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 The
germ of Hindu medicine was laid in the
Vedas. The legends connected with the origin
and progress of Ayurveda during the Vedic
period are interesting. At the beginning of
the Creation, it is said, Brahma, the
Creator of the world recollected and created
thousand chapters comprising altogether
100,000 slokas. Brahma first of all taught Prajapati
the eight branches of Ayurveda and he
to the Aswini Kumars. Indra, the king
of the Devas learnt the whole of Ayurveda
from the Ashwini Kumars.
 Charaka
defines Ayurveda as the Science and Art that
provide man a long life in a manner useful
to the society. It has its objectives as the
preservation of health in the healthy and
the restoration of health to the diseased.
The word Veda in Ayurveda has been taken by
all authorities to imply that it is part of
the Great Vedas, which have also been
admitted by all savants of the West as the
oldest literature of the world. Ayurveda is
believed to be of divine origin.
In all the four Vedas; Rig, Yajur,
Sama and Atharva, we find
enough reference to medicine, drugs, and
methods of treatment and explanations of
different parts of the human body.
From India, the knowledge of medicine
descended in two different ways. In Charaka
it is said as follows: Once upon a time when
the world was infested with various kinds of
diseases an assemblage of learned Rishis
(Sages) was held at the foot of the
Himalayas.
They after due consideration deputed Bharadwaja,
one of the learned sages, to go to Indra
and to learn the science, He returned from
India after studying the whole of Ayurveda
and imparted the knowledge to Atreya,
who had six pupils namely Agnivesa, Bhela,
Jatukarna, Parasara, Harita
and Ksharapani. Each of this sage
wrote separate treatise on the science. Of
these, we have got at present three, and
they are, Agnivesa Samhita as revised
by Charaka, Bhela Samhita and Harita
Samhita.
There is another version of the story we
have got in Sushruta. There it is
said that Dhanwantari (one of the
kings of Kasi) was sent by Indra
after being completely instructed, to earth
to impart the knowledge of medicine. He in
turn taught Sushruta and others Ayurveda,
with special reference to surgery. Of all
the pupils of Dhanwantari, Sushruta was the
most intelligent and he wrote a work on the
subject, which is called after him. Now we
have got only one Sushruta Samhita
(which is revised and redacted by Nagarjuna)
even though various commentators have quoted
and made mention of other treatises in their
Scholiums.
 The
great thing about Ayurveda is that it is the
oldest of science. Of the ancient works on
Ayurveda some works such as Brahma Samhita
and Daksha Samhita are not available
today. That these works once existed can be
proved from the references to these works by
Charaka, Sushruta and others. Charaka,
Sushruta and Vagbhata are regarded as the
main and fundamental works on Ayurveda.
Vagbhata has based his work on the other
two. It is not definitely known when the
authors of these works lived. Susuruta
according to the Hindus was the son of Viswamitra,
a contemporary of Rama. We do not
know precisely when he may have lived. Sir
William Jones places the subjugation of
India by Rama about the year 2000
BC. In the sixth Century BC Ayurveda was a
specialized study in the famous University
of Taxila. The knowledge of this traveled to
Greece in 400 BC. All these show how old the
Ayurvedic system of medicine is and can be
claimed to be the first medical science in
the whole world.
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