text: Hey do you mean Ayurveda?\n\nAyurveda (आयुर्वेद Sanskrit: ayu—life; veda—knowledge of) or ayurvedic medicine is a more than 2,000 year old comprehensive system of medicine based on a holistic approach rooted in Vedic culture. Its conspicuous use of the word veda, or knowledge, reveals its role in early Hinduism and describes its hallowed place in India. Ayurveda also had a tradition of surgery. Two early texts of Ayurveda are the Charaka Samhita and the Sushruta Samhita.\n\nThe Charaka and Sushruta Samhitās are compendiums of two traditions rather than texts authored by single authors. A third tradition is that of the Kāshyapas. The scholarly traditions of ayurveda date back to the time of the Buddha, who died (mahaparinirvana) in approximately 400 BCE. Some plant remedies of ayurveda are mentioned in the earlier Vedic literature 2nd millennium BC, but the formal doctrines of the three humours and other key ayurvedic ideas are first mentioned in the Buddhist Canonical literature. Both the Sushruta and Charaka Samhitās are the product of several editorial hands, having been revised and supplemented over a period of several hundred years.\n\nThe scholar Vāgbhata, who lived in Sind at the beginning of the 7th century AD, produced a grand synthesis of earlier ayurvedic materials in a verse work called Ashtānga Samhita. Another work associated with the same author, the Asthanga Samgraha, contains much the same material in a more diffuse form, written in a mixture of prose and verse. The relationship between these two works, and a third intermediate compilation, is still a topic of active research. The works of Charaka, Sushruta, and Vagbhata are considered canonical and reverentially called the Vriddha Trayi, "the triad of ancients"; or Brhat Trayi, "the greater triad." In the early eighth century, Mādhav wrote his Nidāna, a work on etiology, which soon assumed a position of authority. In the 79 chapters of this book, he lists diseases along with their causes, symptoms, and complications.\n\nThe vast majority of Ayurvedic therapies are herbal compounds. Some alchemical preparations start to enter the ayurvedic pharmacopieia towards the end of the 1st millennium AD in works such as those of Ugraditya (8th century AD)and Sarngadhara (14th century AD). It also provides therapies for the treatment of various vegetable and animal toxins like scorpion, spider and snake venom. It has a whole science of toxicology called agada-tantra as one of the eight branches of traditional Ayurveda.\n\nThe Ayurvedic idea is that the organism adapts to the environment and its food, climate etc. This principle of adaptation is called satyma. Through introducing small amounts of a food or medicine, the organism can adapt to it and learn to resist it.\n\nAyurveda became increasingly symptom-based, treating the symptoms of a disease rather than the root cause. However, it is important to note that Ayurveda was originally a consciousness based system of health care. Its philosophy, expressed in modern terms, is to strengthen the immune system.\n\n\nQualities\nIt could be said that the simple essence of ayurveda is knowledge and awareness of the qualities of nature – called gurvadi gunah. By understanding the qualities inherent in the environment, in foodstuffs, in activities, etc., one gains an appreciation of their effects on the individual constitution through the principle of similarities; i.e., that similarities cause increase while dissimilarities cause decrease. Thus hot qualities in the environment or diet will increase hot qualities in the body.\n\nThe gurvadi gunah are listed in Vagbhata's Ashtanga Hrdayam as:\n\nGuru (heavy) – laghu (light) \nManda (slow) – tikshna (quick, sharp) \nHima (cold) – ushna (hot) \nSnigdha (unctuous) – ruksha (dry) \nSlakshna (smooth) – khara (rough) \nSandra (solid) – drava (liquid) \nMrdu (soft) – kathina (hard) \nSthira (stable) – cala (mobile) \nSuk