Concepts of body constitution in traditional Siddha texts: A literature review

ABSTRACT

Analysis of body constitution has been in practice in most complementary and alternative systems ofmedicine. Siddha system of medicine practiced in South India consists of fundamental classical literaturethat stress on the importance of tri-humoral makeup of individuals. Guidance has been given in theclassics for identifying specific types of body constitution, various dietary recommendations and diseasesusceptibility. In validating such important traditional fundamental aspects, analytical systematic literature framework is the first robust step. The present study has been conducted to provide an updatedintegrative framework of information about body constitution given in various Siddha literatures inquantitative systematic method by using Whittemore and Knafl's five stage approach. This descriptiveaccount may be useful to construct a suitable questionnaire for Siddha based udaliyal assessment.© 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institute of Transdisciplinary Health Sciencesand Technology and World Ayurveda Foundation. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-NDlicense (http//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).