The Roots Of Ayurveda

Selections from the Ayurvedic Classics

A distillation of ancient Indian medical wisdom

This volume brings together selections from the Sanskrit classics of the Ayurveda physicians Caraka, Susruta, Kasyapa, Vagabhata and Sarngadhara who lived between the mid-first millennium BC and the fourteenth century AD.

The constituents and systems of the physical body; the purifying nature of garlic therapy; the varieties of Soma juice and how they help rejuvenation; the danger to kings from a variety of poisons including that of the Snake Maiden; rhinoplasty and other kinds of surgical operations; the circumstances leading to the loss of an embryo—these are among the aspects of esoteric and common interest which are described in detail here.

The translations which are from the oldest extant writings of the physicians rather than later commentaries, are in standard modern English. But care has been taken not to transpose English medical terms onto the Ayurvedic concepts. Dominik Wujastyk’s authentic, critical and reader-friendly renderings of original Sanskrit medical texts offer us a glimpse into Ayurveda as a complete, scientific and living medical tradition.