Yoga, Ayurveda and the AYUSH Systems: Texts and Facts

The correct answer is D, a process for elevating oneself. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, to join or to yoke, and the classical tradition treats it as a discipline that unites the individual self with the higher self. Patanjali defines it in the Yoga Sutras as the stilling of the modifications of the mind, and the Bhagavad Gita calls it samatvam, evenness of mind; both are descriptions of a person being raised, not entertained. Option A is wrong because physical exercise is only the third of the eight limbs, asana, and yoga also covers ethical conduct, breath control and meditation. Option B is wrong because yoga asks for concentration and inward attention, which is the opposite of distraction. Option C is wrong because yoga trains a practitioner to face life steadily and act without agitation; escape from reality is no part of it.

The correct answer is B, samatvam. Samatvam means equanimity or evenness, the steadiness of mind that is not shaken by success or failure, and the Bhagavad Gita uses the expression samatvam yoga uchyate, evenness of mind is called yoga. A mind in that state works without anxiety, which is why the term is linked with efficient performance of work. Option A is wrong because karmasu kaushalam means skill in action, a result of equanimity rather than the name of the state itself. Option C is wrong because purusha in Samkhya and Yoga philosophy is the conscious self or spirit, not a mental state. Option D is wrong because dukha samyoga viyoga refers to the separation from contact with suffering, a definition of yoga given elsewhere in the Gita but not the word asked for here.

The correct answer is C, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga and karma yoga. Indian tradition, and the Bhagavad Gita in particular, sets out three classical paths by which a seeker may reach the spirit: jnana yoga, the path of knowledge and discrimination; bhakti yoga, the path of devotion and surrender; and karma yoga, the path of selfless action performed without attachment to its fruit. Raja yoga, the path of meditation taught by Patanjali, is often added as a fourth. Options A, B and D are wrong because sat, chit and ananda are not paths at all; they are the three attributes of the absolute in Vedanta, being, consciousness and bliss, joined in the compound Sachchidananda. The question tests whether a candidate can tell a path of practice from a description of the absolute.

The correct answer is C, Ujjayi pranayama. In Ujjayi the throat is slightly narrowed while breathing through the nose, so the air makes a soft continuous hiss that is commonly compared with the sound of the sea or of waves; for that reason it is called the ocean breath, and the name itself means victorious. Option A is wrong because Kapalbhati is a rapid cleansing practice in which the exhalation is forced out by drawing in the abdomen, and its sound is a series of sharp puffs, not a steady murmur. Option B is wrong because Shitali is a cooling practice in which the breath is drawn in through a rolled tongue, and its characteristic feature is coolness rather than sound. Option D is wrong because dirgha simply means long or deep breathing and carries no such sound.

The correct answer is B, Sowa-Rigpa. Sowa-Rigpa, the science of healing, is the Amchi system of medicine practised in the Himalayan belt of Ladakh, Lahaul and Spiti, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and the Darjeeling hills, and its foundational text is the Gyud-Zhi or Four Tantras. Parliament gave it statutory recognition in 2010 by amending the law governing the central council for Indian medicine, which made it the seventh system in the AYUSH family. Options A, C and D are wrong because naturopathy, homoeopathy and Siddha were all part of the group from the beginning: the acronym AYUSH itself is built from Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy. A National Institute of Sowa-Rigpa was later set up at Leh in Ladakh, and the system is also practised across the Himalayan belt of Nepal, Bhutan and Mongolia, which is why it is sometimes described as the Himalayan or Tibetan system of medicine.

The correct answer is B, Sushruta. The Sushruta Samhita is the classical Indian treatise on Shalya Tantra, surgery, and it describes operations for cataract and for bladder stone, the repair of a severed nose that later writers called rhinoplasty, the eight kinds of surgical procedure and a long list of surgical instruments, which is why Sushruta is titled the father of surgery. Option A is wrong because Charaka wrote the Charaka Samhita on Kayachikitsa, internal medicine, and is called the father of Indian medicine instead. Option C is wrong because Vagbhata wrote the Ashtanga Hridaya and the Ashtanga Sangraha, compendia that summarise both earlier works. Option D is wrong because Bhavamishra wrote the much later Bhavaprakasha, one of the three texts of the Laghu Trayi.

The correct answer is C, Patanjali. Patanjali compiled the Yoga Sutras, the foundational text of the yoga school of Indian philosophy, and in it he lays out Ashtanga Yoga, the eight limbs: Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. He is for that reason called the father of yoga. Option A is wrong because Swatmarama wrote the Hatha Yoga Pradifika, a much later Hatha text on asanas, pranayamas and mudras. Option B is wrong because Gheranda is the teacher of the Gheranda Samhita, another Hatha manual, which arranges the practice in seven limbs rather than eight. Option D is wrong because Kapila is held to be the founder of the Samkhya school, the philosophical companion of Yoga among the six orthodox systems, and not the author of the Sutras.

The correct answer is B, 21 June. The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on 11 December 2014 declaring 21 June the International Day of Yoga, and the day was observed for the first time in 2015. The date was chosen because 21 June is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, a day of special significance in Indian tradition. Option A is wrong because 21 March is the spring equinox and is observed as International Day of Forests and World Poetry Day. Option C is wrong because 10 April is World Homoeopathy Day, kept on the birthday of Samuel Hahnemann. Option D is wrong because 7 April is World Health Day, which marks the founding of the World Health Organization.

The correct answer is A, Samuel Hahnemann. Hahnemann was a German physician who set out the principles of homoeopathy in the Organon of Medicine, chief among them the maxim similia similibus curentur, let like be cured by like, together with the law of the minimum dose and the method of potentisation. World Homoeopathy Day is kept on 10 April, his birthday. Option B is wrong because Ibn Sina, known in Europe as Avicenna, wrote the Unani classic Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb. Option C is wrong because Hippocrates is the founder of the Unani system and is called Buqrat in its literature. Option D is wrong because Edward Jenner developed vaccination against smallpox using cowpox material and is linked with immunology, not with homoeopathy. Homoeopathy reached India in the eighteenth century and took its deepest root in Bengal.

The correct answer is B, Ibn Sina. Ibn Sina, called Avicenna in Europe, compiled Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, the Canon of Medicine, which organised the medical knowledge of his age into a single system and was taught in Asian and European schools for centuries; it remains a basic text of Unani medicine. Option A is wrong because Al-Razi, known as Rhazes, wrote the Kitab al-Mansuri and the Kitab al-Hawi, important works but not the Canon. Option C is wrong because Galen, Jalinoos in Unani literature, systematised the theory of the four humours but wrote in Greek and long before the Canon. Option D is wrong because Hippocrates, Buqrat, is honoured as the founder of the system, and the humoral doctrine is traced to him, not this book.

The correct answer is B, Charaka Samhita, Sushruta Samhita and Ashtanga Hridaya. These three are the Brihat Trayi, the great triad of Ayurvedic literature: Charaka on internal medicine, Sushruta on surgery and Vagbhata summarising both in the Ashtanga Hridaya. Option A is wrong because the Madhava Nidana, the Sharngadhara Samhita and the Bhavaprakasha form the Laghu Trayi, the lesser triad, written much later and dealing with diagnosis, pharmaceutical preparations and materia medica. Option C is wrong because those three books belong to three different systems altogether, yoga, Sowa-Rigpa and homoeopathy. Option D is wrong because it mixes one text of the great triad with a Hatha yoga manual and a text of the lesser triad, which is the usual trap in this question. Remember the triads by their authors: Charaka, Sushruta and Vagbhata for the great, Madhavakara, Sharngadhara and Bhavamishra for the lesser.

The correct answer is C, 2014. The Ministry of AYUSH was created on 9 November 2014 by upgrading the existing department, so that the traditional systems of medicine would have a ministry and a minister of their own. Option A is wrong because 1995 is the year the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy was set up in March, the first separate administrative home for these systems. Option B is wrong because 2003 is the year that department was renamed the Department of AYUSH, in November, which created the acronym but not the ministry. Option D is wrong because 2020 is the year the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine and the National Commission for Homoeopathy replaced the older central councils as regulators.