Trees of Medicine · སྡོང་འགྲེམས་ sdong ’grems
The Tree of Medicine རྒྱུད་བཞི་
The Four Tantras teach the whole of medicine as a tree — so a student can hold the entire system, as the texts say, “like a myrobalan fruit in the palm of the hand.” Three roots put out nine trunks, forty-seven branches and two hundred and twenty-four leaves, crowned by two flowers and three fruits. Each leaf is coloured by its humor: blue Wind, red Bile, pale-blue Phlegm.
3
roots
9
trunks
47
branches
224
leaves
2
flowers
3
fruits
⚠ Pending menpa verification
Scaffolded from Men-Tsee-Khang / Blue Beryl sources — pending menpa verification.
The first root is the body itself — what it is made of in balance, and how it falls ill. Its two trunks are the healthy body and the diseased body; from them grow twelve branches and eighty-eight leaves. The whole tree flowers and fruits here alone, because a sound, long-lived body is the ground of every human aim.
Trunks
The Healthy Body · branches
The body in its balanced, natural state — health is the equilibrium of the humors, constituents and wastes.
The Three Humors
15 leavesnyes pa gsum
The three nyépa and their five subtypes each — the dynamic principles whose balance is health.
- Life-sustaining Wind · srog 'dzinhead / brain
- Ascending Wind · gyen rgyuchest & throat
- Pervasive Wind · khyab byedheart / whole body
- Fire-accompanying Wind · me mnyamstomach
- Descending Wind · thur selrectum / pelvis
- Digestive Bile · 'ju byedstomach–intestine
- Colour-transforming Bile · mdangs sgyurliver
- Accomplishing Bile · sgrub byedheart
- Sight-giving Bile · mthong byedeyes
- Complexion-clearing Bile · mdog gsalskin
- Supporting Phlegm · rten byedchest
- Decomposing Phlegm · myag byedupper stomach
- Experiencing Phlegm · myong byedtongue
- Satisfying Phlegm · tshim byedhead
- Connecting Phlegm · 'byor byedjoints
The whole tree flowers and fruits here alone — the reward of a sound, long-lived body.
Two flowers · me tog
Three fruits · ’bras bu