MIND, soul and body are like a tripod. The world is sustained by their combination and they constitute the substratum of everything. This combination is Purusa: this is sentient and also the subject matter of Ayurveda. “It is for this that the science has been brought to light. More than two thousand years ago Mahirishi Charaka penned these lines while writing his major work which later came to be known as Charaka Samhita, the most respected treatise on Ayurveda.
Ayurveda, if literally translated, means the science or knowledge of life. It is the traditional medical system of India. Its knowledge has its written origins in the Vedas, known as the oldest corpus of writings in the world. But still its antiquity goes back to the time when history fades into legends. It is believed that the gods themselves revealed the principles and prescriptions of health and longevity to the enlightened. The inquisitive seers played their own part in the dissemination of knowledge.
Over the past its knowledge continued to pass through the guru-shishya tradition with the sole aim of maintaining the health of a healthy person and curing the disease of a patient. In fact, according to Ayurveda, the concept of perfect health is so vast that it includes not only physical health but also mental and the spiritual wellbeing. In other words, Ayurveda is an integral spiritual science devised to give a comprehensive understanding of the entire universe which it sees as the epitome of the five primordial elements of earth, water, fire, space and air.
In the course of its development, through several centuries, Ayurveda was nurtured and enriched by the works and observations of many sages and scholars who specified its eight different branches as general medicine, eye and ENT, surgery, paediatrics, toxicology, psychiatry, gynaecology and obstetrics and the science of rejuvenation (and aphrodisiacs). Though everything in it is addressed according to the theory of the five elements, the basis of the diagnosis and the treatment revolves round the three subtle energies called tridosha (three body energies) as vata, the force of movement; pitta, the energy of transformation; and kapha, the force of cohesion.
Apart from being a medical system, Ayurveda is more a way of life, means of cooperating with Mother Nature and living in perfect harmony with her. It helps us to understand the importance of the right diet, the disciplined daily routine and a balanced lifestyle, which results from taming the body and the mind. As long as we maintain balance and harmony with Nature we are healthy. When we deviate from this path, there is disease, unhappiness and misery.
The concept of Ayurveda is best summed up in this shloka of the Gita: “Yuktaharaviharasya yuktacestasya karmasu: Yuktasvapnavabodhasya yoga bhavati dukkhaha”. This means: One who is regulated in eating and recreation, one who is regulated in actions, in sleeping and waking, to him yoga (the union with the inner self) becomes the destroyer of sorrow.
It is this holistic approach towards life, not just health, that makes Ayurveda shine most luminously among other medical sciences.Today, not only in India but in the most developed countries of Europe and America, Ayurveda is being looked upon with increasing interest. Observations made by our ancient seers have been revalidated on the basis of modern scientific parameters. The time cycle of the millenia may change the world, but man’s quest for total health will remain changeless.
So the message of Ayurveda is: we can make our fullest contribution to life only if we are healthy, and in turn total health (alone) enables us to enjoy life to the fullest extent.