The oldest medical system practiced in Asia, The Tibetan medicine more or less complies with the theories of Indian Ayurveda. With thousands of years of triumphant history, Tibetan Medicine continues its art of healing other than biomedicine.
The Four Tantras
Taught by Buddha himself, the basic Tibetan medicine has four mantras widely accepted and studied by physicians.
1. Root tantra
A universal summary of all the principles that Tibetan Medicine abides by, this Tantra explains briefly about the diseases the visual diagnosis processes.
2. Explanatory tantra
The second Tantra explains about our body and the possible imbalances. Along with the physiology and anatomy of our mortal body, it digs deep into the process of birth and death. It has 31 chapters.
3. Oral Transmission Tantra
It’s the third of the four tantras and it pacts the origin and diagnosis of the disease along with their classification based on nature. It’s composed of 92 chapters.
4. Last Tantra
The final of the four tantras elaborates the various methods of treatment – external and pharmacological. It’s comprised of 25 chapters.
Based on various other sources, we can observe a difference in the names and translations; for example, they are also denoted as Root Tantra, Instructional Tantra, Exegetical Tantra and Subsequent Tantra on Wikipedia; however these Four Tantras assumed to have been created in the twelfth century are the four pillars of Tibetan medicine. The foundation of the Four Tantras is to maintain the balance of three bodily humors: wind rlung, bile mkhris pa, phlegm bad kan.