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Having practiced as a vaidya for over thirty years, I often look back at my personal experiences with this science and I wonder whether it is adequate to call Ayurveda, “Indian System of Medicine”. Surely it is “Indian’, but is it merely a “system of medicine’? As years have passed, I have become fairly convinced that it is rather myopic to simply think of Ayurveda as just another “system of medicine’. Ayurveda, as the name suggests, is a body of knowledge about life itself. In my opinion, no other contemporary system of health amelioration manages to deliver the world health organization definition of health which is:

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmit”

Ayurveda not only delivers this promise of health, it does more. It expands it further and promises an even more extensive state of good health where besides the physical, social and mental, a human being finds spiritual health as well. A student of Ayurveda can, at best, only be modest about the limits of one’s knowledge of this great science and philosophy which has evolved through thousands of years of experimentation and deliberation by great ancient Indian rishis (or seers). He can only marvel at the scope of this vast body of knowledge and humbly attend to those who seek alleviation of their physical, mental, spiritual and social pains. After thirty years of devoted effort in this field, I am overcome with a somewhat Newtonian modesty and feel as if I am just a mere child collecting pebbles near an ocean of knowledge and occasionally finding smoother pebbles compared to others and feeling delighted about it. In fact, I would say I haven’t even managed to reach out to pick these pebbles up and have simply felt gratified by being associated with this ocean and having spotted the pebbles. Hence, when Dr. Vikram Chauhan asked me to write the foreword for his book, I was overwhelmed by the honor as well as humbled by my own inadequacies in doing justice to such a great science.

I laud Dr. Vikram Chauhan for making an effort to bring this knowledge – albeit a very small portion of it – to the common man. The intention of this book is certainly not to bring out every aspect of Ayurveda and I am sure Dr. Vikram would agree with me. That would certainly be a Herculean task. In fact, the modest aim of this book is to provide glimpses of the brilliance of this science to the common man so that he becomes interested in this ocean of knowledge and discovers true good health. The book is simple, easy to read and concise. It introduces the

reader to the basics of Ayurveda. It gives some insights into an Ayurvedic perspective of how certain ailments may be cured. It pays a fair bit of attention to an Ayurvedic response to the prevalent life-style diseases like hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes mellitus etc.

I congratulate Dr. Vikram Chauhan for taking the initiative to write this book. I am very sure that this is just the beginning of a long journey. As a life-time student of Ayurveda, I wish my fellow student all the best in his learning.

– Vaidya Madan Gulati

By Dr. Madan Gulati

MD (Ayurveda)

Deputy Director,

Department of AYUSH, Chandigarh, India

PREFACE

Stress is the root cause of most of the ailments. The world is changing at it’s fastest pace. Everyone seems to be in hurry and newer things are being discovered everyday. Every new discovery is to make life more comfortable. How far is it true? We are becoming accustomed to live and work with so called comforts to such an extent that it seems impossible to live without them. No doubt that the new discoveries and devices are for our comfort, but our dependency upon them and the desire to acquire them has given rise to many health problems. The stress of day to day life is at its peak.

According to Ayurveda-Our intelligence is called “Pragya” in Sanskrit. The reason for all the diseases and problems is misdoings by our Pragya.

Our Pragya (Intelligence) is befooled by our false ego and logics given by the mind. Our mind has become slave of our senses and we behave just like a puppet in the hands of our senses. People suffering from Diabetes know that sugar is not right for them, but still they eat sweets, as they can not control their sense of taste. People suffering from obesity know eating fast food is not good for them but still they eat it. People know alcohol damages their liver and heart but still they can’t control their desire.

The obsession to posses materialistic things has created chaos everywhere. Everyone is running for materialistic gains and all the hard earned money is spent on sensual gratification rather than self realization. People are working day and night to satisfy false ego by maintaining financial status, buying new machines rather than maintaining their health.

Sound, Touch, Sight, Taste and Smell are five senses which spoil the mind’s decisive power and befool the intelligence by exploiting false ego of the intelligence.

Many industries are running just to fulfill the demands of the senses which are never under the control of our mind. People are working hard under so much stressful conditions just to feed their senses.

Fast food industry, five star hotels, restaurants are all growing because we do not have control on our tongue.

Everyone wants to buy television, mobile phones, DVD players, see movies or music concerts because it gives pleasure to their ears and eyes.

The pornography industry is running because we don’t have control over sensation of sight and touch.

Fashion industry is in full bloom because we want to look good to exhibit our physical body. We express desire to buy expensive clothes and jewelry to satisfy our false ego. So we buy costly clothes, cosmetics and jewelry to feel more confident in society and that depicts how much empty our society is at the mental level.

Deodorants, perfume industries are also flourishing because we want to feed our sense of smell.

Cause of all Imbalance

Intelligence

False Ego Mind Senses

Excessive indulgence in providing material pleasure to senses and misuse of our resources by our Intelligence (“Pragya”) is the root cause of all Diseases. Our mind gives excuses to do wrong with the help of false ego and acts like a puppet in the hands of senses to cause disease.

Although the earning capacity of everyone is increasing day by day, we still have to work more and more to over feed our senses. Just to buy bigger houses, expensive cars and other expensive useless items, but in this whole process we ignore our health altogether.

My above statements do not mean we should not strive for the best things in the world, neither do I mean that we should avoid hard work. What I intend to say is that we should try to adopt a positive attitude towards life rather than leading a stressful life and should live in harmony with nature. The feelings of jealousy, anger, wrong desires, excessive indulgence in sexual activities, extremism leads to a catastrophe inside the mind and body. All these thoughts and emotions lead to release of the hormones by the hypothalamus which create indiscipline within body’s biochemistry. These feelings generate harmful chemicals inside the body which eat up the vital force or “the Prana’ according to Ayurveda.

This indiscipline within the body’s biochemistry produces diseases like Diabetes, blood pressure, cancers and many other diseases.

Another concept in Ayurvedic healing is its approach to fortify the immune system rather than

fighting the germs. With the advent of microscope and antibiotics the world’s intellectual thoughts tilted over killing the germs and treat the diseases. That started a chain reaction to discover more and more anti-biotics to kills germs. It started an endless war between the germs and the humans. With the passage of time, humans became habitual to fight with the germs only with the help of antibiotics. The human resistance to infections lowered. As more time elapsed, the germs adapted to most of the antibiotic arsenal developed by humans. There was not much effort to improve human resistance to germs. It is not foolish to kill the enemy by extraordinary weapons, but it is foolish when you are killing yourself along with the enemy.

Our ancient sages (Sushruta 1000 BC-an ancient Ayurveda surgery scholar and still known as father of modern plastic surgery) had deep knowledge about the existence of germs, even then they emphasize the importance of balance within the internal energies i.e. vata, pitta and kapha. Germs can harm and produce infection only if the inner balance is disturbed. A seed can not grow into a tree unless all supportive factors are there. It can’t grow unless the soil is fertile and other conditions are favorable.

Similarly germs can not infect our bodies unless our immune system is weak enough. This weakness or imbalance is all due to imbalance in these tri energies of Vata, Pitta and Kapha. The imbalance in trienergies is due to many reasons which include sedentary life style, lack of nutrition, high consumption of packaged or processed food, stressful lifestyle. We know all this but still we are very much ignorant about these things.

“Ignorance is the cause of all disease, knowledge is the way to live at ease”

Even the renowned microbiologist, Louis Pasteur who discovered germs, said before his death “Microbes are nothing, everything is soil”.

Ayurveda lays more stress on fortifying the vital force “The Prana’. It can only be done if we change our lifestyle, our dietary habits and our attitude towards various life events.

Nature has offered us the treasure of herbs and minerals, which nature’s very own weapons. They attack the disease at the root and helps the body to regain it’s lost strength. Herbs and other natural methods improve our body’s defense or “Ojus-The Vital Energy’. Natural sources of vitamins and minerals are much more effective than synthetic vitamin pills. An Amla berry or 3 tablespoonfuls of Ama berry juice is much better than chewing a vitamin C tablet. 1 tablespoonful of natural amla juice contains 50 to 90 mg of Vitamin C.

There may be thousands of other vitamins, micronutrients which may be there in the herbs and required by the body, but still yet to be discovered by modern science.

Not only herbs and minerals increase body’s vital force but thoughts have a very positive influence on it. Laughter, love, peace, sharing, happiness, forgiveness, charity leads to release of positive and anti-stress hormones within our body, which restores the disturbed chemicals within the body, whereas anger, jealousy, hatred, revenge, greed, grudges release gush of stress promoting hormones within the body.

So this book is intended to bring awareness about nature’s power to heal. This is for intellectuals and laymen as well. It emphasizes the role of diet, nutrition, herbs and healthy life style in the prevention and treatment of diseases.

Lord Dhanvantari

Lord Dhanvantari is the primal deity, the God of Ayurveda and of natural healing. He is credited with propagating the surgical aspect of Ayurveda as well as its philosophical aspects. He is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the preserver who has come to earth in his many forms to help humanity