A light diet, herbs that rekindle the digestive fire, then several mornings of ghee, and the purgation day itself. Most guests do this at home on their Vaidya's protocol. Some would rather do it here.
Because what a cleanse removes has to be brought somewhere it can be removed from. Ayurveda describes Ama as lodged in the tissues, and the preparation stage is what softens it and draws it back towards the digestive tract, where the body can clear it.
Preparation is part of the programme rather than something optional before it, and without it the treatments given here cannot reach the depth they are designed for.
First, the light diet and the herbs. Agni deepana rekindles the digestive fire and Ama pachana digests what has been left undigested. Classically these are one step rather than two, given together and weighted towards whichever you need, so your Vaidya may prescribe herbs alongside the diet or leave them out. This should be observed for a week.
Then Snehapana, the internal oleation. Ghee, taken on an empty stomach at dawn. It is prescribed rather than automatic, and there are constitutions and circumstances where a Vaidya shortens it or leaves it out altogether.
Ghee is the carrier. What a cleanse has to remove sits deep in the tissues and is largely fat-soluble, so it will not move on its own. Ghee saturates those tissues, takes up what is lodged in them and carries it back along the channels to the digestive tract, where the purgation can reach it. How many mornings it takes depends on your digestion, and your Vaidya sets the dose and adjusts it as the days go on.
Then the purgation. At home, this is a dose of castor oil or specific herbal preparations taken in the morning with nothing else planned, followed by a day of rest. Given here, the same thing is done under supervision and is called Virechana. Either way it is one morning and one quiet day.
What cannot be done at home is anything else. The Basti series, Nasya and every hands-on treatment are given here, by therapists, across the days of your programme.
Where the preparation happens is your choice: at home on your Vaidya's written protocol, or here with us.
Neither is the better Panchakarma. The difference between them, and what each one gives you, is set out below.
You follow your Vaidya's written protocol in your own house, with us a call away, and travel once the purgation is behind you. You arrive ready, and the therapies start on the first morning.
What is good about it
What it asks of you
You arrive with the light diet and the herbs already behind you, if your Vaidya prescribed them. Everything from the ghee onwards happens here: the oleation mornings, the purgation day and the day of rest, watched over, with nothing for you to measure, cook or judge.
What is good about it
What it asks of you
The purgation is the same procedure and the same result either way. What differs is where you spend the days around it.
It is the oldest part of the process. The classical texts set out the oleation, its guidance and its timing in detail, and treat the sequence as inseparable from the result.
"Maharishi Ayurveda makes the principles and practices of Ayurveda available in such a complete, systematic and authentic way as has rarely been achieved recently in India."
— Shiv Karan Sharma Chhangani, President, All India Ayurvedic Congress, 1997
The preparation is not an addition to the process. It is the first third of it.
With the discovery call, and then with your Vaidya. The protocol you follow is written at your initial consultation, which is also where the choice between the two routes is made.
“If you can't find the answer to your question here, please don't hesitate to contact our support team for assistance.”
With a light diet for about a week, with herbs if your Vaidya prescribes them, then several mornings of snehapana — ghee taken on an empty stomach — then a purgation day. The protocol is written by a Vaidya after a pulse reading, and it can be followed at home or carried out at MERU inside the programme.
Purvakarma is the preparation stage of Panchakarma. It softens what has settled in the deeper tissues and draws it back towards the digestive tract so that the purgation can reach it. Without it the cleanse has little to reach.
Because what a cleanse removes is largely fat-soluble and lodged deep in the tissues. Ghee saturates those tissues, takes up what is held there and carries it back to the digestive tract, where the purgation can clear it. The dose rises each morning until the tissues are saturated, which is why the number of mornings differs from person to person.
No. Snehapana is prescribed rather than automatic, and there are constitutions and circumstances in which a Vaidya will shorten it or leave it out. That is settled at the consultation.
Around ten at home — about a week of light food and herbs, then the ghee mornings, the purgation day and a gentle day after it. Prepared at MERU it occupies five days of the programme, because the light diet and the herbs are still taken at home beforehand.
