Every morning at 6am, my doctor hands me a glass of warm, bitter, medicated ghee, and I drink it. At Kalari Rasayana in southern Kerala, this is where Ayurveda truly begins: not on a massage table, but in a hospital-grade programme of medicine that has been practised for millennia.
My first lesson in Ayurveda came from my yoga teacher.
“Don’t do yoga because you’re motivated,” my yoga teacher at Kalari Rasayana told me on my first morning. “Do it because it’s a habit.” After ten days of white cotton, silent meals, early yoga and twice-daily visits from my doctor, I understand what he meant: transformation comes from surrendering to the routine, not from willpower.
Nothing tested that more than virechana, the purgation day. It’s the part of Panchakarma nobody puts in the brochure. It follows days of sipping warm medicated ghee each dawn, and it’s a long, humbling day spent close to your room, surrendering to the process. By evening I was wrung out. The next morning I woke feeling lighter than I have in years. My head was clear, my skin was glowing and there was an unfamiliar sense of calm, as if something heavier than toxins had been cleared away.
That’s when I understood that almost everything I thought I knew about Ayurveda was only the surface.
(Read Part One of my stay: Leaving My World Behind At Ayurvedic Hospital Kalari Rasayana)
The “knowledge of life”
Ayurveda comes from two Sanskrit words: ayur, life, and veda, knowledge. Its roots go back more than 5,000 years to the Vedic period in India, which makes it one of the oldest systems of medicine still practised today.
Its foundations sit in three great classical texts. The Charaka Samhita deals with internal medicine, diagnosis and diet. The Sushruta Samhita is famous for its detailed descriptions of surgery, including early reconstructive procedures. The Ashtanga Hridayam, compiled by the physician Vagbhata, brought the two traditions together. These texts were written and revised over centuries, and doctors still study them.
Kerala has always been a stronghold of Ayurveda. For generations, knowledge was passed down through families of hereditary physicians, and the state’s monsoon climate, when the body is thought to be most receptive to treatment, made it the natural home of the tradition. Today Ayurveda is a formally regulated medical system in India, overseen by the government’s Ministry of AYUSH. Practitioners complete a five-and-a-half-year degree, including an internship. My doctor, Dr Belraj DN, did exactly that.
Balance, not just the absence of illness
Ayurveda’s central idea is that good health is a state of balance between body, mind and environment. Each of us is born with a unique constitution, or prakriti, made up of three doshas:
- Vata (air and ether): movement, creativity, restlessness when out of balance
- Pitta (fire and water): digestion, drive, inflammation and irritability when excessive
- Kapha (earth and water): structure, steadiness, stamina, and heaviness when it builds up
In this view, illness begins when we drift out of balance through diet, stress, the seasons or simply the way we live. Treatment tries to restore that balance and to correct the cause, not only the symptoms.
I’ve been assessed as Kapha, so my regime is designed to lighten and clear. Nothing here is generic. Even the ginger-infused hot water delivered to my room twice a day is prescribed for me.
Why ghee?
Ghee is clarified butter, the golden fat left when the milk solids are removed. In Ayurveda it’s much more than a cooking fat. The classical texts rank it as the most prized of all the sneha, the oils and fats used in treatment.
Because ghee is fat-soluble, it’s considered an ideal carrier for herbs, taking their properties deep into the body’s tissues. Medicated ghee, called ghrita, is made by slowly cooking ghee with herbal decoctions chosen for each patient’s condition.
My ghee treatment, snehapana, means “drinking fat”. Each morning, instead of breakfast, I drink a measured dose, followed by warm water, a slice of lime and a lime leaf to clear the palate. The dose goes up every day. The idea is that the ghee lubricates the body from the inside and loosens accumulated toxins, known as ama, from the tissues so they can be drawn back into the digestive tract and eliminated.
It gets harder to finish each day, and that’s the sign Dr Belraj is watching for. On day five he told me I’d reached “saturation” and could stop. One fellow patient calls the ghee “nature’s own Mounjaro”. I’ve barely felt hungry since. After the ghee treatment, I had two relaxing days of massages in the morning and afternoon as well as up to two hours of yoga and had three meals a day. On the day or purgation, I was well supported by my doctor and the team, who advised me to drink plenty of rest. It wasn’t the most pleasant day but I reminded myself that this was the day those nasty toxins were being expelled from my body. By 4pm, I was feeling comfortable enough to leave my room, go for a walk and enjoy a full meal again. The joy of it all came the next day when I emerged from an excellent sleep, literally bursting with energy. This, I realised, was what it’s all about.
Panchakarma: the five actions
The ghee is preparation for panchakarma, the best known of Ayurveda’s cleansing therapies. The name means “five actions”, describing five classical ways of clearing the body:
- Vamana: therapeutic emesis (vomiting), mainly for Kapha conditions
- Virechana: supervised therapeutic purgation, mainly for Pitta
- Basti: medicated enemas, considered the most important treatment for Vata
- Nasya: administering medicated oils through the nose
- Raktamokshana: traditional bloodletting, rarely used today
Not everyone has all five. Your doctor chooses what suits your constitution and condition, and the process follows three stages:
- Purvakarma (preparation): internal oiling with ghee, plus external oil massages and herbal steam or compresses to loosen and mobilise toxins. My early days began with a body scrub and hot herbal compresses to reduce inflammation, then long, sweeping massages with herb-infused sesame oil, brewed on site over an open fire for three to seven days.
- Pradhanakarma (main treatment): the cleansing therapy itself. For me, that’s virechana.
- Paschatkarma (recovery): a gradual return to normal eating, starting with thin rice gruel, so that digestion can rebuild slowly.
A word of caution
Panchakarma is serious treatment, not a DIY detox. It should only be done under the supervision of a qualified Ayurvedic doctor who assesses you first, as I was on arrival. Scientific research into Ayurveda is still growing, so talk to your GP before starting any regime, especially if you have a medical condition or take medication.
Surrendering to the process
When I arrived, a fellow patient told me simply to trust the process and surrender to it. After ten days of ghee, oil, yoga nidra and silence, I understand what she meant. Ayurveda doesn’t ask you to fight your body. It asks you to listen to it.
Robyn Foyster is staying at Kalari Rasayana as a guest of CGH Earth. Women Love Wellness retains full editorial independence.
