What is Ayurveda
What is Ayurveda
It has been righlty said that six best doctors in world are Air, Sunshine, Water, Exercise, Diet and Rest. Ayurveda is combination of all these six best doctors of the world. The Sanskrit word Ayurveda is made of two words “Ayur” means “Life” and “Veda” means “Knowledge”. Hence Ayurveda is just not a system of medicines but “a set of processes to live a healthy life” . These processes comprises of everything that has to do to with life, food, balanced diet, nutrition, lifestyle, exercise, yoga, health conditions and how we approach to medical treatments.
Ayurveda is the oldest surviving complete medical system in the world. The aim of Ayurveda is to maintain a balanced body, mind and spirit. To stay healthy, a person should follow the correct daily routine or “dincharya”. This includes adapting to seasonal changes and eating a diet with adequate nutrition. As per Ayurveda natural cycles (waking, sleeping, working, meditation etc) are important for health. Ayurveda also focuses on exercise, yoga, and meditation. One type of prescription is a Sattvic diet.
Origin of Ayurveda
The main classical Ayurveda texts begin with accounts of the transmission of medical knowledge from the Gods to sages and then to human physicians.
Ayurveda is branch of Atharva Veda. This Vedic science of life is more than 5000 years old which was revealed to mankind by God of Ayurveda Dhanwantri, incarnation of Lord Vishnu. The earliest known literature on Ayurveda is Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita. Sushruta tradition was said to be descended by Dhanvantari whereas Charaka tradition was descended through Atreya. Sushruta Samhita deals with surgical procedures and techniques while Charaka Samhita deals with medicines.
The art of Ayurveda had spread around in the 6th century BC to Tibet, China, Mongolia, Korea and Sri Lanka, carried over by the Buddhist monks travelling to those lands. Although not much of it survives in original form, its effects can be seen in the various new age concepts that have originated from there.