The Practice of Yoga and the Theory of Triguna of Ancient India As an Indicator of Well-Being

Ancient India’s theory of Tri-Guna presents itself as a potential hope for exploring new dimensions of understanding human well-being and its measurement. The concept of Tri-Guna consists of three energies or gunas namely ‘Sattva’, ‘Rajas’ and ‘Tamas’. India’s ancient scripts portray that these three elements are present in all human beings in different degrees and combinations. It is manifested in individual’s differential behaviour and also gets exhibited in their ‘well-being’ quotient. The tri-dimensional classification of Gunas (Sattva, Rajas, Tamas) entails holistic well-being of the individuals that includes the physical, mental, spiritual elements of personality. This paper is an attempt to examine the relationship between the practice of Yoga, Gunas and the Well-being indicators. While the paper presents the theoretical review of the indicators of these Gunas from the available literature, it also draws attentions to the practice of yoga, the age-old ancient Indian wisdom popularly believed to be a key indicator of experiencing well-being. While there is no agreed definition of well-being, there is also no universally agreed method of measuring well-being either. Recent literature on the subject indicate that well-being is a combination of ‘feeling good’ (hedonic view) and ‘functioning well’ (the eudaimonic view). Literature state the need for multidimensional approach to the definitions and measurement of well-being for the advancement of well-being studies. The paper serves as an initial foundation for more systematic and methodical examination of the larger empirical data from across cultures using ancient Indian ‘well-being’ concepts. This study shall be a contribution towards the development of the multidimensional approach that includes a diverse well-being construct from across cultures and societies. The Vedic Personality Inventory, Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Mental Health Continuum, Big-Five Personality inventory etc., shall be used to collect and analyse data.