Author:

Swati Kumari
PhD Researcher
Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology
University of Lucknow
Lucknow,Uttar Pradesh,India

Email: sweetydu22@gmail.com

Abstract::This paper examines how classical Indian physicians decided not only when to treat illness, but also when to stop treatment. It challenges the view that Āyurveda stood between empirical medicine and astrological fatalism. Instead, it argues that temporal and prognostic reasoning functioned as a kāla-based framework for assessing medical risk rather than as a direct cause of disease. Focusing on the Caraka Saṃhitā and its eleventh-century commentator Cakrapāṇidatta, the paper shows that medical judgment was grounded in yukti, the coordinated use of observation, inference, and authoritative knowledge. Seasonal and environmental factors shaped the conditions of illness but did not override clinical reasoning. Central to the argument is ariṣṭa-lakṣaṇa, understood as a systematic form of prognosis that guided physicians in recognizing when disease had moved beyond effective treatment. By framing withdrawal from therapy as a reasoned clinical decision rather than a failure, the paper shows that recognizing the limits of treatment was an essential part of professional judgment in classical Indian medicine.

Key Words::Āyurveda, Ariṣṭa-lakṣaṇa, Professional Judgment prognosis, Yukti etc.