Traditional Tibetan medicine (), also known as Sowa-Rigpa medicine, is a centuries-old traditional medical system that employs a complex approach to diagnosis, incorporating techniques such as pulse analysis and urinalysis, and utilizes behavior and dietary modification, medicines composed of natural materials (e.g., herbs and minerals) and physical therapies (e.g. Tibetan acupuncture, moxabustion, etc.) to treat illness. The Tibetan medical system is based upon

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n Buddhist literature (for example Abhidharma and

Vajrayana Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...

tantras Tantras ("''doctrine''" or "''framework''" or "''system''" ) refers to numerous and varied scriptures pertaining to any of several esoteric traditions rooted in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. The religious culture of the Tantras is essentially ...

) and

Ayurveda Ayurveda () is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population rep ...

. It continues to be practiced in

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory which constitutes a part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. (subscription required) Quote: "Jammu ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

, China and

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

, as well as more recently in parts of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and North America. It embraces the traditional Buddhist belief that all illness ultimately results from the

three poisons The three poisons (Sanskrit: ''triviṣa''; Tibetan: ''dug gsum'') or the three unwholesome roots (Sanskrit: ''akuśala-mūla''; Pāli: ''akusala-mūla''), in Buddhism, refer to the three root kleshas: '' Moha'' (delusion, confusion), ''Raga'' ...

: delusion, greed and aversion. Tibetan medicine follows the Buddha's Four Noble Truths which apply medical diagnostic logic to suffering.

History

As Indian culture flooded Tibet in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a number of Indian medical texts were also transmitted. For example, the Ayurvedic ''Astāngahrdayasamhitā'' (Heart of Medicine Compendium attributed to

Vagbhata Vāgbhaṭa (वाग्भट) is one of the most influential writers, Scientist, Doctor and advisor of ayurveda. Several works are associated with his name as author, principally the Ashtāṅgasaṅgraha (अष्टाङ्गसंग� ...

) was translated into Tibetan by རིན་ཆེན་བཟང་པོ། (

Rinchen Zangpo __NOTOC__ Lochen Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055; ), also known as Mahaguru, was a principal lotsawa or translator of Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Tibetan during the second diffusion of Buddhism in Tibet, variously called the New Translation School, ...

) (957–1055). Tibet also absorbed the early Indian Abhidharma literature, for example the fifth-century ''Abhidharmakosasabhasyam'' by Vasubandhu, which expounds upon medical topics, such as fetal development. A wide range of Indian Vajrayana tantras, containing practices based on medical anatomy, were subsequently absorbed into Tibet. Some scholars believe that rgyud bzhi (the ''

Four Tantras 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

'') was told by the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...

, while some believe it is the primary work of གཡུ་ཐོག་ཡོན་ཏན་མགོན་པོ། ( Yuthok Yontan Gonpo, 708 AD). The former opinion is often refuted by saying "If it was told by the Lord Buddha, rgyud bzhi should have a

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

version". However, there is no such version and also no Indian practitioners who have received unbroken lineage of rgyud bzhi. Thus, the later thought should be scholarly considered authentic and practical. The provenance is uncertain. It was the aboriginal Tibetan people's accumulative knowledge of their local plants and their various usages for benefiting people's health that were collected by སྟོན་པོ་གཤེན་རབ་མི་བོ་ཆེ། the

Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche Tonpa Shenrab ( "Teacher Shenrab") or Shenrab Miwo ()—also called the Buddha Shenrab, Guru Shenrab and a number of other titles—is the legendary founder of the Bon tradition of Tibet. The story of Tonpa Shenrab was revealed in a fourtee ...

and passed down to one of his sons. Later Yuthok Yontan Gonpo perfected it and there was no author for the books, because at the time it was politically incorrect to mention anything related to Bon nor faith in it. གཡུ་ཐོག་ཡོན་ཏན་མགོན་པོ། ( Yuthok Yontan Gonpo) adapted and synthesized the Four Tantras in the 12th Century. The Four Tantras are scholarly debated as having Indian origins or, as Remedy Master Buddha Bhaisajyaguru's word or, as authentically Tibetan. It was not formally taught in schools at first but, intertwined with Tibetan Buddhism. Around the turn of the 14th century, the Drangti family of physicians established a curriculum for the Four Tantras (and the supplementary literature from the Yutok school) at ས་སྐྱ་དགོན། (

Sakya Monastery Sakya Monastery (), also known as Pel Sakya (; "White Earth" or "Pale Earth") is a Buddhist monastery situated in Sa'gya Town (ས་སྐྱ་), Sa'gya County, about 127 km west of Shigatse in the Tibet Autonomous Region. History ...

). The ཏཱ་ལའི་བླ་མ་སྐུ་ཕྲེང་ལྔ་བ། (

5th Dalai Lama Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (; ; 1617–1682) was the 5th Dalai Lama and the first Dalai Lama to wield effective temporal and spiritual power over all Tibet. He is often referred to simply as the Great Fifth, being a key religious and temporal leader ...

) supported སྡེ་སྲིད་སངས་རྒྱས་རྒྱ་མཚོ། (

Desi Sangye Gyatso Desi Sangye Gyatso (1653–1705) was the sixth regent (''desi'') of the 5th Dalai Lama (1617–1682) in the Ganden Phodrang government. He founded the School of Medicine and Astrology called Men-Tsee-Khang on Chagpori (Iron Mountain) in 1694 an ...

) to found the pioneering Chagpori College of Medicine in 1696. Chagpori taught Gyamtso's Blue Beryl as well as the Four Tantras in a model that spread throughout Tibet along with the oral tradition.

Four Tantras

The Four Tantras (Gyuzhi, རྒྱུད་བཞི།) is a native Tibetan text incorporating Indian, Chinese and Greco-Arab medical systems. The Four Tantras is believed to have been created in the twelfth century and still today is considered the basis of Tibetan medical practise. The Four Tantras is the common name for the text of the Secret Tantra Instruction on the Eight Branches, the Immortality Elixir essence. It considers a single medical doctrine from four perspectives. Sage Vidyajnana expounded their manifestation. The basis of the Four Tantras is to keep the three bodily humors in balance; (wind rlung, bile mkhris pa, phlegm bad kan.) * Root Tantra – A general outline of the principles of Tibetan medicine, it discusses the humors in the body and their imbalances and their link to illness. The Four Tantra uses visual observation to diagnose predominantly the analysis of the

pulse In medicine, a pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the cardiac cycle (heartbeat) by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surface of the body, such as at the n ...

tongue The tongue is a muscular organ in the mouth of a typical tetrapod. It manipulates food for mastication and swallowing as part of the digestive process, and is the primary organ of taste. The tongue's upper surface (dorsum) is covered by taste ...

and analysis of the urine (in modern terms known as urinalysis ) * Exegetical Tantra – This section discusses in greater detail the theory behind the Four Tantras and gives general theory on subjects such as

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...

, physiology, psychopathology,

embryology Embryology (from Greek ἔμβρυον, ''embryon'', "the unborn, embryo"; and -λογία, ''-logia'') is the branch of animal biology that studies the prenatal development of gametes (sex cells), fertilization, and development of embryos ...

and treatment. * Instructional Tantra – The longest of the Tantras is mainly a practical application of treatment, it explains in detail illnesses and which humoral imbalance which causes the illness. This section also describes their specific treatments. * Subsequent Tantra – Diagnosis and therapies, including the preparation of Tibetan medicine and cleansing of the body internally and externally with the use of techniques such as

moxibustion Moxibustion () is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy which consists of burning dried mugwort ('' wikt:moxa'') on particular points on the body. It plays an important role in the traditional medical systems of China, Japan, Korea, Vietna ...

massage Massage is the manipulation of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. In E ...

and minor surgeries. Some believe the Four Tantra to be the authentic teachings of the

'Master of remedies' which was translated from

, others believe it to be solely Tibetan in creation by Yuthog the Elder or Yuthog the Younger. Noting these two theories there remain others sceptical as to its original author. Believers in the Buddhist origin of the Four Tantras and how it came to be in Tibet believe it was first taught in India by the Buddha when he manifested as the 'Master of Remedies'. The Four Tantra was then in the eighth century translated and offered to

Padmasambhava Padmasambhava ("Born from a Lotus"), also known as Guru Rinpoche (Precious Guru) and the Lotus from Oḍḍiyāna, was a tantric Buddhist Vajra master from India who may have taught Vajrayana in Tibet (circa 8th – 9th centuries)... According ...

Vairocana Vairocana (also Mahāvairocana, sa, वैरोचन) is a cosmic buddha from Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Vairocana is often interpreted, in texts like the ''Avatamsaka Sutra'', as the dharmakāya of the historical Gautama Buddha. In East ...

and concealed in

Samye Samye (, ), full name Samye Mighur Lhundrub Tsula Khang (Wylie: ''Bsam yas mi ’gyur lhun grub gtsug lag khang'') and Shrine of Unchanging Spontaneous Presence is the first Tibetan Buddhist and Nyingma monastery built in Tibet, during the reign ...

monastery. In the second half of the eleventh century it was rediscovered and in the following century it was in the hands of Yuthog the Younger who completed the Four Tantras and included elements of Tibetan medicine, which would explain why there is Indian elements to the Four Tantras. Although there is clear written instruction in the Four Tantra, the oral transmission of medical knowledge still remained a strong element in Tibetan Medicine, for example oral instruction may have been needed to know how to perform a

technique.

Three principles of function

Like other systems of traditional Asian medicine, and in contrast to

biomedicine Biomedicine (also referred to as Western medicine, mainstream medicine or conventional medicine)

, Tibetan medicine first puts forth a specific definition of health in its theoretical texts. To have good health, Tibetan medical theory states that it is necessary to maintain balance in the body's three principles of function humors''.html" ;"title="ften translated as '' humors''">ften translated as '' humors'' ''rLung'' (pron. Loong), ''mKhris-pa'' (pron. Tree-pa) ften_translated_as_''bile''.html" ;"title="bile.html" ;"title="ften translated as ''bile">ften translated as ''bile''">bile.html" ;"title="ften translated as ''bile">ften translated as ''bile'' and ''Bad-kan'' (pron. Pay-gen) [often translated as ''phlegm''].''The Basic Tantra and the Explanatory Tantra from the Secret Quintessential Instructions on the Eight Branches of the Ambrosia Essence Tantra'' Men-Tsee-Khang: India 2008 • ''rLung'' is the source of the body's ability to circulate physical substances (e.g. blood), energy (e.g. nervous system impulses), and the non-physical (e.g. thoughts). In embryological development, the mind's expression of materialism is manifested as the system of ''rLung''. There are five distinct subcategories of ''rLung'' each with specific locations and functions: ''Srog-'Dzin rLüng'', ''Gyen-rGyu rLung'', ''Khyab-Byed rLüng'', ''Me-mNyam rLung'', ''Thur-Sel rLüng''. • ''mKhris-pa'' is characterized by the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of heat, and is the source of many functions such as thermoregulation, metabolism, liver function and discriminating intellect. In embryological development, the mind's expression of aggression is manifested as the system of ''mKhris-pa''. There are five distinct subcategories of ''mKhris-pa'' each with specific locations and functions: Ju-Byed mKhris-pa'', ''sGrub-Byed mKhris-pa'', ''mDangs-sGyur mKhris-pa'', ''mThong-Byed mKhris-pa'', ''mDog-Sel mKhris-pa''. • ''Bad-kan'' is characterized by the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of cold, and is the source of many functions such as aspects of digestion, the maintenance of our physical structure, joint health and mental stability. In embryological development, the mind's expression of ignorance is manifested as the system of ''Bad-kan''. There are five distinct subcategories of ''Bad-kan'' each with specific locations and functions: ''rTen-Byed Bad-kan'', ''Myag-byed Bad-kan'', ''Myong-Byed Bad-kan'', ''Tsim-Byed Bad-kan'', Byor-Byed Bad-kan''.

Usage

A key objective of the government of Tibet is to promote traditional Tibetan medicine among the other

ethnic groups in China China's population consists of 56 ethnic groups, not including some ethnic groups from Taiwan. The Han people are the largest ethnic group in mainland China. In 2010, 91.51% of the population were classified as Han (~1.2 billion). Besides the ...

. Once an esoteric monastic secret, the Tibet University of Traditional Tibetan Medicine and the

Qinghai University Qinghai University () is a university located in Xining city, the capital of Qinghai province, China. Established in 1958. As of July 2020, there are 67 undergraduate majors; 5 doctoral degree authorization points, 57 master's degree authorization ...

Medical School now offer courses in the practice. In addition,

Tibetologist Tibetology () refers to the study of things related to Tibet, including its history, religion, language, culture, politics and the collection of Tibetan articles of historical, cultural and religious significance. The last may mean a collection of ...

s from Tibet have traveled to European countries such as Spain to lecture on the topic. The Tibetan government-in-exile has also kept up the practise of Tibetan Medicine in India since 1961 when it re-established the Men-Tsee-Khang (the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute). It now has 48 branch clinics in India and Nepal. The Government of India has approved the establishment of the National Institute for Sowa-Rigpa (NISR) in Leh to provide opportunities for research and development of Sowa-Rigpa.

References

* *Lowe, Justin (1997) "The wisdom of Tibetan medicine", ''Earth Island Journal'', 0412:2, , 9(1) *Evaluation of medicinal plants as part of Tibetan medicine prospective observational study in Sikkim and Nepal. Witt CM; Berling NEJ; Rinpoche NT; Cuomo M; Willich SN , Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine , 2009-01-0115:1, , 59(7) , , *Analysis of Five Pharmacologically Active Compounds from the Tibetan Medicine Elsholtzia with Micellar Electrokinetic Capillary Chromatography. Chenxu Ding; Lingyun Wang; Xianen Zhao; Yulin Li; Honglun Wang; Jinmao You; Yourui Suo , Journal of Liquid Chromatography & Related Technologies , 200730:20, , 3069(15) , *HPLC‐APCI‐MS Determination of Free Fatty Acids in Tibet Folk Medicine Lomatogonium rotatum with Fluorescence Detection and Mass Spectrometric Identification. Yulin Li; Xian'en Zhao; Chenxu Ding; Honglun Wang; Yourui Suo; Guichen Chen; Jinmao You , Journal of Liquid Chromatography & Related Technologies , 200629:18, , 2741(11) , *Stack, Peter. "The Spiritual Logic Of Tibetan Healing.(Review)." San Francisco Chronicle. (Feb 20, 1998) *Dunkenberger, Thomas / "Tibetan Healing Handbook" / Lotus Press - Shangri-La, Twin Lakes, WI / 2000 / *Buddhism, science, and market: the globalisation of Tibetan medicine. JANES, CRAIG R. , Anthropology & Medicine , 2002-129:3, , 267(23) , , *Through the Tibetan Looking Glass. Bauer, James Ladd , Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine , 2000-086:4, , 303(2) , *"So What if There is No Immediate Explanation?" Jobst, Kim A. , Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine , 1998-014:4, , 355(3) ,

External links