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––» Ayurveda & Spa in India
About Ayurveda
Ayurveda
is the oldest surviving complete medical system in the world. Derived from its
ancient Sanskrit roots - 'ayus' (life) and 'ved' (knowledge) - and offering
a rich, comprehensive outlook to a healthy life, its origins go back nearly
5000 years. To when it was expounded and practiced by the same spiritual rishis,
who laid the foundations of the Vedic civilisation in India, by organising the
fundamentals of life into proper systems.
The main source of knowledge in this field therefore remain the Vedas, the divine
books of knowledge they propounded, and more specifically the fourth of the
series, namely Atharvaveda that dates back to around 1000 BC.
Of the few other treatises on Ayurveda that have survived from around the same
time, the most famous are Charaka Samhita and the Sushruta Samhita which concentrate
on internal medicine and surgery respectively.
The Astanga Hridayam is a more concise compilation of earlier texts that was
created about a thousand years ago. These between them forming a greater part
of the knowledge base on Ayurveda as it is practiced today.
The art of Ayurveda had spread around in the 6th century BC to Tibet,
China,
Mongolia, Korea and Sri Lanka, carried over by the Buddhist monks travelling
to those lands. Although not much of it survives in original form, its effects
can be seen in the various new age concepts that have originated from there.
Imponderable, indescribable and extremely subtle, this primordial energy - which
and all that flows from it existing only in pure existence - is the creative
force of all action, a source of form that has qualities.
Matter and energy are so closely related that when energy takes form, we tend
to think of it in terms of matter only. And much modified, it ultimately leads
to the manifestation of our familiar mental and physical worlds.
A Sanskrit word with no exact translation, Ahamkara, is a concept not quite
understood by everyone as it is often misleadingly equated to `ego'. Embracing
much more than just that, it is in essence that part of 'me' which knows which
parts of the universal creation are 'me'.
Since 'I' am not separate from the universal consciousness, but 'I' has an identity
that differentiates and defines the boundaries of `me'. All creations therefore
have Ahamkara, not just human beings.
The second is Tamas, the objective world of the five elements of sound, touch,
vision, taste and smell - the five subtle elements that give rise to the dense
elements of ether or space, air, fire, water and the earth - from which all
matter of the physical world is derived. And it is Rajas, the force or the energy
of movement, which brings together parts of these two worlds.
