Purva Rupeeyam of bhela indriya sthana-an explorative study

Abstract

Maharshi Bhela was a direct disciple of ‘Acharya Punarvasu Atreya’ and he has composed a compendium, known as ‘Bhela samhita’. Bhela Samhita is one of the prominent texts of the samhita period of Ayurveda (100 BC-400 BC) and it consists of 120 chapters divided among 8 sections. ‘Indriya sthana’ (which deals with prognostic aspects) is one among the eight sections of ‘Bhela samhita’ which comprises of 12 chapters. ‘Purva rupeeyam’ is the sixth chapter of ‘Bhela indriya sthana’, having 17 verses dealing with various signs and symptoms seen at the prodromal stage of diseases and leads to death at later stages. Proper knowledge of the conditions explained in ‘Purva rupeeyam’ chapter enables the physician to detect life threatening diseases at earlier or prodromal stages which further helps in clinical prognostic decision making. Studies on ‘Bhela indriya sthana’ have been lacking and the present work is aimed to explore the contents of ‘Purva rupeeyam’ (sixth chapter) of ‘Bhela indriya sthana’. Various conditions such as internal haemorrhage, Cancer-related fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, congestive heart failure, multiple system atrophy, upper respiratory tract infections and their complications, life liver renal and liver disease, hepatorenal syndrome, hepatic encephalopathy with visual hallucination and non-beneficial treatment at end of life stages are documented in this chapter by ‘Maharshi Bhela’. Further research works are required to substantiate the clinical findings mentioned in this chapter.