Ayurveda, which comes from the Eastern Indian words ayu, meaning life, and veda, meaning knowledge, has a very ancient origin, perhaps as distant as 6000BC. Ayurveda is another holistic science based on balance, disease caused from imbalance, and health from balance. Ayurveda is organized in a way that is similar to standard allopathic medicine.

There are two major schools of Ayurveda. The school of physicians, which would be akin to the notion of Internal medicine, is called Atreya Sampredaya and the school of surgeons, Dhanbantri Sampredaya. There are a variety of branches, or sub specialties, in Ayurveda. They include:

1. general surgery
2. ophthalmology and otolaryngology
3. medicine
4. psychiatry
5. pediatrics, obstetrics, gynecology
6. toxicology and jurisprudence
7. geriatrics
8. fertility and sterility.

The philosophy of Ayurveda is as follows:

1. There is a close relationship between man and the universe. Man is viewed as a microcosm of the universe. It is considered that man is a universe within himself and that the external environment is the macrocosm.
2. Cosmic energy is manifest in all things living and non-living.
3. There are finite and definable elements of the universe.
4. The source of all existence is cosmic consciousness called purusha, which is similar to Traditional Chinese Medicine thought of Chi and that can be broken down into both male and female components, which are similar to the Chinese thought of yin and yang.

In Ayurvedic thought there are seven types of constitutions based on three basic attributes. The three attributes are:

• Vat - which is the energy of movement. Any activity that has to do with movement is vat.
• Pit - which really means fire, but is synonymous with digestion, assimilation and nutrition.
• Kaph - which is associated with water and physical structure.

These three basic constituents can be recombined to include vat/pit, pit/kaph, kaph/vat and vat/pit/kaph, rounding out the seven different types of constitutions. One finds, for instance, a vat individual will have a body type that is tall or small and thin, ill nourished, hard, dry and cold. The skin will be dry, cracked, rough, broken, brownish and black. The body hair will be scant, coarse, dry and brown. Hair on the head will be brown, scant, course, curved, wavy and wrinkled. The head will be small. The forehead will be small. The eyebrows will be small, thin and unsteady, and on goes the list. By contrast the body frame of a kaph will be stout, well nourished, big, oily, greasy, cold and beautiful. The skin will be greasy, soft, yellow or white. The body hair will be plentiful, smooth and black. The head hair will be black, plentiful, firm and wavy. The head will be big and steady, and so on. One must remember that this particular system of medicine was developed in a fairly pure ethnic culture. They had very little need to worry about blonde or fair skinned individuals. They were looking primarily at ethnic Indians.