Introduction
Textbook of Ayurveda: Fundamental Principles is the first volume out of three to share the knowledge of Ayurveda from the light of modern medicine, or western medicine if you will. Dr. Vasant Lad will walk you through the vastness that is Ayurvedic medicine and introduce you to concepts alien to the mindset of a western thinker. The book challenges the way you observe, question and diagnose your patients. It will introduce a different kind of thinking that is more holistic then the one that we are taught in the schools of modern medicine.
Dr. Vasant Lad discusses the topics of Ayurveda comprehensively and makes a lot of correlations to modern science. For a medical student, or anyone with knowledge within the contemporary medical literature, will more easily digest the material. This opens up a realm of new knowledge that has for a long time been obscured by Sanskrit and less comprehensively written books on the subject. Thus, making these series of books a one-of-a-kind.
Fundamentals
The book initially introduces the philosophy behind Ayurveda and discusses the Vedic scriptures which Ayurveda originates from. This part is esoteric and will certainly challenge the average person and probably scare off newcomers. One should not give up on studying Ayurveda until they have actually understood the whole system behind it. Because only then the puzzle pieces will fall into place and things will start to make sense.
What amazes me is the knowledge they had thousands of years ago. Some examples are:
- The opening channels of rakta dhatu is the liver, yolk sac and the bone marrow. This essentially translates into erythrogenesis occuring in the liver, the yolk sac and the bone marrow.
- Yakrut (liver in sanskrit) means Ya = action, krut = circulating. The liver acts upon everything that is circulating in the blood. Note: including emotions. Which was a breakthrough finding discussed in the book Molecules of emotion.
- Don’t get me started on the idea of all tissues being built up of cells, which they themselves have different energies (enzymes) to digest, assimilate and metabolize.
This is knowledge documented in the Vedic scriptues.
Final thoughts
Sporadically there would be brief clinical cases tied to the chapter or topic. I had wished for more of those and especially if they would be more detailed. If you’re reading this Dr. Vasant Lad, a book with clinical cases and challenges for students to solve would be a perfect next step in your authored collection of ayurvedic books.
What makes Ayurveda special is that other systems of medicines inherits from Ayurvedic principles, as it is the oldest system of medicine. This means that by studying Ayurveda, you will also understand other systems of medicine.
With this new knowledge I have been able to see patterns and correlations in my life and the lives of people around me that I would not have been able to see before. On the contrary, knowledge can be blinding. So one has to keep question observations and approach things in life with a clean state of mind.
Ayurveda, or any other system of medicine similar to it, is a fresh of breath air from the medical approach we are taught in the modern school of medicine.