Beyond the Mind-body Split: How Classical India's Darśanas Anticipated Modern Psychosomatic Medicine
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Cartesian dualism has historically kept mental and physical ailments in rigid silos, creating persistent bottlenecks in conventional clinical approaches to psychosomatic disorders. Classical Indian philosophical traditions (darsanas), conversely, resolved this split at the foundation itself by treating the psyche and the soma as a single, interdependent continuum. This paper highlights how the systemic formulations of Samkhya-Yoga and classical Ayurvedic sastras anticipated contemporary developments in psychosomatic medicine and psychoneuroimmunology. Under the Samkhya framework, consciousness (purusa) stands apart, while mind (antahkarana) and the physical body (sarira) are both material manifestations of prakrti, differing only in their subtlety through the play of the three gunas. Classical Ayurveda translates this philosophy into bedside clinical reality: saririka dosas (vata, pitta, kapha) and manasika dosas (rajas, tamas) continually act and react upon each other, establishing that emotional disturbances invariably disrupt somatic balance and vice versa. Moreover, foundational modalities like astanga yoga, pranayama, dharana, and acara rasayana directly correlate with modern scientific concepts of vagal tone modulation, gut-brain signaling, and stress mitigation. A close reading of original textual traditions alongside present-day evidence establishes that ancient Indian thought did not merely try to connect mind and body, but treated them as intrinsically whole. Integrating these classical darśanic insights into mainstream healthcare can provide a sound theoretical grounding for treating lifestyle diseases, functional somatic complaints, and psychosomatic illness.
Language: English
Subfield: Complementary and alternative medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222108649
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