Abstract

This paper examines the puruṣa concept in the Caraka Saṃhitā, an early text of Ayurveda, and its relation to Indic thinking about phenomenal worldhood. It argues that, contrary to the usual interpretation, early Ayurveda does not consider the person to be a microcosmic replication of the macrocosmos. Instead, early Ayurveda asserts that personhood is worldhood, and thus the person is non-different from the phenomenal totality of his existence. This is confirmed by the CS’s several definitions of puruṣa, which are alternately posed in terms familiar to Vaiśeṣika, early Sāṃkhya, early Buddhism, and Upaniṣadic monism. It is likewise confirmed by the Ayurvedic logic of sāmānya, which governs the meaning of the list of person-to-world correspondences in CS 4.5 and its often misinterpreted claim, puruṣo’yam lokasaṃmitaḥ. Finally it is confirmed in the program of Ayurvedic therapeutics, which aims at establishing various kinds of “appropriateness” for the sake of effecting samayoga—the “harmonious joining” of person and world.