Tibetan: བད་ཀན།
Pronunciation: bay ken
Wylie: bad kan
Skt.: kapha
Lit.: “earth and water”
Image from Atlas of
Tibetan medicine
One of the three nyepas (nyes pa), Badkan is a manifestation of the nature of primary elements Earth and Water in a human body.
Badkan is characterized by 7 features: oily, cool, heavy, blunt, smooth, stable, sticky.
According to Gyu Shi Badkan is responsible for producing firmness of the body and mind, inducing sleep, connecting joints, promoting physical and mental tolerance, smoothing the body and lubricating the joints.
There are 5 main types of Badkan: Supporting, Decomposing, Tasting, Satisfying, Connecting.
Diseases resulting from the Badkan imbalance are detailed in the fourth chapter of Oral Instruction Tantra (1 category).
1) Yuthok Yonten Gonpo “The Basic Tantra and the Explanatory Tantra from the Secret Quintessential Instructions on the Eight Branches of the Ambrosia Essence Tantra” translated into English by Dr. Thokmay Paljor, Men-tsee-khang, 2008, pp 375, ISBN 81-86419-62-4
2) ཁྲོ་རུ་ཚེ་རྣམ. “གསོ་རིག་རྒྱུད་བཞིའི་འགྲེལ་ཆེན་དྲང་སྲོང་ཞལ་ལུང་།” སི་ཁྲོན་མི་རིགས་དཔེ་སྐྲུན་ཁང, 2001, vv. 6 ISBN 7-5409-2535-3 (Tibetan) - A Great Comment on Four Tantras (Gyud Shi) written by Troru Tsenam.