Ayurveda and Yoga

Key takeaways

  • Ayurveda means science of life. It is India's classical medicine.

  • It describes three doshas: vata, pitta, and kapha.

  • Yoga and Ayurveda are often called sister sciences.

What is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda treats health as balance among three doshas. Illness is understood as imbalance relative to a person's natural constitution.

  • Vata: movement

  • Pitta: digestion and metabolism

  • Kapha: structure and lubrication

What are the classic Ayurvedic texts?

Three works, called the Brhat Trayi or great triad, are the foundation.

  • Charaka Samhita: internal medicine. Dated from about 400 BCE to the 1st century CE.

  • Sushruta Samhita: surgery. From about 600 BCE, revised over centuries.

  • Ashtanga Hridayam: Vagbhata's concise synthesis, 5th-7th century CE.

How is Ayurveda connected to yoga?

Both are traditional systems of caring for the whole person. Krishnamacharya himself was a working Ayurvedic physician as well as a yoga teacher.

Is Ashtanga in Ayurveda the same as the eight limbs?

No. Ayurveda has eight branches of its own. Do not confuse them with Patanjali's eight limbs.

This page is educational and is not medical advice.

Related: Teachers and lineages | The eight limbs | Back to the history of yoga

Sources

James Mallinson and Mark Singleton, Roots of Yoga (2017). James Mallinson, The Shiva Samhita: A Critical Edition (2007). Mark Singleton, Yoga Body (2010). Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar, Kamasutra. John Woodroffe, The Serpent Power (1919). T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga (1995).