Chapter 2 - The Story of Life

The Meaning of Life

The authors of Ayurveda, ‘The science of life’, intended by Ayurveda much more than mere skill of treatment or diagnosis of a disease condition. It meant for them the total concept of lite which includes both man and his environment. The well-being of, man, the aggregate of body, mind and soul, cannot be confined to mere physical health, bat extends to that total sense of enjoyment of physical, mental and spiritual satisfaction and enrichment born as a result of wholesome and mutually beneficial interaction between the individual and his environment, social, physical and spiritual, Man as a biological entity needs to adjust to the physical environment and as a social and spiritual entity needs to adjust and react wholesomely to the society in which he lives and to the spiritual ideal upheld by it. Such well-being alone is real and true or man in his entirety and such is the object of the “Science of Life”.

Caraka declares therefore—

[Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 1.14]

“That is named the science of life wherein are laid down the good and the bad life, the happy and the unhappy life, and what is wholesome and what is unwholesome in relation to life, as also the measure of life.”

Having visualised this total picture of life, we shall now discuss and analyse the two parts of it individually, viz., (1) The universe that forms the environment and which has given rise to life, and (2) The individual organization, its composition and structure and mode of functioning and its progressive evolution from ameba to man.

Life and the Triumvirate of Organizations

It is the belief of science with the evidence at its disposal that life is an incident in the history of the universe and is perhaps confined to this planet of ours where conditions favourable to its emergence, existence and growth began to obtain some millions of years ago. Science also expects life to disappear with the disappearance of these circumstances which disappearance is a certainty according to it in a few million more years.

From a purely common-sense point of view, it becomes difficult to understand that out of innumerable solar systems whirling about in space, whose volume is to be counted only in light years, that a tiny speck of a planet like ours should be the chosen or fortuitous haven or cradle of this mysterious phenomenon called life, while the rest of the universe should be found inhospitable to it. Be it as it may, its history on our planet has been a most interesting one and a most tenacious and untiring struggle against the odds of ever-changing time and environment. It would seem from the opinion of science that life is alien altogether to the physical forces of the universe and can choose its habitation and its field of play and growth within very narrow limits of elemental geography

At a particular stage in the history of our universe or solar system, the earth developed its present elemental geography, its present temperature, its contents of solid, liquid and gaseous matter, its mountains and earthy crust, its oceans, and its atmosphere of air. That hour in its history was the hour of lifting the curtain on the drama of life and ever since, life’s unfoldment has gone on through the various stages of vegetable, animalcular, animal and human evolution Till the human stage the urge of life has been an inner compulsion, blind, powerful and un-self-contemplative Only the urge has been there instinctive like the powerful drive of the powder behind the lead in the bullet. But now, man stands surprised, wondering and self-contemplative; and the psyche in him demands the luxury of a reflecting mirror of thought, in which to contemplate her graces aud the freedom to choose the direction in which to make her next step. Life from a mere green grain of moss and a speck of protoplasm has grown through the states of a floating jelly, the creeping reptile, the soaring bird, the unwieldy dinosaur and the half uplifted ape into the full stature of au upright standing man with his gaze scanning the mystery of the endless vistas of space and time and the colorful horizon where the earth meets the heavens in an everlasting nuptial clasp.

Briefly told, the story of life, more marvellous than a fairy tale is this. When on this planet there appeared the covering expanse of the rolling waters and a moving atmosphere that blanketed the earth and the oceans filling the inter-spaces between the earth and the sun, the first stage in the unfoldment of life began. The sun, the parent of this planetary system, pouring out his radiant energy upon the earth and its waters though the intermediate atmosphere has given rise to the first forms of life and has sustained them in all their later stages of growth and evolution, and to this day remains the main source and sustenance of life.

Declares the Veda:

[sūrya ātmā jagatastasthuṣaśca]

“The sun is the soul of all things in the world, the mobile as well as the immobile.”

But the interplay of the solar radiations and the aquatic element of the earth and its ever-moving atmosphere has been essential for the maintenance of life in all its forms While the sun was the impregnator, the field for impregnation was the waters of the ocean. It alone could receive the seed, and clothe it with the habiliment of life, with the form and structure needed for abiding and growth; and it is the field and scope for the vital dynamics of life unfolded gradually into cognition, conation, intellection and spiritual fulfilment.

Whether life is an exotic visitor waiting to make its entry on this planet till such a favourable moment when the optimal condition for its play was evolved, or is a peculiar offspring of such an accidental condition incidental in the history of stellar and planetary evolution or whether as described by the ancient Sankhya seers, at the beginning of each cycle of time, the primordial principle of matter gets impelled into evolutionary activity of gradual uufoldment by a peculiar change in the eternal propinquity of the Purusha who is the unchanging witness of Nature (prakṛti) it is not given to man to say with certitude

Biocatalysis

Whatever be the origin of life whether extrinsic of intrinsic to matter, the distinguishing mark of all the forms of life has been the power of organization.

Lovatt Evans in his work on “Starling’s principles of human physiology” writes,

“What are the fundamental phenomena which distinguish living things? Their dictiuctive feature is perhaps organization, and in the higher members this organization becomes more and more distinct. This greater complexity of organizations runs parallel with increasing range and power of adaptation, attained by the setting apart of special structures (organs) for the performance of definite functions”.

The peculiar characteristic of life is its power to organize its internal conditions both as regards structure and function so as to cope with its external conditions. Such organization entitles it to the name of organic life. Such life-activity naturally involves a continuous maintenance of its body structure by means of periodic replenishment of the wear and tear, a constant supply of energy for maintaing the optimal temperature and tension and an unfailing mechanism for correlation of the distinctive functions of each limb of its complex structure so as to help the organism to react as a whole both in its internal and external movements. Such threefold organization is the sine qua non of all organisms however small or great

All life or every organism is engaged continually in converting the matter of the outside world into a new pattern and texture that it may subserve the purpose of life. This transformation of matter into its own field of extension is the distinctive function of life A recent writer Jerome Alexandar in his “Life, its nature and origin” declares that the distinguishing nature of life is bio-catalysis i.e., its power to bring about chemical change in bodies without practically undergoing any change itself. This bio-catalytic action is what enables life to maintain and extend its field of play in an alien world of matter. Life is continually annexing matter by its catalytic activity and extending its dominion over space-time. Life viewed from this point, is a catalytic struggle with the environment, a process of annexation into its expanding boundaries of the non-responsive and even hostile forces of the material world. This is a view which fully accords with that of the Sankhya school of philosophy on which Ayurveda is based. The infinite number of Purusas, known as bions in mordern biological language are caught up in the meshes of matter. In the presence of these bions, matter undergoes changes in order to give these life-units their play of life i.e., perpetual unfoldment of sensations, images and pain-pleasure conditions. But the Purusas remain unaffected and ever the same.

Matter is like a danseuse who desires her charms to be witnessed by these bions called Purusas.

[Sāṃ. Kā. 65]

“The spirit, seated composed like a spectator perceives Nature”

Thus life’s play involves a recasting of matter into new patterns to suit the purpose of these bions while they themselves remain unchanged witnesses of varying life phenomena. The activity of these bions is indeed best illustrated by this process of bio-catalysis.

This biocatalytic process involves the threefold organization calculated to subserve the vital purposes of material upkeep and growth, maintenance of thermal and metabolic processes and the co-ordination of the internal and external movements suitably to the changes of environment Without these threefold functions no organism can subsist All processes of assimilation and dissimilation so essential to the upkeep of its structure and tone are rooted in such organizations

It is therefore now our purpose to see how Ayurveda describes and fits into its general outline of life-processes this three-fold phenomenon of organization.

Caraka lays down the distinction between organic and inorganic life thus:

[Carakasaṃhitā Sūtrasthāna 1.48]

“The thing that is endowed with the sensory organization is organic or sentient and that which is not endowed thus is inorganic or non-sentient”

The sentient organism involves a complex organization of structural, metabolic and kinetic processes. It also involves a mind or a co-ordinating principle however elementary or intricate it be. Such an organization, Ayurveda holds, to be universally obtaining in all forms of life, from the most rudimentary to the most complex. Thus its physiology and pathology is uniformly applied in the broadest outline to all forms of life.

Though life is mysterious and undefinable as a whole, the phenomena which signify the existence of life are evident for purposes of observation and study. All these phenomena viz., ingestion, assimilation, respiration, movement, growth, creative evolution, reproduction, death and last but not the least, the power of organization distinguish the animate from the inanimate

Creative Evolution

Life has been observed, ever since its first appearance, to be endeavouring and struggling to create and preserve such optimal environmental conditions for itself as would help its evolutionary purposiveness

No doubt it reserves a margin for some variations in time and space Besides, life has developed its own organization of existence, growth, perpetuation and expression so as to accord with such probable environmental variations, of course within certain limits, and has built up protective devices and technique for its survival and evolution. In the plant life we see the sap being encased in a hard case of bark-crust to protect it from the external heat and cold as well as from hostile incursions. Plant life is an example dominantly of the survival-technique of life’s organization. In spite of the great size and strength developed, that form was not conducive to the varied richness of life-processes struggling for expression Hence, life took a different direction for the release of those processes and devised subtler and more malleable patterns endowed with movement, agility and resourcefulness, for the preservation of its life and for overcoming hostile forces either by resistance or by accommodation. This is the animal pattern from the smallest animal to the complex organism of man with the mind-principle fully dominant and suggestive of a yet higher and more subtle element in life waiting to be released for its full assertion

The process of such evolution is the direct result of the integrative organization which every living organism possesses and is able to evolve. The higher the type of life, the more subtle and distinct become these organizations. These organizations become more and more complex as evolution advances and form separate structures and special organs for the performance of definite functions

But the fundamental principle of organizations which maintain the integration of the individual remains the same for all living organisms, whether minute or large. Even in unicellular life, all the fundamental phenomena of life are carried out in the same pattern though there is no differentiation in appearance or structure of the tiny speck of protoplasm.

These fundamental phenomena are carried out by the following three integrative organizations of life.

1. Vital or motivating organization. This is the master organization which initiates and directs all activities and maintains the specificity of all vital processes which characterize living organisms

2. Physical or material organization is that which maintains the specificity of fluid matrix of protoplasm wherein life-phenomena are played,

3. Thermal or metabolic organization is that which maintains specificity of heat by carrying out anabolic and katabolic processes