Like scientific medicine, Ayurveda has both preventive and curative aspects. The preventive component emphasizes the need for a strict code of personal and social hygiene, the details of which depend upon individual, climatic, and environmental needs. Bodily exercises, the use of herbal preparations, and Yoga form a part of the remedial measures. The curative aspects of Ayurveda involve the use of herbal medicines, external preparations, physiotherapy, and diet. It is a principle of Ayurveda that the preventive and therapeutic measures be adapted to the personal requirements of each patient.
Ayurveda is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. Ayurveda is attributed to Dhanvantari, the physician to the gods in Hindu mythology. Its earliest concepts were set out in the portion of the Vedas known as the Atharvaveda (c. 2nd millennium BCE). The period of Vedic medicine lasted until about 800 BCE. The Vedas are rich in magical practices for the treatment of diseases.
The main classical Ayurveda texts begin with accounts of the transmission of medical knowledge from the gods to sages and then to human physicians. The golden age of Indian medicine, from 800 BCE until about 1000 CE, was marked especially by the production of the medical treatises known as the Caraka-samhita and Susruta-samhita, attributed respectively to Caraka, a physician, and Susruta, a surgeon. In Sushruta Samhita, Sushruta wrote that Dhanvantari, Hindu god of Ayurveda, incarnated himself as a king of Varanasi and taught medicine to a group of physicians, including Sushruta.
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