History of Ayurveda

Rig Veda, the earliest of the Vedas, which must have been written much before 2000 BC, contains the basic principles of Ayurveda, like the three doshas (primary forces) of vata (air), pitta (fire) and kapha (water and earth) and the five bhut (basic elements) of earth, water, fire, air and ether.  It is believed that this science of wellness was revealed by the Cosmic Intelligence to Rishi Bharadvaja and consists of three segments, namely, etiology or the science of the causes of diseases, symptamatology or the science of analysis and interpretation of the symptoms and medication which consist of materials from natural sources.  Some believe that Ayurveda is an upaveda (subsection) of Atharva Veda, the fourth Veda.

When it was codified and recorded in the written form, around 2000 BC, it had 8 branches or divisions: Kayachikitsa (Internal Medicine), Shalakya Tantra (surgery and treatment of head and neck, Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology), Shalya Tantra (Surgery), Agada Tantra (Toxicology), Bhuta Vidya (Psychiatry), Kaumarabhritya (Pediatrics), Rasayana (science of rejuvenation or anti-aging), and Vajikarana (the science of fertility). The oldest treatise available on this codified version is Atreya Samhita.

Atreya (the School of Physicians) and Dhanvantari (the School of Surgeons) were the two schools into which Ayurveda delineated around 1500 BC.  This delineation led to the writing of two major books on ayurveda—Charaka Samhita and Susruta Samhita, written in the early part of 1000 BC. Vagbhatt compiled the third major treatise on Ayurveda, Astanga Hridaya, around 500 AD, combining knowledge contained in the two schools of Ayurveda.

Ayurveda was not a stagnant pool of knowledge after this, as some falsely teach. At least sixteen major Nighantus or supplementary texts on Ayurveda, like Dhanvantari Bhavaprakasha, Raja and Shaligram among others, were written between 500 and 1900 AD incorporating new drugs, new applications and identifying substitutes for discarded old drugs, describing about 1814 varieties of plants and their medicinal use.

Ayurveda was studied and followed by the Unani and Chinese medical practitioners and even by the followers of Western Medicine.  The medical works of both Sushruta and Charaka were translated into Arabic during the Abbasid Caliphate (750 CE) and reached Europe via intermediaries.  Reports published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1794 refer to British physicians who came to India to study the native methods of Rhinoplasty and Joseph Constantine Carpue who performed the first major surgery in the western world in 1815, had spent 20 years in India to study the local methods of plastic surgery to prepare himself for it.