GOOD MORNING

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Status of
Ayurveda
DURING…….. 3
PERIODS
1) ASHOKA RULE
2) MUGHAL RULE
3) BRITISH RULE
 1) ASHOKA
RULE

KING ASHOKA
From 268 BC to 232
BC
Before we see about the
status of Ayurveda, we
will see some things
about King Ashoka
Ashoka, popularly known
as Ashoka The Great and
he was the third Mayura
Empire of Indian
Subcontinent.
 He may be called as The
Great. But he was still a
child for his father
Bindusara and also he is a
small kid for his grandfather
Chandragupta who was the
founder of Mayura Dynasty.
King
Bindusara
King
Chandragupta
His empire covered a large part
of the Indian subcontinent,
stretching from present-day
Afghanistan in the west to
present-day Bangladesh in the
east, with its capital at
Pataliputra. His successor was
Now, lets get into the status
of Ayurveda during the
Ashoka rule
Ashoka built a large number
of inscriptions on rocks and
pillars to propagate Buddhist
message of loving kindness.
He was the follower of
Buddhist thought after
Kalinga war.
 He had dug wells and
planted trees and medicinal
plants along the roads for
human beings as well as
animals.
The total number of inscriptions
inscribed on rocks, pillars,
caves by Samrat Ashoka has
reached 42. Girnar’s second
and Dhauli’s first Shilalekh were
2 of them which is related to
Ayurveda has been reviewed.
 One of the inscription from
Girnar Shilalekh (inscription)
from Dwitiya (second)
Abhilekh is :
औसूधानि च यानि मनुसोपागानि
च पसोपागानि च यत यत नास्ति
सर्वत्रा हरापितानि च
रोपापितानि च
Translation: Medicines which
are useful for humans and
animals have been ordered
and given at all places where
they are not
 Now lets see some 2
inscriptions in Dhauli
shilalekh from first Abhilekh
 नितियम् ए किलंते सिया न ते उगाचा
संचलिताविये तु वटिताविये एतावये वा

Translation: Those who are

tired all the time cannot
progress. So must walk, move.
 से महाफले ई तसा संपतिपादा महापाये
असंपतिपतिः

Translation: It is very fruitful to

render it properly, while not
rendering it is very destructive.
In the second inscription of Girnar,
it is mentioned that medicine may
be divided into two groups:
1. Medicines Human beings
2. Medicines for Animals
And also mentioned about
Kandmula and Phalvarga drugs .
 SAMRAT ASHOKA’S INSCRIPTIONS
ACCORDING TO AYURVEDA PERSPECTIVE

S.No. Veda Upveda

1. Rigveda Dhanurveda
2. Yajurveda Sthapatya veda
3. Samaveda Gandharvaveda
4. Atharvaveda Ayurveda
 Some references of veterinary
Ayurveda are mentioned below:
Garuda Purana
Shalihotra Samhita
Agnipurana
Matsyapurana
 2) MUGHAL
RULE

Mughal empire
From 1526 to
1857
Before we see about the
role of Ayurveda in Mughal
period, lets get to know
something about Mughal
empire.
The Mughal Empire was an
early-modern empire that
controlled much of South
Asia between the 16th and
19th centuries.
 For some two hundred years, the
empire stretched from the outer
fringes of the Indus river basin in the
west, northern Afghanistan in the
northwest, and Kashmir in the north,
to the highlands of present-day
Assam and Bangladesh in the east,
and the uplands of the
Deccan Plateau in South India.
 The Mughal empire is
conventionally said to have
been founded in 1526 by
Babur.
King Babur
Founder of Mughal
Empire.
Some of the famous kings in Mughal empire
Babur. (1483 –1531)
Humayun. (1508 –1556)
Akbar. (1542 –1605)
Mirza Muhammad Hakim. (1553 –1585)
Jahangir. (1569 –1627)
Shah Jahan. (1592 –1666)
Aurangzeb. (1618 –1707)
Muhammad Azam Shah. (1653 - 1707)
Bahadur Shah I. (1643 –1712)
Fun fact: And also one more
thing. The Shah jahan,
Mumtaz,
Taj Mahal everything
happened in this period
only.
Okay, now lets enter into
the status of Ayurveda
during Mughal rule.
During the Muslim / Mughal
period, Muslim culture and
medicine entered the Indian
way of life and Ayurveda
began to decline.
 The Muslim / Mughal
invaders went on anti-
Buddhist and anti-Hindu
crusades resulting in a
great loss of Indian culture
and writings.
This marked the beginning
of merging Muslim/Arabian
medicine with Ayurveda.
 The result was Unani
medicine. Unani medicine is
an amalgamation of
Ayurvedic medicine, Arabian
medicine and Greek medicine
originating with the Muslim
 The first schools of Unani
medicine began to operate in
India around 1200 CE. Unani
medicine is still taught and
practiced in India today.
 About 1500 CE, the
Europeans began to show
interest in the region of India
as a trade zone.
The British and the French
essentially fought a war with each
other in India with the British
being victorious and gaining
control over the entire region by
1858 (India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh), replacing Mughal
rule with their own.
 In the 16th and 17th
centuries, through the
contact with the diseases of
the Western civilization, the
discredit of Ayurveda
occurred, which only
reappeared in the 20th
So, now we are going to
move into the role of
Ayurveda during British
period
 3) BRITISH
RULE

BIRITISH RULE
From 1858 to 1947
 And usual, lets get to
know about the British
Empire first, then lets get
into the role of Ayurveda.
 The region under British control was
commonly called India in
contemporaneous usage and included
areas directly administered by the
United Kingdom, which were
collectively called British India, and
areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but
under British paramountcy, called the
princely states.
This system of governance was
instituted on 28 June 1858,
when, after the
Indian Rebellion of 1857, the
company rule in India of the
British East India Company was
transferred to the Crown in the
person of Queen Victoria
QUEEN
VICTORIA
It lasted until 1947, when the
British Raj was partitioned
into two sovereign dominion
states: the Union of India
(later the Republic of India)
and the Dominion of Pakistan
And August 15 is celebrated
th

as REPUBLIC DAY. Oh sorry,

it is Independence day!
When August 15th is said as Republic
day……
*sarcasm
Okay, now lets get into the
role of Ayurveda uring
British rule.
 By the middle of the 18th
century, India had physicians
of diverse backgrounds.
There were the vaidyas and
the hakims, who practiced
Ayurveda and Unani,
respectively.
Ayurveda had emerged in India
around 600 BC and its practice
was based on classical Sanskrit
texts. Unani or Greco-Arabic
medicine was introduced in India
in the 12th century with the
establishment of Muslim power.
 Since then, hakims and vaidyas had
co-existed and freely borrowed from
each other. The vaidyas and the
hakims in general belonged to the
Hindu and Muslim community,
respectively. Additionally, there were
the folk practitioners, popular among
the masses from the ancient times.
The practice and teaching of
Ayurveda and Unani
continued in an orthodox
manner. The students of
Ayurveda received their
training in the houses of
They outnumbered vaidyas
and hakims, but had no
written texts. Their cures
were mostly based in
superstition and blind faith.
 Europeans at times had
trouble differentiating
between classical and folk
practitioners, and often
concluded that all Indian
practitioners were quacks.
British surgeons mostly utilized
European cures, but often
altered their curative regimens
to suit the Indians’ constitution
and the Indian environment.
They replicated some effective
Indian remedies.
They disapproved of the lack
of books on specific illnesses,
replication of traditional
remedies across generations
without changes, and lack of
any major surgeries by
Indian practitioners.
 Ayurveda flourished in
Ancient India, lived in
harmony with Unani
medicine in Medieval India
but declined during British
rule.
 “Ayurveda was suppressed by
British colonial rule, which shut
down Ayurvedic schools, denigrating
its profound naturalistic approach to
health as primitive. Sadly, some
Indian medical doctors today,
particularly those trained in UK, still
reflect these colonial biases.”
What I said in before slide was
not said by me. It was tweeted
by Dr. David Frawley. He is an
American author, astrologer,
teacher and a prominent of
Hindutva. He also got padma
bushan in 2015.
The Tweet tweeted by Dr. David Frawley in
Twitter.
Dr. David Frawley (Sept 21 1952, 72 years old)
 These observations and the
advances in European
medicine in the 17th and
18th centuries led the British
surgeons to believe that
Western medicine was
superior to the Indian
THANK YOU