Advait - Ayurveda 101: Ayurveda Basics for The Absolute Beginner

Mythical origin

According to the mythical accounts, the Ayurveda is attributed to Lord Brahma The Three Headed Hindu God, regarded as the Creator of the Universe.

Lord Brahma then handed it over to Daksha Prajapati The Hindu equivalent of Adam.

Daksha Prajapati passed it on to Indra, the King of the Gods.

Indra then taught it to Rishi Bharadwaj, the first of the Maha Yogis.

And, Rishi Bharadwaj passed it on to his disciples who further spread it throughout the Indian sub-continent.

Historical Origin

In the ancient Vedic times, knowledge or information, was never recorded over physical entities, i.e. documentation of information on physical medium like paper (Indian Papyrus called as Tamrapatra) was never done.

The teachers used to recite the Vedas and other scripts in front of their disciples and they used to learn it by heart and recall it whenever they required it.

Due to this tradition no one really knows when Ayurveda came into being and the historical origin is the first time when Ayurveda was mentioned in Vedic texts, but Ayurveda is believed to have existed for at least 5000 years before the first mention of it in Vedic texts.

The first historical mention of Ayurveda is attributed to Maharshi Agnivesh in his work Agnivesh Tantra . [around 6 th Century B.C.]

This works were later redacted and revived by Maharshi Charaka and it later became widely known as Charaka Sanhita . [1 st Century A.D.] (Which formed the basis of Modern Ayurveda.)

The Surgical science under Ayurveda was studied and researched by Maharshi Dhanvantari much earlier i.e. around 4 th -5 th Century B.C.

Maharshi Dhanvantari is regarded and worshipped in India as the God of Medicine and Surgery. His disciple Sushruta further created his own work on Ayurveda based on Dhanvantaris and his own observations and experiments. His work is widely known as the Sushruta Sanhita and forms the basis of modern day surgical science.