Taking Ayurveda to the world

 Nowadays, India is in the news. This time all for good reasons. Not for its elephants and snake charmers like in the past. When wise men from this land used to speak about our ancient culture, values, heritage, yoga, ayurveda, food habits, meditation, surya-namaskar etc. world at large would look at us in ridicule. Not now, not only that, they themselves have now fallen prey to our way of living our values and above all our idea of healing with herbs i.e. ayurveda and medicines based on it.

 

Countries like U.S.A., U.K., Canada and all European countries used allopathy as a system of medicine. They were suspicious about using ayurveda, and were afraid of the mystique around ayurveda. They were of the opinion that manufacturing process of ayurvedic drugs is not transparent and the product is not user-friendly. The western world is getting familiarized now, with ayurveda, and has accepted it as an alternative system of medicine. The switchover is there, from allopathy to ayurveda, though slow but definite.

 

The main reason for this is the fact that this medicine comes with almost zero side-effects and at the same time does not lose its effectiveness. The emphasis is on curing the disease rather than mere suffering its ‘symptoms end’ all this using only natural substances, mainly herbs. The system recognizes the human being as a combination of the mental and the physical hence it provides holistic healing. The people all around are stressed. The alternative therapies are natural, holistic and do not have any side-effects as pointed out here earlier. That’s why, more and more people are turning to it.

 

Most of the countries especially industrially advanced countries now know that all drugs used in the olden days in India were speciality chemicals and plant compounds which were used as therapeutic agents. There is now a growing interest in the products of living organisms, not only as source of drugs for treatment of human diseases but in a multiplicity of other applications aimed at reducing the use of synthetic chemicals. The ongoing search for Neem based pesticides is similarly an expression of interest in doing away with synthetic pesticides, Neem trees act as efficient, natural air-filters trapping dust particles and absorbing gaseous pollutants. Remember, the aroma that comes out of burning neem trees leaves, which was useful in repelling mosquitoes and flying insects.

 

Traditional remedies based on neem, turmeric, shankhapushpi, sandalwood, shatawari had been a part of our traditional ayurvedic medicinal system since ancient times. It has a history of thousands of years and it is time tested, only drawback is that everything is not well documented.

Countries like Japan, Germany etc. import these herbs from India and produce their own medicines. Unfortunately, other people understand the value of our ancient treasure, our precious possessions.  We talk about it only after hearing it from them. Look at the medicinal plants, we have in abundance like, neem, turmeric, sandalwood, harda, behada, keshar, lavang, miri, ambehalad, jayphal, raktachandan, turti, etc. These are also useful plants like shatawari, shankhapushpi, ashwagandha, korphad, tulas, pudina, which are used in preparations for enhancing the beauty of your body, face and skin and hair.

 Do not get surprised if someone tells you in ‘Japan’ in beauty parlour they are using our “Shikekai”. It is a fact.

 Now it is for us to take advantage of this changing scenario. Look, more and more people are turning to yoga, to ayurvedic system of medicines, to meditation and even are enthusiastic about our food habits. There is more acceptance. What we have to do is to preserve and guard this national treasure and make it a source of wealth for the nation.