Śivasaṃhitā 1.43

The purity of the ātman is not acquired, it is discovered. This verse uses a precise medical image: the sick person who perceives yellow due to bile, upon recovering, regains perception of white. The doṣa does not modify reality—the white was always there—but prevents perceiving it correctly. Yogic practice is, above all, medicine of the soul.

The term doṣa resonates in both Ayurvedic (imbalance of humors) and philosophical (perceptual error, mental contamination) registers. Its elimination does not produce the ātman but reveals it. The adjective śukla (white, pure) also designates in the Tantric tradition the luminous vital principle, adding semantic layers to this image of recovered purity.

The medical analogy was common in classical period philosophical debates: Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta all employ variations of it. In the context of the Śivasaṃhitā, the medicine of the soul is yoga. The text’s practices—āsana, prāṇāyāma, mudrā, dhyāna—are the remedies for the doṣa that veil the luminous nature of being.