21 Facts About Ayurveda

Ayurveda is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent.

Ayurveda therapies have varied and evolved over more than two millennia.

Ancient Ayurveda texts taught surgical techniques, including rhinoplasty, kidney stone extractions, sutures, and the extraction of foreign objects.

Main classical Ayurveda texts begin with accounts of the transmission of medical knowledge from the gods to sages, and then to human physicians.

Ayurveda practitioners had developed various medicinal preparations and surgical procedures from at least the beginning of the common era.

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Term Ayurveda is composed of ayus, ???, "life" or "longevity", and veda, ??, "knowledge", translated as "knowledge of longevity" or "knowledge of life and longevity".

Central theoretical ideas of Ayurveda show parallels with Samkhya and Vaisheshika philosophies, as well as with Buddhism and Jainism.

Practitioners of Ayurveda must determine an individual's bodily and mental dosha makeup, as certain prakriti are said to predispose one to particular diseases.

Ayurveda has eight ways to diagnose illness, called Nadi, Mootra (urine), Mala (stool), Jihva (tongue), Shabda (speech), Sparsha (touch), Druk (vision), and Aakruti (appearance).

Ayurveda uses alcoholic beverages called Madya, which are said to adjust the doshas by increasing pitta and reducing vatta and kapha.

Ayurveda says that both oil and tar can be used to stop bleeding, and that traumatic bleeding can be stopped by four different methods: ligation of the blood vessel, cauterisation by heat, use of preparations to facilitate clotting, and use of preparations to constrict the blood vessels.

Ayurveda is widely practiced in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal where public institutions offer formal study in the form of a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery degree.

Global Ayurveda encompasses multiple forms of practice that developed through dispersal to a wide geographical area outside of India.

Since the 1980s, Ayurveda has become the subject of interdisciplinary studies in ethnomedicine which seeks to integrate the biomedical sciences and humanities to improve the pharmacopeia of Ayurveda.

Ayurveda is a system of traditional medicine developed during antiquity and the medieval period, and as such is comparable to pre-modern Chinese and European systems of medicine.

Ayurveda's teachings led to the establishment of the Mount Madonna Institute.

Ayurveda invited several notable Ayurvedic teachers, including Vasant Lad, Sarita Shrestha, and Ram Harsh Singh.

In India, research in Ayurveda is undertaken by the Ministry of AYUSH through a national network of research institutes.

Tradition holds that the writings of Ayurveda were influenced by a lost text by the sage Agnivesa.

Ayurveda is one of the few systems of medicine developed in ancient times that is still widely practiced in modern times.

Ayurveda became a part of the Indian National healthcare system, with state hospitals for Ayurveda established across the country.