Ayurvedic Insights into Jirna Shwasakrichchhrata (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease): Therapeutic Potential of Rasayana Chikitsa—A Review

Abstract

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) has settled into modern life as one of its quieter epidemics — not always headline news, yet steadily climbing the list of causes of death and disability worldwide, driven along by tobacco smoke, biomass fuel, and the pollution that now hangs over most Indian cities. Once a person's airways narrow and their lung tissue begins to break down, the damage rarely reverses; treatment becomes a matter of slowing the decline and easing the breathlessness rather than offering a cure. Ayurveda approached this same territory many centuries ago through a different lens. The persistent breathlessness, cough, and progressive debility described as Jirna Shwasakrichchhrata sit closest to Tamaka Shwasa and, in its long-standing and difficult-to-reverse form, to Maha Shwasa within the broader Shwasa Roga classification of Charaka, Sushruta, and Vagbhata. Involving vitiated Vata and Kapha lodged in Pranavaha, Udakavaha, and Annavaha Srotas, the disease is understood not merely as an airway problem but as a whole-body derangement of Agni, Dhatu nourishment, and Ojas. This review draws together classical textual material on the Nidana, Samprapti, and Chikitsa of Shwasa Roga with the specific rationale of Rasayana therapy — Pippali Vardhamana Rasayana, Chyawanprasha, Agastya Haritaki, Vasa and Kantakari-based formulations among others — and places these against recent published clinical and experimental work on Ayurvedic COPD management. The aim is to build a coherent picture of how Rasayana chikitsa, used both independently and as an adjuvant to Shodhana and conventional pulmonary care, may support Dhatu Poshana, immunomodulation, and Samprapti Vighatana in this chronic, progressively disabling condition, and to point toward the gaps that further clinical research still needs to close.