Ayurveda is an ancient and universal system of health and healing that can be used beneficially in any culture, in any era, by anyone. The book outlines the basic principles of Ayurveda making reader to understand their own physiological and psychological make-up, and the qualities in themselves and in their environment which promote a state of health or ill-health. It further explores the physical, emotional and spiritual realities which are unique to women. Focusing on the modern woman’s need to heal and empower her body, mind and spirit in a fast-moving world, this fascinating new book:
This book aims to help women fulfil their potential through living healthy and happy lives.
Dr. Robert E. Svoboda is the author of a number of books on Ayurveda and other subjects and serves on the Faculty of the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Presently, he is engaged in introducing a line of traditional Ayurvedic products and educational materials into North America.
Ayurveda is India’s traditional system of health and healing. Perhaps humankind's most ancient medical system, it - or something similar - was already being practised in India many thousands of years ago. Ayurveda explores life in all its layers and pays more attention to an organism's energies and their functions than to the structures which contain them. It concerns it selfless with quantity of life than with life’s quality, and with those qualities in our environments and ourselves that promote an individual's state of health or ill-health on every level of existence.
Although Ayurveda takes all of embodied life (including animals and plants) as its field of activity, this book focuses on the female human being. It addresses feminine physical, mental, emotional and spiritual realities, and the many areas of women’s lives that are unique to them as women. We begin with Ayurveda’s basics - principles that are as true for stallions and pear trees as they are for people! - and proceed to explore women’s concerns in three sections that correspond to the three ages of a woman's life. Each of these introduces and explains those aspects of Ayurveda that are most relevant to that age. As a whole, the book seeks to deliver a faithful image of the reality that Ayurveda was created to mirror: the comedy and the drama, the trees and the forest - in short, everything that is suit- able and unsuitable for promoting health and happiness in an individual human life.
Historical Origins
Ayurveda originated within the tradition of the Vedas, India’s ancient books of wisdom, which were ‘discovered’ by seers known as rishis, enlightened experimenters who worked within the ‘laboratories’ of their own awarenesses. Out of the abundance of their compassion they systematized their findings for their less enlightened posterity, and anyone who is willing to cultivate a little interiority can stick her toe into this lake of knowledge.
The Vedas took on their current form at some point during the second millenium sc, although this version is derived from much earlier versions which are now lost. Ayurveda developed from the youngest of the Vedas, the Atharva Veda. When, during the first millenium sc, Indian culture entered its Golden Age, the first substantial texts of Ayurveda were codified: the Charaka Samhita, which deals mainly with internal medicine, and the Sushruta Samhita, which focuses on surgery. Ayurveda continued to flourish over the next few centuries, and new texts were continually being written. The Ayurvedic text used most widely today, the Ashtanga Hridaya of Vagbhata, was written around 700 AD. It consists of a backbone formed by condensing the works of Charaka and Sushruta, fleshed out with newly described diseases and therapies.
During India's medieval period, political turmoil began to interfere with the development of Ayurveda, and what appeared at the time to be a death blow to the system was delivered in 1835 by Lord Macaulay. He directed that thenceforth European med- ical knowledge exclusively should be encouraged in all areas of India governed by the East India Company. Having thus lost all government approval and patronage, Ayurveda had to retreat underground, the flame of its traditions tended carefully as before by generations of dedicated adherents. But even during this period of persecution Ayurveda contributed generously to Western medicine. During the nineteenth century the Germans translated from Sushruta’s treatise details of an operation for the repair of damaged noses and ears. This operation, which now appears in modern textbooks as the pedicle graft, led to the development of plastic surgery as an independent specialization. Sushruta is today regarded by plastic surgeons the world over as the father of their craft.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
Acupuncture & Acupressure (196)
Gem Therapy (22)
Homeopathy (511)
Massage (22)
Naturopathy (425)
Original Texts (220)
Reiki (65)
Therapy & Treatment (178)
Tibetan Healing (126)
Yoga (50)
हिन्दी (1087)
Ayurveda (3156)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Statutory Information
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist