Tag Archives: Ayurveda

An uneasy relationship

April 17, 2023

P. Ravi Shankar Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia   Photo by lil artsy on Pexels My paternal grandmother lived for nearly ninety-three years. She was a strong woman who faced life with courage and dignity. She developed some medical conditions later in life but was active, could carry out her activities of daily living, and lived a […]

The history of Indian medicine and its impact on modern practice

April 6, 2023

Kahan Mehta Gotri, Vadodara, India   Figure 1. The Ashwini Kumars. Image by Carly Bertn and Mark Cartwright, World History Encyclopedia. Based on Wikimedia image. CC BY-SA 4.0. India has a rich tradition of medicine that has evolved over the centuries. One such medical practice is Ayurveda, a system that has been used in India […]

History of medicine in ancient India

August 27, 2021

Keerthana Kalla Seattle, Washington, United States   Shushrut Statue In Patanjali Yogpeeth, Haridwar. Photo by Alokprasad. 2009. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. The chronicle of medicine is the story of man’s struggle against illness. As early as 5000 BC, India developed a comprehensive form of healing called Ayurveda. Such traditional healing was first recorded between […]

Book review: A Brief History of Ayurveda

November 19, 2020

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of A Brief History of Ayurveda by M.R. Raghava Varier. Ayurveda translates from the Sanskrit as “the science of life and longevity.” It originated over 4,000 years ago as a system of healing in the Indian subcontinent, where it flourished until the nineteenth century. The Harappan civilization […]

Learning to eat at thirty

May 7, 2019

Hannah Harpole Bern, Switzerland   “Chai” photo by Hannah Harpole My hippie parents indulged me as a picky eater. At two I proclaimed I was a vegetarian. Around the age of four, I survived solely on yogurt, refusing all other nourishment. I do not exactly know when this morphed into a combination eating disorder of […]

My grandmother

January 27, 2016

Ravi Shankar Oranjestad, Aruba   The room was simple. A wooden bed on one side, a sofa for visitors on the other. Two unadorned wooden doors faced each other, allowing some cross ventilation. Both opened into long dark and cool corridors as was common in old houses in Kerala. I had often enquired as to […]