Ayurveda, India's Traditional Medicine

A glass of water had just tipped over onto the table. The older brother shouted, his face flushing red, and slapped his hand down on the chair. It was only a little water, and already he was angry. The younger child sat still, picked up a cloth and wiped the table slowly, without a word. One small mishap. Two grandchildren, and two completely different reactions.

Grandma set down her basket of greens, looked at the two of them, and smiled. She scolded no one. She only drew them both close, dried the boy's hands, and spoke gently.

"It isn't the older one's fault, and it isn't the younger one's fault. This is simply how each person is made. Everyone is born with a nature all their own. Now Grandma is going to tell you two about something very old. The people of India call it Ayurveda."

The boy blinked. The younger child looked up. The unfamiliar name made them both forget all about the glass of water.

Grandma went on. Ayurveda is a word from ancient Sanskrit. It is made of two parts. Ayus means life, and also the length of a life. Veda means knowledge. Put together, Ayurveda means the knowledge of life. In the old days, people considered it a branch of the Atharva Veda, a sacred scripture.

"It is very, very old, children," she said. "It is an ancient way of understanding human beings. People say its roots go back more than 5,000 years."

She explained that this was not about medicines. It was the wisdom of people long ago about why human beings are so different from one another. She told them of a scholar named Charaka, who gathered that knowledge into a work called the Charaka Samhita. It is about caring for the body from the inside. Then a man named Sushruta wrote the Sushruta Samhita, about the craft of surgery. Later generations came to call him the father of surgery in the ancient world. These writings grew little by little, over many lifetimes, from about the 6th century before the Common Era to the 6th century of the Common Era.

"Now for the best part," Grandma said, her eyes sparkling. "The ancient teachers said that inside every person there are three kinds of energy. They called them the three doshas. Each person is a blend of the three, a mix all their own. They called that personal blend Prakriti, the nature a person is given at birth."

She held up one finger. "The first is Vata. Vata is like wind, like the air. A person with a lot of Vata is quick, with a mind that soars, full of ideas, and can hardly keep still. Like a breeze, here one moment and far away the next."

She held up a second finger. "The second is Pitta. Pitta is like fire. A person with a lot of Pitta is bright, warm and focused, and does everything with great intensity. But fire can also flare up easily. When it burns too hot, it can scorch everything around it."

At this, the boy went quiet. He seemed to have recognized something about himself.

She held up a third finger. "The third is Kapha. Kapha is like water and earth. A person with a lot of Kapha is deep, steady, patient and unhurried. Like the ground itself, in no rush and slow to change, but holding up everything that stands on it."

The younger child looked down at the cloth, still damp, and smiled a small, quiet smile.

Grandma hugged them both. "See now? This older one has more fire. Fire is bright and warm, but it flares up easily. And this little one has more earth. Earth is quiet and lasting, but it is slow too. Nobody is right and nobody is wrong. They are just two different natures."

She said that Ayurveda is not meant for finding fault with anyone. It is only meant to help people understand why the older one flares up so fast, and why the younger one stays calm so long. And once people understand, they love each other more and stop blaming each other.

"And this idea was no stranger to our own ancestors," she said.

She told them about Tuệ Tĩnh, a famous Vietnamese physician who lived in the 14th century. He left behind a saying that has lasted ever since: "Nam dược trị nam nhân." It means southern medicine for southern people, the plants of Vietnamese soil for Vietnamese people. He taught that the bodies of Vietnamese people are not exactly the same as bodies in other lands.

"See?" she said. "The old physician taught that every land and every person has a character of its own. Over in India, Ayurveda teaches the very same thing. It says that no two bodies speak the same language. The two ideas are very much alike. Only their names differ."

The younger child asked softly whether people still believe in this today.

Grandma nodded, proud, as if showing off a treasure of her own. "Oh yes, they do. Grandma has heard that the World Health Organization mentioned Ayurveda with respect in its Traditional Medicine Strategy. In India, people care for it so dearly that they set up a whole ministry of its own to look after it along with other traditional systems of medicine."

"So there it is, children," she said. "Something thousands of years old that the world today still values. Not because it cures this or that, but because it teaches something beautiful. It teaches that every person is an individual."

She stroked the boy's hair, and then the younger child's. The water spilled earlier had long since dried.

Grandma looked out at the yard, where the wind was gently stirring the leaves, and where the earth lay still, holding up the roots of the tree.

"No two people are entirely alike. Every body has a language of its own."