Ayurveda
Ayurveda is a medical tradition with a history reaching back more than 2000 years. Its roots are in the Indian subcontinent, but its influence has spread to other parts of the world. The name Ayurveda comes from ayus (‘life’) and veda (‘knowledge or science’), indicating that Ayurveda incorporates a whole way of living.
In the Ayurvedic tradition, the body is a highly complex system of organs, tissues and waste products. Three forces, called doshas, are central to the concept of the body. These doshas are known as vata, pitta and kapha. They can cause both good and bad effects and a fundamental aim of Ayurveda is to use treatments and modify lifestyles to bring the doshas as closely as possible into balance.
Ayurvedic doctors - known as vaidyas - rely on their senses to help diagnosis, examining a patient’s eyes, tongue, skin, nails and other body parts whose appearance can suggest imbalances in the doshas and indicate where in the body an illness is focused. Because preventing illness is as important as treating it, vaidyas are as likely to prescribe exercise, changes in diet and a disciplined and balanced lifestyle as they are to prescribe herbal medicines. To treat illness there are two main types of therapy. Some actively purge and purify the body to eliminate the causes of disease while others are more passive and soothe the symptoms of disease.
Bibliography
J van Alphen and A Aris (eds), Oriental Medicine: An Illustrated Guide to the Asian Arts of Healing (London: Serindia Publications, 1995)
W F Bynum and R Porter (eds), 'Indian Medicine' in Companion Encyclopaedia of the History of Medicine 1 (London: Routledge, 1993)
D Wujastyk (ed. and trans.), The Roots of Ayurveda: Selections from Sanskrit Medical Writings (London: Penguin Classics, 1998)