Fundamentals of Ayurveda. Mathura Mandala dasa

PART one. INTRODUCTION
ANCIENT INDIAN MEDICINE AND MODERN REALITY
Blinded by scientific and technological progress, we are accustomed to blaspheming and forgetting the knowledge of our ancestors, considering them worthless and outdated. What if they were right that leeches are born from silt, and lice from sweat, that epidemics are caused not by bacteria and viruses, but by the collective consciousness of people, and our descendants will also laugh at us, proud of the “victory” over Nature, as we are laughing in history class? Competing with each other, pharmaceutical companies develop more and more new drugs, not paying attention to side effects and irreversible changes in the human body that they cause, and patients, as if hypnotized by advertising, take them without hesitation, forgetting about medicinal herbs and minerals, born by Nature itself for human health.
One day, at the beginning of the fifth century AD, the wanderings of the Chinese Buddhist monk Fa Xian brought him to the Indian city of Pataliputra. Once this city was the capital of ancient India. Impressed by the outlandish country, Fao Xian writes: “The cities and towns of this country are the greatest of all in the Middle Kingdom. The inhabitants are rich and prosperous, they compete with each other in the practice of virtue and righteousness ... The heads of the Vaishya families in them build houses of charity and medicine in the cities. All the weak and destitute in the country, orphans, widows and childless men, the crippled and crippled, all the sick come to these houses and receive some kind of help, and doctors determine their illnesses. They receive food and the necessary medicines in their case, and they feel better; and when they start to feel better, they leave on their own.” This Fa Xian text, along with the ancient Ayurvedic texts, is one of the earliest descriptions of the urban polyclinic and hospital system in the world. Scholars suggest that India may have been the first country in the world to develop an organized nationwide health care system.
What is Ayurveda, and why lately more and more people are showing increased interest in it, and not only in India itself or in the West, but also in our country?
All Ayurvedic texts belong to the most ancient scriptures and include in not only data on human health and illnesses, but also on the structure of the surrounding world, the principles of morality and morality, on all life in general. Ayurvedic knowledge is consistent with all four Vedas and with all religious and philosophical systems of ancient India. Unfortunately, for many millennia of its existence, some Ayurvedic writings were irretrievably lost in the thickness of epochs and did not reach our time, but those texts that we have (Charaka Samhita, Sushruta Samhita, Ashtanga Hridayam Samhita, Ashtanga Samgraha and many others), as well as comments on them, and the works of doctors of recent centuries support the Ayurveda river within the boundaries of its banks, preventing it from shrinking and disappearing. Nowadays, many people are beginning to understand that their health is only in their hands, and traditional medicine, with its pills and drugs chemically synthesized at huge pharmaceutical enterprises, not only does not discover and does not treat the cause of the disease, but also leads to the formation of an infinite number of drug allergies, diseases of the liver and kidneys, to all sorts of side effects and diseases. A person is an inseparable particle, a cell of living nature, therefore the methods of treating imbalances in his body, mind, energy and psyche should be exactly the same natural and natural as he is. Ayurveda differs both from traditional medicine and non-traditional healing schools represented in Russia. Unlike modern medicine, its methods of treatment are absolutely harmless, natural and natural, they are inextricably linked with a person, his nature and individuality. Unlike non-traditional schools, Ayurveda has knowledge, and this knowledge is not speculative, not contrived, but verified by thousands of generations of doctors. One of the main subjects in Ayurvedic colleges is Ayurvedic anatomy and physiology - Sharirakriya vigyan, as well as Padartha vigyan - the physical principles of the structure of the universe, nature and man. It is rude and stupid to approach a person only as a thinking, speaking and moving physical body, forgetting that he is a Microcosm, interacting with the Macrocosm, this phenomenal world, absolutely at all levels, and it is impossible to separate them. It is a pity that modern Western medicine has lost its roots in the depth of religion, cults and rituals. Many brilliant doctors, luminaries from medicine, were deeply religious people. It is not known exactly when the separation of these two Sciences - the Science of God and the Science of Man - took place, but for Western medicine this step turned out to be fatal. She forgot about the true nature of man, forgot that man did not arise due to the evolution of an ancient monkey, but was created by God, that he is an open system and must be in balance with nature, that "shiryate iti shariram" - each In an instant, the body changes, and most importantly, she forgot to explain to a person the principles of a healthy lifestyle and why it is so necessary to be healthy. This degradation of Western medicine seems to be connected with the general decline of spirituality and religiosity in Europe and America over the past two hundred to two hundred and fifty years. Another fatal mistake of European medicine is the firm and strict faith in the ideas of the ancient Roman physician Claudius Galen that the medicinal properties of plants do not depend on the properties of the plant as a whole and are not due to the totality of substances that make up the plant material, but to some one active factor., which can be isolated from it and used for medical purposes. However, one should not scold and blaspheme allopathic medicine, which was formed in the hard times of the most difficult historical stages in the development of Mankind - it helped save hundreds of thousands of human lives during wars and cataclysms, which this period of the history of Western Europe is rich in. And in the treatment of surgical diseases, she has no equal. Unfortunately, many Ayurvedic texts have been lost forever, but Ayurveda lives on in revealed scriptures and copes well with diseases, regardless of the climate, the language of the people or their beliefs. The law of gravity is fundamental and acts on all bodies without exception anywhere in the world. Also Ayurveda. Of course, other herbs grow in Russia, seasonal and weather changes occur differently, but the basic principles of all processes without exception are the same in all parts of the world, so the question is how much Ayurveda is acceptable for a Russian patient, disappears by itself.
Charaka Samhita, and many other Ayurvedic texts, begin with a sloka explaining why Ayurvedic knowledge was given to people many thousands of years ago:
dharma artha kama moksha
namarogyam mulamuttamam

The state of absolute health is necessary for a person to be religious and fulfill his duty (dharma), to make sacrifices and repay debts to ancestors, demigods and parents (artha), as well as to maintain the body - normal sleep, food, physical activity, work, regulated satisfaction of sensual impulses, etc. (Kama). Dharma, artha and kama contribute to the control of the mind and lead a person to the state of moksha - liberation. Dharma-shastras (Manu Samhita, for example) strongly recommend that a person maintain his health at the proper level, motivating this by the fact that in a healthy body it is easier to fulfill one's duties, improve oneself and go to God.

THE EVOLUTION OF INDIAN MEDICINE
It is difficult to say who and when introduced such a concept as Indian medicine, calling this term Ayurveda. At present, there are several medical branches in India that have come out of Ayurvedic knowledge. This is actually Ayurveda as it is, Tibetan medicine (distributed mainly in the north of the country, and not very widely), Siddha medicine (covering mainly the north-west of India) and Unani medicine, which is a competitor to Ayurveda, especially in the south of the country. The reader has some idea of ​​what Ayurveda and Tibetan medicine are, even if he has a vague idea, but he hardly heard about Unani and Siddha medicine.
Unani medicine crystallized out of Ayurveda at a time when Muslims began to take over the Indian subcontinent and some doctors found refuge in ancient Greece or were taken to Persia by order of Sheikh Al-Rashid. There they adopted the knowledge of Greek, Persian and Iranian doctors (in particular, Abu Ali Ibn Sino and Biruni), combining their practical experience with their own Ayurvedic knowledge and passing these traditions on to their children and grandchildren - this is how this system of medicine was born. In its practice, Unani medicine makes extensive use of aromatic oils, precious stones, and extracts from flowers. For example, Hubbey Jawahar Mohra, a heart drug prescribed for myocardial infarction, cardialgia and heart rhythm disturbances, consists of specially processed powders of ruby, sapphire, emerald, tourmaline and topaz. Being more of an offshoot of Persian medicine, the services of Unani doctors are primarily used by the Muslim population of India.
Siddha medicine is very popular among people who worship Lord Shiva. This system of healing uses mystical powers to heal people, including the Doctor's Shakti, amulets, rituals, incantations and spells, magical herbs and rituals. In other words, we can say that this is tantric medicine. Much attention in Siddha medicine