Ayurveda

Etymology

The term āyurveda (Sanskrit: आयुर्वेद) is composed of two words, āyus, आयुस्, "life" or "longevity", and veda, वेद, "knowledge", translated as "knowledge of longevity" or "knowledge of life and longevity".

Eight components

The earliest classical Sanskrit works on Ayurveda describe medicine as being divided into eight components (Skt. aṅga). This characterization of the physician's art, "the medicine that has eight components" (Sanskrit: चिकित्सायामष्टाङ्गायाम्, romanized: cikitsāyām aṣṭāṅgāyāṃ), is first found in the Sanskrit epic the Mahābhārata, c. 4th century BCE. The components are:

Note, however, that the chapter-divisions of the major ancient encyclopedias of Ayurveda do not follow these divisions.

Principles and terminology

The central philosophical ideas of Ayurveda show parallels with Samkhya and Vaisheshika philosophies, as well as with Buddhism and Jainism. Moderation is emphasized, and suppressing natural urges is considered unhealthy and claimed to lead to illness. For example, to suppress sneezing is said to potentially give rise to shoulder pain. However, people are also cautioned to stay within the limits of reasonable balance and measure when following nature's urges. For example, emphasis is placed on moderation of food intake, sleep, and sexual intercourse.

According to Ayurveda, the human body is composed of tissues (dhatus), waste (malas), and humoral fluids (doshas). The seven dhatus are chyle (rasa), blood (rakta), muscles (māmsa), fat (meda), bone (asthi), marrow (majja), and semen (shukra). Like the medicine of classical antiquity, the classic treatises of Ayurveda divided bodily substances into five classical elements (panchamahabhuta) viz. earth, water, fire, air and ether. There are also twenty gunas (qualities or characteristics) which are considered to be inherent in all matter.

The three postulated elemental bodily humours, the doshas or tridosha, are vata (air, which some modern authors equate with the nervous system), pitta (bile, fire, equated by some with enzymes), and kapha (phlegm, or earth and water, equated by some with mucus). Contemporary critics assert that doshas are not real, but are a fictional concept. The humours (doshas) may also affect mental health. Each dosha has particular attributes and roles within the body and mind; the natural predominance of one or more doshas thus explains a person's physical constitution (prakriti) and personality. Ayurvedic tradition holds that imbalance among the bodily and mental doshas is a major etiologic component

Practice

Ayurvedic practitioners regard physical existence, mental existence, and personality as three separate elements of a whole person with each element being able to influence the others. This holistic approach used during diagnosis and healing is a fundamental aspect of Ayurveda. Another part of Ayurvedic treatment says that there are channels (srotas) which transport fluids, and that the channels can be opened up by massage treatment using oils and Swedana (fomentation). Unhealthy, or blocked, channels are thought to cause disease.

Ayurveda has eight ways to diagnose illness, called nadi (pulse), mootra (urine), mala (stool), jihva (tongue), shabda (speech), sparsha (touch), druk (vision), and aakruti (appearance). Ayurvedic practitioners approach diagnosis by using the five senses. For example, hearing is used to observe the condition of breathing and speech. The study of vulnerable points, or marma, is particular to Ayurvedic medicine.

Two of the eight branches of classical Ayurveda deal with surgery (Śalya-cikitsā and Śālākya-tantra), but contemporary Ayurveda tends to stress attaining vitality by building a healthy metabolic system and maintaining good digestion and excretion. Ayurveda also focuses on exercise, yoga, and meditation. One type of prescription is a Sattvic diet.

Current status

Ayurveda is widely practiced in India and Nepal where public institutions offer formal study in the form of a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree. The legal standing of practitioners is not equivalent to that of conventional medicine and it is unrecognised in most countries. Several scholars have described the contemporary Indian application of Ayurvedic practice as being "biomedicalised" relative to the more "spiritualised" emphasis to practice found in variants in the West.

Exposure to European developments in medicine from the nineteenth century onwards, through European colonization of India and the subsequent institutionalized support for European forms of medicine amongst European heritage settlers in India were challenging to Ayurveda, with the entire epistemology called into question. From the twentieth century, Ayurveda became politically, conceptually, and commercially dominated by modern biomedicine, resulting in "modern Ayurveda" and "global Ayurveda". Modern Ayurveda is geographically located in the Indian subcontinent and tends towards secularisation through the minimisation of the magical and mythical aspects of Ayurveda. Global Ayurveda encompasse

Since the 1980s, Ayurveda has also become the subject of interdisciplinary studies in ethnomedicine which seeks to integrate the biomedical sciences and humanities to improve the pharmacopeia of Ayurveda. According to industry research, the global Ayurveda market was worth US$4.5 billion in 2017.

Classification and efficacy

Ayurvedic medicine is considered pseudoscientific because its premises are not based on science. Both the lack of scientific soundness in the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda and the quality of research have been criticized.

Although laboratory experiments suggest that some herbs and substances in Ayurveda might be developed into effective treatments, there is no evidence that any are effective in themselves. There is no evidence they can prevent or treat cancer in humans.

Ethnologist Johannes Quack writes that although the rationalist movement Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti officially labels Ayurveda a pseudoscience akin to astrology, these practices are in fact embraced by many of the movement's members.