The mythological origin of Ayurveda has a link with Brahma, the God of Creation. Hindu myth holds that Brahma wanted to ease the suffering of human by offering knowledge of Ayurveda to other Gods. One of those deities was Dhanvantari, who then transmitted the knowledge to mortal sages. He is considered as the progenitor of ayurveda.Hence; Ayurveda is viewed as a divine science of revelation and thus values personal insight as much as empirical observation. Ayurveda is one of the most ancient systems of medicine in the world. Its antiquity goes into Vedas –the oldest recorded wisdom on the world. The history of Ayurveda which can be traced back to the Vedic Ages clearly lays out instructions to maintain health as well as fighting illnesses through therapies such as massages, herbal medicines, diet control and exercise.

Ayurveda takes largely a functional approach in the diagnosis and management of diseases. Diagnosis is made by looking at the subjective experiences of the patient and comparing and relating them with the normal body functions. It's a unique, indispensable branch of medicine - a complete naturalistic system that depends on the diagnosis of your body's humours - vata, pitta and kapha - to achieve the right balance. For a harmonious living, balancing the state of tridosha through promoting integrity is the key. Thus to maintain the health one has to follow promotional plans laid down in ayurveda taking into consideration of individual biological rhythmic pattern as 'prakriti".Ayurveda doesn't believe merely in adding the number of years to life but it advocate to add life to the each year. This may be one of the reasons that the first aim of ayurveda is to preserve and promote the health of healthy person. A normal life span with a natural death is considered to be the result of incorporating ayurveda in daily life.

Regimens and dietics

Ayurveda focuses more on preventive areas such as appropriate daily and seasonal practices, lifestyle correction and food that are diseases and patient specific. It has dealt very deeply the aspect of dietics in view of the Indian social and climatic conditions. There are rules regarding incompatibility of materials or specific processing methods, or season, measurements etc which are also subtly observed while preparing a drug so as to form a tailor made treatment. Ayurvedic herbs and medicine.

Ayurvedic drugs are rightly called the elixirs of life. Ayurvedic Herbs played important role in Ayurvedic treatment, from ancient time to this most modern time. When used judicially and clocking with the basic principles they produce miraculous effects. Ayurvedic medicines are usually prepared as a combination of several herbs and other natural ingredients of high medicinal value. The recipe and methods of preparations are as prescribed by Rishis or sages who have passed on their over generation.

Palliative care (Shamana Chikitsa)

As we know, palliative care specializes in the relief of the pain, symptoms and stress of serious illness. The goal is to prevent and ease suffering and to offer patients and families the best quality of life.Ayurveda has capacity to deal with acute and severe symptoms like pain, burning and loss of sensation associated with palliative care, because these are typical systemic expression of imbalance of three basic physiological functions known to ayurveda viz.,vata,pitta,kapha.

Yoga research

The objective of medicine is to address people's unavoidable needs for emotional and physical healing. Increased use of yogic techniques has made it imperative that these should be included in ayurvedic practice. There has been progress in this direction in recent years, with a steady increase in the number of doctors who include yoga therapies in their practice. This integrative approach of incorporating yoga with ayurvedic practice is definitely a future sunshine sector.

The interest in adopting the principles of ayurveda is growing world wide especially the treatment modalities of kerala. Kerala, a land where Nature's overwhelming presence represents itself in hues unknown to man, a land where there is an inexhaustible wealth of the choicest natural bounties. In fact, today, Kerala is the only State in India which practices this system of medicine with absolute dedication. The traditional physicians of kerala developed ayurveda in their own way without deviating from the basic principles. Probably these were developed considering the factors like climate, nature of land scape, body constitution and strength of people, regional availability of medicines etc. Kerala's equable climate, natural abundance of forests (with a wealth of herbs and medicinal plants), and the cool monsoon season (June to July and October to November) are best suited for Ayurveda's curative and restorative packages. The rainy season is the ideal time for Ayurvedic treatments because the atmosphere remains cool, moist, and dust free. This opens up the body’s pores, making it receptive to herbal oils and therapy.

Ayurveda is the science of health and healing. It deals about total creation with special emphasis on the biology of life. The chief objects laid down before this science are the preservation of health and prevention of disease. Ayurveda follows a comprehensive holistic approach considering life as three dimensional bio-unit of ‘Threedoshas’ vata, pitta, kapha which regulates the normal functioning of human body.