Ayurveda is an ancient system of life (ayur) knowledge (veda) arising in India thousands of

years ago. Ayurveda theory evolved from a deep understanding of creation. The great rishis
or seers of ancient India came to understand creation through deep meditation and other
spiritual practices. The rishis sought to reveal the deepest truths of human physiology and
health. They observed the fundamentals of life, organized them into an elaborate system, and
compiled India's philosophical and spiritual texts, called Veda of knowledge.
Ayurveda was first recorded in the Veda, the world's oldest existing literature. The three most
important Veda texts containing the original and complete knowledge of Ayurveda, believed to
be over 1200 years old, is still in use today. These Ayurvedic teachings were customarily
passed on orally from teacher to student for over 1000 years. The wisdom of Ayurveda is
recorded in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India that reflects the philosophy behind
Ayurveda and the depth within it.
Ayurveda greatly influenced health care practices in the east and the west. By 400 AD
Ayurvedic works were translated into Chinese; by 700 AD Chinese scholars were studying
medicine in India at Nalanda University. Chinese medicine, herbology and Buddhist
philosophy were also impacted by Ayurvedic knowledge. Having passed the test of
experience it remains essentially the same now as at its inception, although numerous
commentators over the centuries have added insight with their analyses.
The philosophy of Ayurveda teaches a series of conceptual systems characterized by balance
and disorder, health and disease. Disease/health results from the interconnectedness
between the self, personality, and everything that occurs in the mental, emotional, and
spiritual being. To be healthy, harmony must exist between the purpose for healing, thoughts,
feelings and physical action.
Ayurveda is a careful integration of six important Indian philosophical systems, many
physical/behavioral sciences, and the medical arts. One verse from an ancient authority says
Ayurveda deals with what is good life and bad life, happiness and misery, that which supports
or destroys, and the measurement of life. It works to heal the sick, to maintain health in the
healthy, and to prevent disease in order to promote quality of life and long life. Health is
defined as an experience of bliss/happiness in the soul, mind, and senses and balance of the
body's three governing principles, seven tissues, three wastes, digestion, and other
processes such as immune functioning. Health is not the absence of symptoms. Ayurveda
has objective ways to assess each of these, pulse assessment being the primary means.
Its central tenet is that life is a combination of body, mind, senses, and spirit (more than a
mind-body system). Nothing exists but for the pre-existence of and working of a Supreme
Intelligence/Consciousness an elemental, all-powerful, all-pervading spirit-energy that
expresses Itself through and in the creation. Ayurveda seeks to know this aspect of life, the
subjective (internal) as well as the objective (outer).
It is central to Ayurveda that the functioning of all creation, the mineral, plant and animal
kingdoms, can be understood as the interactions of three fundamental energy complexes
(erroneously called doshas). The three energies are vata, pitta and kapha signifying the
dynamic or mobile, energetic, nonmaterial aspect of nature; the transformative, intelligence
aspect; and the structural, physical aspect respectively. Vata governs respiration, circulation,
elimination, locomotion, movement, speech, creativity, enthusiasm, and the entire nervous

system. Pitta governs transformations such as digestion and metabolism, vision, complexion,
body temperature, courage, cheerfulness, intellection and discrimination. Kapha governs
growth (anabolic processes), lubrication, fluid secretions, binding, potency, patience,
heaviness, fluid balance, compassion, and understanding in the organism. All have physical
expressions in the body.
In the human physiology these three energies tend to interact in a harmonious and
compensatory way to govern and sustain life. Their relative expression in an individual implies
a unique ratio of functioning of these governing principles according to each person's unique
DNA (vta-pitta-kapha ratio) determined at conception. This is body or constitutional typing,
called prakruti. There are seven types vata type, pitta type, kapha type and combinations
thereof.
Prakruti yields two important understandings. A person has a permanent or stable nature for
the entire life and efforts to maintain or change physiology must keep this balance point in
mind. In addition each type will suggest an area tending to go out of balance, a disease
tendency, requiring lifelong attention to maintain balance. A vata type naturally tends to
constipation, arthritis, anxiety; a pitta type tends towards inflammations, infections, ulcers; and
kapha types tend to overweight, diabetes, congestive disorders, etc. The implication
of pakruti is that it helps explain why people react differently to the same things. The medical
implication for this is that certain people will have a natural predisposition or sensitivity to
certain medicines and this can be predicted.
Why does imbalance occur? It occurs because one or more of the energies or elements
described above gets increased quantitatively or altered qualitatively. There is no human
experience, whether a thought, an emotion, the climate, food, lifestyle, etc. that does not have
at least one of the twenty qualities which, by its action, yields an effect in the physiology.
Classically, the nature of the causative factors are the result of mistakes of intellection (failure
to perceive things as they are), inappropriate use of the sense organs, and mistakes of time
(doing even proper things at the wrong time). While DNA gives the body one set of
instructions, the life experiences at every moment are giving the governing principles perhaps
another message. Since these three governing principles are nothing but energy themselves,
they can be influenced increased or decreased by like or opposite energies. Heat
increases pitta, dryness increases vata, and liquid increases kapha, etc. Thus imbalance is
the continued experience of some stimulus mental, emotional, or physical, real or imagined
- that overwhelms the body's ability to maintain its identity, its prakruti or vata-pitta-kahpa
ratio. When a stimulus and a system have the same energy the stimulus promotes more of its
value in the system. Like increases like which can lead to imbalance even though they are not
necessarily unhealthy influences in themselves properly cooked organic food when taken in
excess or at the wrong time promotes imbalance. With time and chronicity and some
defective space in the organism (from genes, prior disease, trauma, congenital defect, etc.),
disease can develop and manifest in the weak organ or tissue. When disease begins to
manifest the governing principles are called doshas, meaning impurities, which can pollute or
contaminate the physiology.