ORIGIN OF AYURVEDA

The “VEDAs” were handed down as an oral tradition and it is believed that they were never created by men (apowrusheya) and its root can only be traced to the supreme consciousness.
Historians have no consensus on fixing an exact chronology of Vedas due to various reasons. Most of them have proposed the date as 4000 BC.

The four Vedas (Rig, Yajus, Saama, Atharva) contain references to Ayurvedic concepts and the Atharva Veda (which has 5,977 verses distributed among 731 sukthas ) is considered as the main source of direct Ayurvedic references of health and diseases. Ayurveda is considered as the Upaveda of Atharva Veda.
The famous phrase “Loko ayam purusha samhitha “ refers to the microcosm and macrocosm relating man with the Universe and signifies the axioms of the epistemology of Ayurveda.

Ayurveda is not merely a health science. It is a comprehensive philosophy of life inseparable from its axiomatic world views of the six systems of Indian philosophy (Shad darshanas) rooted in the Vedas. Ayurveda adopted relevant principles of different schools of thought to formulate its own principles to explain and understand the nature of health and disease in relation to all living beings which includes human beings, animals and plants.