Ayurveda is an ancient medical practice originating in India whose prevalence in the Western world has become entrenched in the last three decades. While there is an obvious attraction to Ayurvedic medicine in the Western world, you can always find skeptics who wouldn’t even consider educating themselves on the subject before rushing to judgement.
Is Ayurveda a medical practice?
No. Ayurveda is not a medical practice, which contrasts with the prevailing notion in the West. Ayurveda is similar to ‘herbal medicine’. Herbalism is the ancient practice of finding natural cures for human illness dating back 60,000 years when Neanderthals relied on herbs from the wild to cure human illness and care for the health problems of their animals.
As civilizations began to develop in China, Greece and India, the inhabitants began to follow different forms of herbalism, which is now known in India as ‘Ayurveda’.
Isn’t Ayurveda based on Science?
It is a common misconception in the Western world that since Ayurveda is considered to be an alternative medicine, it is not scientific. Ayurveda is often thought of as an exotic practice enjoyed in spas. The Sanskrit word Ayurveda is made up of two words: Ayur, which means life, and Veda, which means knowledge. In other words, Ayurveda is a logical and systematic arrangement of herbal knowledge; it is the science of life that encompasses the mind, body and spirit.
Ayurvedic medicine in the western world
As mentioned above, Ayurvedic medicine has become popular in the Western world in the last two or three decades. Many universities now offer courses in the practice of alternative medicine and many people have begun to treat it as a conventional career option.
The charm of Ayurveda is mainly due to its treatment nature. There are two main goals of Ayurvedic medicine:
“It treats the symptoms of a disease and helps people strengthen their immune system. Ayurveda treats a person’s body, mind and spirit as a whole entity, and works on the basis that the mind and body affect each other. each other and together you can beat the disease.
In other words, Ayurvedic medicine believes in holistic healing. Unlike conventional or western medicine that begins treatment only when the human body contracts an ailment, Ayurveda begins to heal before any disease occurs. This is preventive medicine in its purest form.
Ayurvedic herbs can be found in almost every home in India. Hence, children are surrounded by the preventive nature of herbs from the beginning, which lessens the intensity with which diseases are contracted. Let’s take a small example: in any Western country, someone suffering from a common cold is likely to rush to the nearest doctor or medical facility for treatment. In Asian countries, you will rarely find people visiting the clinic just to treat the same condition. Ayurvedic remedies for the same condition are: a pinch of turmeric mixed with a glass of milk, a teaspoon of honey and a few drops of lime juice.
It is true that people in Asian countries also suffer from major health problems, but their focus is always on holistic cure rather than short-term solutions provided by Western medicines. The preventative nature of Ayurveda, or rather its curative nature, is the main reason Western researchers are increasingly attracted to Ayurveda.
Ancient and modern Ayurveda
Ayurveda is a 21st century transnational phenomenon whose wide range of perspectives incorporates economic, sociopolitical, anthropological, philosophical, pharmacological, and biomedical responses.
In the recent past, a dichotomy was created between classical (ancient) and modern Ayurveda. Ayurvedic experts, practitioners and researchers classify ‘ancient’ Ayurvedic wisdom as the original. For them, ‘modern’ Ayurveda is that same knowledge that has been exported from the East to the West, where it has been modified. reinterpreted and then reimported to the Eastern countries.
However, there are still many who feel that this is simply an ideological difference. Some would argue that the Western world, which is so used to attaching importance to things based on their “likely” value backed by scientific research, is also trying to modernize Ayurveda for the same reasons.
For any practitioner of Ayurveda, this is an unwarranted and unimportant addition to Ayurvedic medicine because a healing system that relies on the natural healing processes gifted by Mother Nature herself cannot be limited to scientific proportions.
However, the appeal of Ayurveda remains a predominant factor in its acceptance in the Western world for its natural healing and preventive measures.
