#43 What is Vat?

This episode is the first of a trilogy:
What is Vat?
What is Pitt?
What is Kaph?

Vat is the more proper spelling of the dosha which is transliterated as Vata in the Western world and pronounced as "Wata". Since Sanskrit has no letters, its "alphabet" is rather a syllabary, much like the Japanese katakana and hiragana, where characters represent full syllables instead of consonantal or vocalic sounds that have to be combined to make syllables. When a Sanskrit syllable has no vowel at the end, a minuscule "A" sound is attached to it, and since Western alphabets don't know of these short or "half vowels" the transliterations frequently add a full "A" sound at the end. Furthermore, familiar words such as Yoga and Ayurveda are actually "Yog" and "Ayurved" in their original Sanskrit form, they just get a full "A" sound appended at the end.

Vat or Vata is one of the three ayurvedic doshas and is the dosha of people with a physiology that is marut-predominant. It is divided into the five sub-doshas listed below (spelled Western style) on which Vaidya Mishra elaborates in this episode covering the functions and the parts of the physical body that each of them governs:

1) Prana Vata
2) Udana Vata
3) Samana Vata
4) Apana Vata
5) Vyana Vata