The Vital Force in Health and Disease

Vidyalankara, Sastra-Chudamini, Sangita-Kalaratna, Professor Saligrarna Krishna

Ramachandra Rao, is a well-known scholar who combines traditional learning with

modem research. Well versed in Sanskrit, Pali, Ardhmagadhi and several modem Indian languages and acquainted with Tibetan and some European languages, he has written extensively on Vedanta, Buddhism, Janism, Indian Culture, Art and Literature. In his professional career, however, he was a Professor of Psychology. He has headed the Department of Clinical Psychology in the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience’s, Bangalore and the Department of Indian Culture in the Collision College Study Center of the University of the Pacific (U.S.A.) He was the senior associate of National Institute of Advanced Studies (Indian Institute of Science), Bangalore, and Guest Faculty, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and member of the Governing Council of TTD (SVCL Research Center), Tirupati.

He has been member of Karnataka State Lalitha Kala Academy and Sangita Nritya Academy aad Sangita Nritya Academy; he has served on the Agama Board (Govt. of Karnataka). He is President of Silpa-Kala Pratisthana. The Govt. of Kamataka has honored him with the 1986 Rajyotsava Award. He has received awards from Lalita-Kala Academy and Sangita Nritya Academy. He has been Awarded the Veda-Sanman for the year 2000 by the Govt. of India (Ministry of HRD, Sandipani Mahavidhyalaya, Ujjain).

He has written more than Sixty Books in Kannada, a Play in Sanskrit, and a Pali Commentary on a Buddhist classic. One of his books on Iconography in Karmada has won the State Sahitya Academy Award, as also another of his Book on the Tirupati Temple.

Among his nurilerous English Publications are three Vols. of Encyclopaedia of Indian

Medicine, Tibetan Tantrik Tradition and Tibetan Meditation, Consciousness in Advaita, and a series of Six Books on Indian Temples Origins of Indian thought ; Kalpatharu Research Academy has published his Pratima Kosha in Six Vols. Agama Kosha in Twelve Vols. Art & Architecture of Indian Temples in Three Vols. He is present engaged in a project on Rgveda-Darsana (Eight Volumes of which have appeared). He is also Musicologist, a Sculptor and Painter, and has held some one man shows.

The principle of Vital Force, anirnatiing not only the body of a living being but all thing in this world, is probably the oldest of human beliefs.The present book deals with the concept of Vital Force in Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine,Pneuma, Yunani, Tantra-yoga and Tibetan Medicine.