ANALYTICAL STUDY OF HEART IN AYURVEDA: A REVIEW ARTICLE

Abstract

The heart, the pumping organ of the circulatory system, is situated in middle mediastinum, enclosed within the pericardium along with the great vessels. Optimum and efficient circulation of blood throughout the body ensures proper nutrition, excretion, gaseous exchange, thermoregulation and hemostasis, digestion and metabolism, intelligence, immunity and life in the body. This fairly explains the importance of these four chambered organs in our body and its vulnerability to any kind of disturbances in the body and reason of CVD being leading cause of death. It is important to understand this organ thoroughly for fair understanding and management of that each case of CVD. In Ayurveda hridaya is considered under trimarma and dasa prana ayatana which duly signifies the importance of this organ in causation of grave diseases. However, the term Hridaya mentioned in Ayurveda is denoting an organ which controls the passage of prana by collecting, distributing in a rhythm. This definition indicates that hridaya is the heart and hridaya is the brain as well. Hridaya, however, is considered one among the kosthangas by Acharya Charak and one among kosthas by Acharya Susruta. These descriptions are surely appreciating about the “uruhstha hridaya”. The present review article encompasses the concept of heart in Ayurveda i.e., hridaya (urahstha) in Ayurveda; including its nirukty (etymology), sharira rachana (anatomy), sharir kriya (physiology) with modern insights where ever relevance is there.

Keywords: heart, hridaya, trimarma, ayurveda, uruhstha