Charaka Samhita

The increasingly popular psychosomatic constitution or "Prakriti" as a patient-specific treatment approach was first explained by Charaka.

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and answers between a teacher and a disciple.

At the time of conception itself, this 'prakriti' or constitution gets determined and this is not changed. This consists of a series of physical, mental and behavioural traits. These determine whether a man belongs to 'pitta prakriti', 'vatta prakriti' or 'kapha prakriti'. It is a physician's job to determine this nature in every patient as it is essential for identifying the predisposition to diseases.

Secondly, it is important to determine the course of the disease. In certain people, one disease has a rapid course while in others the disease lingers for weeks and months. Most importantly, 'prakriti' determines response to treatment. The same treatment will not have identical effects on different situations and in different patients. Although the concept of 'prakriti' enables practitioners to identify treatments for their patients that are non-generic, it is not exactly customized.

As one Charaka researcher, Dominik Wujastyk of Vienna University, feels: "...it's quite a fine-grained diagnostic tool but it should not be confused with New Age ideas of treating the whole man and not just the symptoms."