Exploring Indian Psychology!

Whenever I mention about Indian Psychology to anyone, the immediate response I encounter is, "India never had a concept of Psychology/Psychotherapy". To people who know Indic Traditions usually attribute Indian psychology to Yogasutras alone.

My contemplation over the years over this topic makes me question, a civilization which focused on physical reality in terms of Yoga and Ayurveda and Spiritual reality with innumerable Shastras starting like Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas; how can it ignore the connecting link between the two: MIND?

Has Bhartiya civilization never focused on Mind? Have we lost the concerned tradition like we have lost many Veda shakas? Or our focus has been different as compared to modern conventional psychology?

The earliest reference to mental health in written tradition is found in Atharva Veda which lists down 20 different mental afflictions. Acharya Sushruta in his famous treatise on Surgery, enlists 'A happy and contended mind' as a criteria for a healthy person. Needless to say Darshan shastras like Sankhya, Yoga, Vedanta (Bhagavad Gita is a part of Vedanta darshan) have discussed mind, its associated functions and personalities quite exhaustively. Ayurveda considers Bhuta vidya i.e treatment of Psychological afflictions as one of the 8 branches of Ayurvedic treatment modalities.

With prominent limbs of Indic civilization discussing mind in some form or the other, it can't be an ignored aspect in our tradition. Probably, our compulsive need to legitimize any of our knowledge systems based on its equivalence with modern Western knowledge is a problem!

Let us explore the Indic mind traditions in the next few articles to dive deeper into this unexplored and yet important aspect of our civilization.