Ayurvedic Textbooks

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Additionaladvanced textbooks are available that are required for our level III Ayurvedic Clinical Specialist (ACS) students. Please note that availability is subject to current stock. Please contact prod...@keralaayurveda.us for assistance with your order.

This textbook covers the depth of Ayurvedic history, philosophy, and mythology as well as the Ayurvedic understanding of anatomy and physiology, disease and pathology, psychology, daily and seasonal rhythms, and dietary therapy. The text also introduces the reader to herbology, color, sound, and touch therapies. The textbook culminates with an in-depth look at panchakarma, the Ayurvedic process of purifying the body.

This textbook, which is used at the California College of Ayurveda and in Schools of Ayurveda across the country, was written by Dr. Marc Halpern, Ayurvedic Doctor, over a course of 30+ years. His book has been praised for how clear and inspiring his writing is, and how even the most complex subjects are communicated in a manner that is easily understood by the student. This textbook covers the depth of Ayurvedic history, philosophy, and mythology as well as the Ayurvedic understanding of anatomy and physiology, disease and pathology, psychology, daily and seasonal rhythms, and dietary therapy. The text also introduces the reader to herbology, color, sound, and touch therapies. The textbook culminates with an in-depth look at panchakarma, the Ayurvedic process of purifying the body. This is the first of his five textbooks, utilized at the California College of Ayurveda, to be released. This textbook is used in the first course all students of Ayurveda attend at the College whether they plan on becoming Ayurvedic Health Counselors, Ayurvedic Yoga Therapists, Clinical Ayurvedic Specialists, or Ayurvedic Doctors.

Ayurveda (/ˌɑːjʊərˈveɪdə, -ˈviː-/; IAST: ayurveda)[1] is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent.[2] It is heavily practiced throughout India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where as much as 80% of the population report using ayurveda.[3][4][5] The theory and practice of ayurveda is pseudoscientific; some ayurvedic medicines have been found to contain toxic substances.[6][7][8][9]

Ayurveda therapies have varied and evolved over more than two millennia.[2] Therapies include herbal medicines, special diets, meditation, yoga, massage, laxatives, enemas, and medical oils.[10][11] Ayurvedic preparations are typically based on complex herbal compounds, minerals, and metal substances (perhaps under the influence of early Indian alchemy or rasashastra). Ancient ayurveda texts also taught surgical techniques, including rhinoplasty, lithotomy, sutures, cataract surgery, and the extraction of foreign objects.[12][13]

Historical evidence for ayurvedic texts, terminology and concepts appears from the middle of the first millennium BCE onwards.[14] The main classical ayurveda texts begin with accounts of the transmission of medical knowledge from the gods to sages, and then to human physicians.[15] Printed editions of the Sushruta Samhita (Sushruta's Compendium), frame the work as the teachings of Dhanvantari, the Hindu deity of ayurveda, incarnated as King Divodāsa of Varanasi, to a group of physicians, including Sushruta.[16][17] The oldest manuscripts of the work, however, omit this frame, ascribing the work directly to King Divodāsa.[18]

In ayurveda texts, dosha balance is emphasized, and suppressing natural urges is considered unhealthy and claimed to lead to illness.[19] Ayurveda treatises describe three elemental doshas: vāta, pitta and kapha, and state that balance (Skt. sāmyatva) of the doshas results in health, while imbalance (viṣamatva) results in disease. Ayurveda treatises divide medicine into eight canonical components. Ayurveda practitioners had developed various medicinal preparations and surgical procedures from at least the beginning of the common era.[20]

There is no good evidence that ayurveda is effective to treat or cure cancer.[11] Some ayurvedic preparations have been found to contain lead, mercury, and arsenic,[10][22] substances known to be harmful to humans. A 2008 study found the three substances in close to 21% of U.S. and Indian-manufactured patent ayurvedic medicines sold through the Internet.[23] The public health implications of such metallic contaminants in India are unknown.[23]

The earliest classical Sanskrit works on ayurveda describe medicine as being divided into eight components (Skt. aṅga).[28][29] This characterization of the physician's art, "the medicine that has eight components" (Sanskrit: चकत्सयमष्टङ्गयम्, romanized: cikitsāyām aṣṭāṅgāyāṃ), is first found in the Sanskrit epic the Mahābhārata, c. 4th century BCE.[30] The components are:[31][26][32]

The central theoretical ideas of ayurveda show parallels with Samkhya and Vaisheshika philosophies, as well as with Buddhism and Jainism.[34][35] Balance is emphasized, and suppressing natural urges is considered unhealthy and claimed to lead to illness.[19] For example, to suppress sneezing is said to potentially give rise to shoulder pain.[36] However, people are also cautioned to stay within the limits of reasonable balance and measure when following nature's urges.[19] For example, emphasis is placed on moderation of food intake,[37] sleep, and sexual intercourse.[19]

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.[41] 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.[38][42][43] Ayurvedic tradition holds that imbalance among the bodily and mental doshas is a major etiologic component of disease. One ayurvedic view is that the doshas are balanced when they are equal to each other, while another view is that each human possesses a unique combination of the doshas which define this person's temperament and characteristics. In either case, it says that each person should modulate their behavior or environment to increase or decrease the doshas and maintain their natural state. Practitioners of ayurveda must determine an individual's bodily and mental dosha makeup, as certain prakriti are said to predispose one to particular diseases.[44][38] For example, a person who is thin, shy, excitable, has a pronounced Adam's apple, and enjoys esoteric knowledge is likely vata prakriti and therefore more susceptible to conditions such as flatulence, stuttering, and rheumatism.[38][45] Deranged vata is also associated with certain mental disorders due to excited or excess vayu (gas), although the ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita also attributes "insanity" (unmada) to cold food and possession by the ghost of a sinful Brahman (brahmarakshasa).[38][44][46][47]

Ama (a Sanskrit word meaning "uncooked" or "undigested") is used to refer to the concept of anything that exists in a state of incomplete transformation. With regards to oral hygiene, it is claimed to be a toxic byproduct generated by improper or incomplete digestion.[48][49][50] The concept has no equivalent in standard medicine.

In medieval taxonomies of the Sanskrit knowledge systems, ayurveda is assigned a place as a subsidiary Veda (upaveda).[51] Some medicinal plant names from the Atharvaveda and other Vedas can be found in subsequent ayurveda literature.[52] Some other school of thoughts considers 'ayurveda' as the 'Fifth Veda'.[53] The earliest recorded theoretical statements about the canonical models of disease in ayurveda occur in the earliest Buddhist Canon.[54]

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.[55] 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.[56]

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.[40] Ayurveda also focuses on exercise, yoga, and meditation.[59] One type of prescription is a Sattvic diet.

Ayurveda follows the concept of Dinacharya, which says that natural cycles (waking, sleeping, working, meditation etc.) are important for health. Hygiene, including regular bathing, cleaning of teeth, oil pulling, tongue scraping, skin care, and eye washing, is also a central practice.[39]

The vast majority (90%) of ayurvedic remedies are plant based.[60] Plant-based treatments in ayurveda may be derived from roots, leaves, fruits, bark, or seeds; some examples of plant-based substances include cardamom and cinnamon. In the 19th century, William Dymock and co-authors summarized hundreds of plant-derived medicines along with the uses, microscopic structure, chemical composition, toxicology, prevalent myths and stories, and relation to commerce in British India.[61] Triphala, an herbal formulation of three fruits, Amalaki, Bibhitaki, and Haritaki, is one of the most commonly used[62] Ayurvedic remedies.[63][64] The herbs Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha)[65] and Ocimum tenuiflorum (Tulsi)[60] are also routinely used in ayurveda.

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