Agni : Concept according to Ayurveda

Last weeks in Ayurveda 101 we have been discussing many small theories and new words
in our series of this post . We have seen the Doshas , The Dhatus , The Mala. In our Life as we spoke before we go through creating, metabolism and destruction.That as been the rule of nature and same is true in our body too . Who does this digestion in our body? The Pitta Dosha as said before while describing the Doshas .... But to be more specific its the "Agni" that is responsible for this action . Today we have a look on this concept of "Agni" .

The Concept of "Agni " :

We live to eat and eat to live .. every one knows this . Out body needs energy so we provide it
in form of food .This food is then digested in our stomach to be more easily digested in our
each cells.Each cell in further would then digest further this received nutrients to give the necessary growth or whatever work each cell does. Each of this area , the stomach or the intestine, or each Dhatus, or each Panchamahbhoot .. who does this work to digest this received
nutrient would have some thing that has the power to convert those nutrients to energy .
This is what we in Ayurveda called as Agni .

Agni to understand has been divided in three different types .

1] Jatharagni or Kosthagni:

"Jathar" means duodenal or intestine /" Kostha" means abdomen ...
The agni that works in our abdomen or intestine or the whole digestive tract is called as
"Jatharagni or Kosthagni" . The role of this agni is to digest all the food /water particles
that we eat . To digest them and then make micro nutrients so that could be supplied to different
areas of our body or each Dhatus .

2] Dhatvagnis :

The nutrient digested and absorbed by the Jatharagni are then send to the respective areas or Dhatus . For the Dhatus this nutrient are still not in a stage of absorption so to absorb them properly they have to be digested further with the help of Dhatvagni's .Each Dhatus that we have seen would have different dhatvagni's to digest what comes to them thus absorbing the nutrients supplied . The role of Dhatvagni's is real important when it comes to treating some chronic diseases.

3] Panchamahbhoot agni:

The whole universe is divided in 5 elements namely called panchamahbhoot , we have seen and read that before . In regards to that same theory the food that we eat would be also Panchamahbhovatic or full with five elements. Thus to digest that food in to perfect energy each of us also require respective Panchamahbhoot agni which could digest again all elements in the simplest form in our body to provide us the energy and strength.

Thus the simple process of digestion that we see from outside can be classified in all this smaller agnis or fire in our body just to make our body work properly. A simple disturbance of one of those agni's can be enough to cause trouble in our body leading to some symptom or a disease .


Posted by Sudeep

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