Ayurveda

Ayurveda is one of the few systems of medicine developed in ancient times that is still widely practiced in modern times, often called as “mother of healing. The word "ayurveda" is Sanskrit: आयुर्वेद, Āyurveda, meaning knowledge of life and longevity. Ayurveda emphasizes primarily on prevention of diseases and maintenance of health through a balance in overall lifestyle.

According to ayurveda, the human body is composed of tissues (dhatus), waste (malas), and biomaterials (doshas). The seven dhatus are plasma (rasa), blood (rakta), muscles (māmsa), fat (meda), bone (asthi), marrow (majja), and semen (shukra). Ayurveda has divided bodily substances into five classical elements, called as panchamahabhuta, namely, earth, water, fire, air and ether. Furthre, there are twenty gunas (qualities or characteristics),which are considered to be inherent in all matter. These are organized in ten pairs: heavy/light, cold/hot, unctuous/dry, dull/sharp, stable/mobile, soft/hard, non-slimy/slimy, smooth/coarse, minute/gross, and viscous/liquid.

The three elemental bodily humors, the doshas or tridosha, are vata (space or air, equated with the nervous system), pitta (fire, equated with enzymes), and kapha (earth and water, equated with mucus). A parallel set of mental doshas termed satogun, rajogun, and tamogun control psychology. 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 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 determine an individual's bodily and mental dosha makeup, as certain prakriti are said to predispose one to particular diseases.