Even insects and ants should be treated with compassion , just as one's own sel f. Ashtangahrdayam Sutrasthanam 2. The spirit of scientific enquiry influencing the intellectual world since the time of Buddha led to old belief systems being questioned and tangible proofs being sought after.

In this cultural milieu in the Indo-Gangetic and lower Himalayan regions, tribal and wandering healers, learned physicians, ascetic and yogic traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism, and philosophical schools such as Samkhya, Visheshika and Nyaya all contributed to the emergence of a formal scientific culture of healing that became Ayurveda.

Knowledge of medicinal plants and their identification should be gained with the help of cowherds, hermits, hunters, forest-dwellers and those who gather plants of the forest for food.

Sushruta Samhita, Sutrasthanam 36 V. Trade and exchange of medicinal plants and knowledge of their uses have gone on for centuries between the Indian subcontinent, West Asia and the Indian Ocean world.

From the end of the first millennium C. physicians coming from Persia and neighboring regions brought their healing practices to the subcontinent and influenced local healers and Ayurvedic practitioners. In turn Ayurvedic treatises were translated into Persian, Arabic, Tibetan and Chinese.

Unani, Rasashastra, Siddha and Sa-Rigpa Traditions. There are other formal systems of medicine such as Unani, Rasashastra, Siddha, and Sa-Rigpa that have been practiced in the subcontinent.

Unani is an Arab medical tradition that has its origin in the Greek Ionian medicine the word Unani being an Arabic adaptation of the word Ionian. During its development in India, Unani incorporated elements of indigenous materia medica from Ayurvedic and folk sources. It is still practiced and popular in India and Pakistan.

Rasashastra is an ancient tradition of healing that uses medicines incorporating metals, especially Mercury and gold, purified using complex procedures.

The tradition maintains that Rasa formulations in association with yogic and tantric practices give extraordinary powers like arresting the process of ageing. Certain Rasa medicines were incorporated into Ayurveda and Siddha. The Siddha tradition is an ancient south Indian system that developed especially in the Tamil speaking region and continues to be popular there.

It integrated elements of Ayurveda, Rasashastra, Yoga and Tantra and uses alchemically prepared metals along with medicinal plants. Siddha system is said to have been influenced by contacts with Chinese and Arab medicine. Even before medical knowledge was codified into the canonical texts of Ayurveda, there were abundant sources of medical knowhow in the subcontinent.

Healing is practiced by people from all levels of society who live and work in intimate relation with their environment. They range from home remedies related to nutrition and treatment for minor illnesses, to more sophisticated procedures such as midwifery, bone setting and treatment of snake bites and mental disorders.

There were also specialists in blood letting, experts in physical medical practices and others with intimate knowledge of medicinal plants. All these areas of folk practices have their particular folklore that preserved and transmitted such knowledge.

Some healing practices were considered to be sacred and were associated with rituals that helped safeguard them.

It is interesting to note that in folk traditions there is considerable overlap between healing plants and sacred plants, and certain healing plants were venerated. Traditionally Sanskrit-based Ayurvedic practice was limited to certain segments of society, folk healers came from all levels of society.

Although folk practitioners from the lower strata of society lack the scholarly aura, many who specialize in specific healing practices are held in high esteem. For example, it is not uncommon for scholarly Ashtavaidyas to seek the help of folk healers in pediatric care, poison therapy or diseases of the mind.

Classical Ayurveda has been enriched over centuries through such interactions and exchange with regional folk practices. Literature on Indian medicine is vast and there are large numbers of manuscripts in private and public collections and libraries that still need to be documented and studied.

They include not only works on Ayurveda in Sanskrit and vernacular languages, but also works on Unani in Urdu and Persian, and on Siddha medicine in Tamil. Vernacular writings helped those literate healers who were not Sanskrit savvy to inform themselves about the theory and practices mentioned in classical works on Ayurveda.

Tribal medical traditions from populations who had historically relied on their forest environments for healthcare have made invaluable contributions to the materia medica of traditional medicine. Region specific materia medica of classical and folk medical traditions owe much to the tribal healing traditions.

From around the 8 th century C. texts called Nighantus dealing exclusively with the materia medica of Ayurveda were composed. Many of these works helped to enlarge the repertoire of medicinal substances by incorporating knowledge of local practitioners and from foreign sources. A few well-known Nighantus are Madanapala Nighantu , Bhavaprakasha Nighantu , Dhanvantari Nighantu and Sodhala Nighantu.

Until very recently, it was common for Ayurvedic physicians to memorize a Nighantu of special relevance to their region or practice. Indian Medicine During Pre-colonial and Colonial Periods.

As mentioned previously in this introduction, over centuries Indian indigenous medical systems were renowned for skilled physicians, sophisticated medical therapies and for the extensive materia medica.

While interplay of myriad complex factors was responsible for the outcome, there is no debate about the fact that traditional medicine entered a period of decline during the colonial era. However, during the pre-colonial period early Portuguese and Dutch settlers relied on the thriving medical systems they found in India for their healthcare needs.

There were very few physicians among the early European settlers, and they did not have the medicines or the knowledge needed to combat tropical diseases. During this period it was official policy of the Portuguese and Dutch governments in India to actively seek out and document Indian traditional medical knowledge.

Several books on Indian medicine written during this period introduced Indian medical knowledge to European medical schools, and botanical medical knowledge of India was tremendously influential in the the global context. Works on Indian botanical medical knowledge, by Garcia da Orta , Christoval Acosta and the 12 volume Hortus Malabarius compiled by Aadrian Van Rheede, became reference books for tropical botany and medicine for a hundred years or more.

The skills of Indian physicians to treat regional diseases and the rich materia medica of traditional medicine put them at an advantage over the newly arrived British doctors, struggling to deal with diseases unfamiliar to them. Later as the British East India Company established itself in India, many British physicians assumed broader scholarly roles as botanists, foresters, zoologists, geologists and European medicine came to be looked upon as the dominant medical knowledge system.

By mid 19th C. British official colonial policy marginalized indigenous medicine to secondary status. And later as the Indian Medical Service opened to accept Indian nationals, students from upper classes as well as Christians and Muslim entered modern medical colleges and European medicine became the official health care system.

Indian Medical Traditions Since The 20th Century. Even though during the British colonial period official status of Ayurveda and other traditional healing systems were relegated to secondary roles and western medicine became dominant, Ayurvedic colleges offering diplomas were created and the study of classical texts in Sanskrit were initiated in many centers around India.

Many of these institutions integrated Ayurveda education with biomedical education curriculum and western concepts of disease and wellness. Pharmaceutical companies also began to manufacture Ayurvedic and other forms of traditional medicines on a large scale to deal with the diminished capability of practitioners and patients to make medical preparations.

After Independence, the government of India made efforts to recognize Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani as being on par with allopathic biomedicine. In a government body for setting norms for the manufacture and the control of the quality of traditional medicinal preparations was formed.

In the government of India passed the Indian Medical Central Council Act to standardize Ayurvedic teaching institutions, their curriculum and their diplomas. Today the general trend is to comply with the norms of modern biomedicine.

In traditional medical schools the vocabulary and diagnostic tools of modern medicine are replacing traditional terms, and techniques and students are increasingly becoming unfamiliar with classical references and methodologies.

In the last few decades there has been growing interest in alternative forms of therapy globally. In addition, attempts by devotees of New Age culture to ascribe new layers of meaning to the concepts of Ayurveda have propagated a simplified and modified version of Ayurvedic culture and practice.

While this has stimulated the development of tourism for well-being, leisure Ayurveda , in India, with spas and hotels offering different kinds of simplified treatments, for many in India and abroad these commercialized variants have come to represent Ayurveda.

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