CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 100, NO. 4, 25 FEBRUARY 2011 476 Bhushan Patwardhan is in the Institute of Ayurveda and Integrated Medicine, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions, Bangalore 560 106, India; Vishnu Joglekar is in the Tilak Ayurveda Mahavidyalaya, Pune 411 011, India; Namyata Pathak is in the Kasturba Health Society, Medical Research Centre, Mumbai 400 056, India; Ashok V...

We thank Dr Kontum for his interesting and useful comments to our paper[1] and further reference to the address by one of the authors (AC) to the recently concluded World Ayurveda Congress 2010 in Bangalore on the subject of ‘Ayurveda Biomedicine Interface’. Kontum has very rightly highlighted the ‘holistic approach’ as a contrast to just focusing on ‘drugs’. Also, he has described a relatively...

This paper presents what we have learned from the Ashtavaidya Ayurveda physicians of Kerala regarding the status of their unique medical tradition of Ayurveda in the contemporary context. We extensively interviewed several practicing Ashtavaidyas for the "Living History of Indian Scientific Traditions" archive, a new initiative at the NCBS, Bangalore to study the history of Indian sciences. As ...

Ayurveda, the native healthcare system of India, is a rich resource of well-documented ancient medical knowledge. Although the roots of this knowledge date back to the Vedic and post-Vedic eras, it is generally believed that a dedicated branch for healthcare was gradually established approximately between 400 BCE and 200 CE. Probably because the language of documentation of these early textbook...

Drug safety is a very basic and fundamental concept in medical practice. ADRs play an important role in assessing patient safety in any system of medicine. Pharmacovigilance study is thus significant to understand treatment outcomes. Current raised issue with respect to complementary and alternative system medicine (CAM) like Ayurveda is increased in number of safety reports along with report m...

Ayurveda needs to achieve its full potential both in India and globally. This requires imparting to its students full appreciation of Ayurveda's power and strength, particularly proper understanding of the advantages of applying it to treat chronic and acute diseases. To this end, we explain the necessity of learning Sanskrit as a medium of study, and the advantages of learning the Texts in the...

The author highlights in this paper the differences between Ayurveda and Western medicine in the approach to healing process. Also the paper examines relevance of Ayurveda to the present day life style and thus, makes a critical study of both medical systems quoting references from various modern authors.

Pharmacovigilance is a corrective process originating in pharmaco-epidemiology. The 1997 Erice Declaration, presented at the World Health Organisation, became the basis on which the concept was implemented internationally for conventional systems of medicine. The increasing international acceptance of Ayurveda, led regulators to implement a similar program for Ayurveda, particularly as some med...

Ayurveda conceives in Life (Ayu) as a four dimensional entity i.e. Sarirendriya Satvatma Samyoga. Accordingly it adopts a comprehensive psychosomatic-spiritual approach to preservation of health and cure of diseases. Satvavajaya (psychotherapy) is described as a major non-pharmacological approach to treatment. This paper presents a critical study on the concept of Psychotherapy in Ayurveda with...

The theory and practice of Ayurveda are based on the doctrine of tridosa, according to which disease states spring from the disturbance of the three factors vata, pitta and kapha. Being a wholistic medical system Ayurveda considers several variables in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. This report identifies these variables in detail and highlights their clinical significance.