Healthy a la Balinese

Published 4 months ago in People & Community by Sidarta Wijaya | 424 Views

Staying healthy a la Balinese is quite complicated, many factors have to be taken into consideration, and one of them is the harmony of elements within the body. Based on Balinese traditional healing method, the healthiness of a person is determined by the harmony of three basic elements in human body, which is known as Tri Dosha, namely Vatta (air), Pitta (fire) and Kapha (water); excess amount of one or two elements within the body will disrupt the function of body organ (dhatu) and end up with sickness.

Based on this concept, Balinese traditional healers divide the various sicknesses into three general categories. First, hot (panes) sickness, this kind of sickness is caused by the excess amount of fire element (Pitta) within the body. The second one is cold (nyem) sickness, this kind of sickness is caused by the excess amount of water element (Kapha) within the body; and the last one is hot-cold (kebus-dingin) sickness this kind of sickness is caused by the excess amount of air element (Vatta) within the body.

The hot (panes) sickness is cured by using the medicine that has water element (Kapha) in it while the cold (nyem) sickness is cured by using the medicine which has fire element (Pitta) in it. For The hot-cold (kebus-dingin) sickness, a medicine with combination of fire element (Pitta) and water element (Kapha) will cure the sickness.

The harmony of these three elements can be achieved by three rules, the right food (ahara), the right conduct (wihara) and the right medicine (ausadha). Consuming the right kinds and amount of food, especially with the emphasis on “right kind of food” is essential to the Balinese for achieving a healthy state of body and mind, especially consuming the spiritual hygienic food. The right conduct is important to maintain the health, for examples absence from smoking and consuming liquor, taking enough rest and exercise, etc. the right medicine is important to cure the sickness and re-achieved the healthy condition.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 4:27 pm and is filed under People & Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: absence, ahara, air element, ausadha, balinese, basic elements, body organ, dhatu, dosha, elements in human body, exercise, fire element, harmony, healthiness, Kapha, kebus dingin, liquor, medicine, nyem, panes, Pitta, right medicine, sicknesses, three elements, Tri Dosha, two elements, Vatta, water element, wihara, woman 2.

2 Responses to “Healthy a la Balinese”

putu30
January 16th, 2008 09:40
1

Very interesting post. As a Balinese, this is the first time I am aware that such healing concept exits. I heard about the word Usadha a lot, but that’s about it. Can you give example of the “hot” sickness? and what is the “cold” food which can be used to heal the hot sickness?
sidarta
January 16th, 2008 11:46
2

fever is categorized as hot sickness, the traditional treatment to ease the fever is to apply few dapdap leaves on the stomach of the patient. dapdap leaves gives a cold sentation and absorb excessive heat from the body of the patient.