaya-Vaisesika all psychological functions are attributes of self and they are produced mechanically with mind-sense–object relation. They are of two types: experimental and remembrance. Experimental functions again will have two parts: valid (prama) and invalid (aprama). Aprama is doubt (samasya), erroneous (viparyaya) or hypothetical (tark). The Nyaya- Vaisesika schools provided good theoretical viewpoints, but have no answer for how these invalid functions take place. The Nyaya sutra of Gautama (200 AD) is a testimony of psychometry as he claims psychological dysfunctions can be assessed by means of logical proof – a formal analysis of proposition (pratijna pareekshanam nyayah) (Nyayasutra 1). Gautama has mentioned five kinds of fallacies of reason. These are: discrepancy (sabhyabhichar), contradiction (virudha), ambiguity (prakaranasama) and mistimed (kalatita). Balodhi (1986) has proposed these fallacies as the tools of the assessment of thought disorder.
Mimamsa does not believe in any psychological dysfunction, as according to it, all psychological functions manifest from the nature of their objects. When a cognition is found not to be in harmony with the real nature of its object, it is due to the presence of discrepancies in the conditions that give rise to them. Hence, dysfunctions are due to 1) passions of the mind, 2) disorders in the peripheral organs and 3) defects in the objective stimuli.
The Vedanta school admits, on theoretical grounds, Samkhya-Yoga’s concept of modification of mind as vrittis or psychological functions, but discards/disregards the existential reality as illusion or maya. Illusion, according to this school is due to ignorance, but mere ignorance cannot give rise to illusion. The illusion does not conceal the nature of object alone, but also distorts it, making it appear as something else. Illusory modification of any substance, as of the rope into the snake, is called vivartha and real modification as of milk into curd is called parinama. Projection or adhyasa, is that which is non-existent but appears real.
According to Jaina philosophy, an awareness of an object within and not without its limitation is right psychological function and dysfunction is vice versa. Self is conscious entity and psychological functions are its manifestations rather than attributes – self-luminous. It talks of clairvoyance, telepathy omniscience etc., but seldom speaks of dysfunctions.
Buddhism too has elaborated descriptions of pragmatic reality. According to it, man has by nature a number of traits, which condition him and make suffer. The following three traits can be understood psychological dysfunctions:
Indian ideas of psychological dysfunctions are influenced by their cultural context, both by the kind of conceptual structure in which they are cast, and the kind of moral and religious attitude that arise from the belief system of rebirth and release. In that sense, every mental function – including ordinary perception, emotion and motivation, can be called dysfunctions, as the purpose of their function is to create endless birth and rebirth. Patanjali in his opening line of Yoga Sutra declares that yoga is cessation of all mental activities. So who is normal? Except God, none.
The psychological faculty is termed as an organ, an internal organ (antahkarana). However, the different schools of Indian philosophy differ over this issue. All the different concepts of manas, buddhi, vijnana, chitta, hridaya etc. constitute the upadhi or limiting condition only of the self (atman) and does not offer a clear psychological picture.
Psychological dysfunctions are presented as obstacles on the way to spiritual journey, rather than the genesis of abnormal behavior. For example, according to the classical texts, spiritual practices are not recommended for people who are diseased, dull, careless, lazy or mentally instable, doubtful and who show anguish, despair, nervousness and hard breathing (Yoga sutra 1.30-31).
There is a need to demystify the concepts of psychological functions as mentioned in the classical Indian texts and formulate them into an adequate theoretical understanding of human behavior and nature from the Indian perspective.
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