Ayurveda, a Sanskrit word, denotes the Traditional Medicine of India. Translated as the science of life, the term more accurately implies the wisdom in living. Several thousand years old, its ancient roots produced an integrated body of enduring knowledge and practice incorporating medicine, psychology, aesthetics, philosophy, the humanities, and spirituality. Yet, it goes beyond only immediate care of health symptoms and illnesses by suggesting principles and practices for overall self-development and good health. This book offers the reader a concise yet detailed overview of thousands of years of deep thought and clinical work aimed at improving the human condition. Concentrating on healing and prevention, the practice is intended to restore balance and instill better health through consciousness and the connection between body, mind, and spirit. Through Ayurveda, Dr. Ninivaggi offers guidelines toward achieving a better quality of life and health in all areas of one's life.

"Using a completely Ayurvedic perspective, this book takes the reader from the beginning and moves step-by-step through the historic origins of the universe, including all sentient matter within it, to the interrelationships these have to each other. It is clear that Ayurveda is a tradition that has evolved from antiquity and has endured through oral as well as literal translations. The text demands that Western readers peel off the sheaths of their way of thinking about the origins of matter and life....This book provides a comprehensive history of the development of Ayurveda, including its relationship to Buddhism, with occasional references to traditional Chinese medicine. The reader is quickly drawn into the conceptualization of the world from the Ayurvedic perspective." - JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association

"Written by a North American psychiatrist, this is a first-rate introduction to a set of traditional medical theories and practices from India that are represented as an organized system of healing principles and clinical interventions. In India, Ayurveda has enjoyed a postcolonial resurgence, and elsewhere it finds a place today among alternative and complementary forms of medicine. Healing as a process of restoring balance through exercise and physical manipulation, prescribed diet, and carefully selected herbal remedies is a key feature of Ayurveda. Ninivaggi gives these components full attention, but is particularly interested in Ayurveda's philosophical background as relevant to his own practice through an emphasis on cultivation of consciousness that inspires a biopsychospiritual perspective for clinical psychiatry, drawn from the ancient East and the modern West. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his former student Deepak Chopra earlier popularized Ayurveda in the West; Ninivaggi's book reflects the more nuanced consideration that Ayurveda is receiving now....Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers." - CHOICE