Why do vel kavadi bearers feel no pain while being pierced by pointy skewers or hooks?
ONE of a extraordinary aspects about vel kavadi bearers during a Thaipusam celebrations is a miss of pain, infection and draining they experience.
The reason behind this is claimed to be a holy charcoal that is dirty on a tools of a physique that are to be pierced by a vel skewers or hooks.
This holy charcoal is stoical essentially of dusty cow’s dung, that has a prolonged story of being used as an bleach in Indian normal medicine.
Not many systematic studies have been finished on this probable engaging skill of cow dung, nonetheless a organisation of students during Perdana University’s Graduate School of Medicine in Serdang, Selangor, are now looking into it.
Assoc Prof Dr Mohanraj… Pain can be possibly feeling or emotional.
Assoc Prof Dr Andrew Mohanraj, who is one of their supervisors, does not disremember a probability that this holy charcoal is indeed, a reason – in some-more ways than one – behind a miss of pain and infection vel kavadi bearers seem to experience.
However, a psychiatrist says: “To know pain, one contingency realize that it is feeling and emotional.”
The feeling member of pain is a tangible earthy pain felt, while romantic pain is viewed pain, though any earthy stimulus.
Both components of pain are influenced in a vel kavadi bearer, as they enter a state of coma during a rite and way on Thaipusam.
Well prepared
Kavadi bearers are approaching to bear heated credentials for weeks before a tangible act.
During this basic duration – and as an act of penance, devotees customarily quick by adopting a limited vegetarian diet, rehearse celibacy, and discuss on God.
“In a process, it is my opinion that one gets some-more focused on a design of a act,” says Assoc Prof Dr Mohanraj.
“This compulsory steady overloading of a mind with a singular steady suspicion (through imagining and fasting) allows an altered state of mind where a pain threshold is elevated.”
He shares that it has been scientifically proven that a state of mind does impact a body.
“Devotees go into a state of trance, that is an altered state of alertness where they are receptive to suggestions, a condition ordinarily famous as hypnosis,” he says.
In this condition, they are open to submit by family, friends and a priests, who would be enlivening and exhorting them on.
Psychologically speaking, a concentration of a advocate on their God during a rite itself serves as a diversion from a suspicion of pain, that also formula in a obscure of a trouble or stress routinely felt when we know a pointy intent is about to be stranded into you.
“Not usually are they not wakeful while they are being pierced, though they are also not wakeful of a means of a pain, that is, a act of being pierced,” says Assoc Prof Dr Mohanraj.
The heated preparations heading adult to a carrying of a kavadi formula in an altered state of alertness that helps diminution pain, infection and draining in a devotee.
He shares that this mental diversion is a common technique used in other unpleasant situations like, for example, childbirth.
“During labour, a mom is asked to combine on her breathing. It unequivocally doesn’t have many tie with a pain, though it serves to obstruct her mind from it, ensuing in lowered notice of pain,” he explains.
The body’s response
Physically speaking, a kavadi bearer’s altered state of mind formula in a clarity of euphoria, a decreased clarity of pain and an towering defence response.
The decreased clarity of pain comes from a recover of certain hormones, that have an analgesic, or pain-numbing, outcome on a body.
Meanwhile, a towering defence response, as good as a use of a holy ash, that many expected contains bleach properties, substantially helps to forestall infection of a wounds afterward.
The blood vessels also constrict, ensuing in reduction draining when a advocate is pierced. Assoc Prof Dr Mohanraj said: “There is expected to be interstitial draining (between a tissue), that can't be seen, though probably, no apparent bleeding.”
The technique of trenchant also plays an critical partial in a miss of blood and pain experienced, he says.
“It’s not too deep, doesn’t cut into any vital arteries or veins, and doesn’t strike any nerves, that is utterly formidable as a face has a lot of critical nerves using by it.” – by Tan Shiow Chin
Thaipusam: a jubilee of faith and gratitude
