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The Invention of Vedas and Ayurveda

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 The Invention of Vedas
& Ayurveda
By Abhijit Naskar
Neuroscientist, Author, Speaker

Dated: 27 February 2017

No knowledge comes from the outside world or an

imaginary supernatural paradise. No knowledge
comes from some sort of divine entity, regardless of
how effective they are. All knowledge, scientific or
philosophical, ancient or modern, rises from the
human mind. These minds are by all means just as
human any other person on earth. But rigorous
training on the self puts them at a higher level of
intellect than the general population. However, this
height of excellence has its own peculiar purpose.
At this level, we thinkers hail ourselves to be the
servant of humanity. And this trend of servitude
goes back not decades or even centuries, rather a
few thousand years. In every age, there are these
individuals upon the shoulders of whom the entire
human civilization progresses.
But like any other person, we the scientists and
philosophers, are ordinary human beings. Today
you have Ramachandran, Dawkins, Hawking,
myself and many others - and all of them are
humans, not gods. And all the work we do - all the
scientific and philosophical literature we create, we
do so by the use of our very natural human
faculties, which have evolved in us, that is all the
humanity, through the natural process of
evolution. All the knowledge and wisdom that we
give to the species are constructed by the biological
circuits of our brain, and not by some sort of God.
And the same goes to the knowledge that the
ancient thinkers of India and some other
civilizations came up with. All their knowledge
that later constructed the organized textual
scriptures of early humanity, were their creation,
and not God's.

However, think about this. If I say that my insight

of the human mind came not from my own brain
through rigorous nourishment and utilization of
my intellectual faculties, rather from the Lord
Almighty - say Brahma, it is more likely for the
vulnerable masses with no scientific awareness
whatsoever to embrace my knowledge as divine
will. They would embrace the texts created by me

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as irrefutable gospel. They would submit to every
single word at an innate emotional level and hail
those words as eternal knowledge, even if I
intentionally put some negative elements in those
texts to serve my own personal interest and not the
interest of the society or the pursuit of truth. And
this is exactly what happened to the ancient texts of
the Vedas. They say the Vedas are eternal - the
knowledge within it came not from the mind of
man, but from Brahma himself.

Now imagine the ancient society of India, and in

fact all over the world a few thousand years ago. In
those days, rational thinking was quite scarce.
Ignorance was the default mode of thinking. Only a
handful of individuals were capable of higher
intellectual thinking. Among them were Vyasa,
Susruta, Charaka, Aryabhatta, Vatsayana, Patanjali,
Brahmagupta and a few others. These people were
the real scientists and philosophers of the ancient
Indian society. They were neither gods, nor angels,
or any sort of divine beings. They were just
ordinary flesh and blood human beings, who
happened to be exceptionally intelligent for people
of their time.

These great minds despite being born in a

superstitious society, were able to break free from

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their own shackles of prejudices and ignorance.
Unfortunately, over time, their scientific
contribution started to get hugely overlooked by
their own people. Later generations of their
motherland began to hail them as some sort of
divine beings with supernatural powers, and thus
emerged the term “sage” or “rishi”. Even though
the term technically means a profoundly wise man,
today people abuse it in the worst manner possible.

Sages or Rishis are present in all times. The term

itself refers to any ordinary human being who
possesses extraordinary expertise in his or her field
of work. There is no supernatural element involved
in it. In the ancient times, India was full with such
brilliant human minds. And in the hands of some
of those individuals, we received the most effective
and glorious natural means to maintain a healthy
anatomy - we received the Knowledge about
Healthy Life - the Veda of Ayu - the Ayurveda.

The term "Veda" means knowledge, and even

though the innate, primordial, superstitious part of
the human mind that has a knack for paranormal
stuff, would very much like to believe that what we
call the Vedas, came from the mouth of Brahma -
that, they are "Apauruseya" (meaning 'not of man'
or 'authorless') - in reality, they came from the

4
mind of some ancient Indians, just like "Republic"
came from Plato, "The Art of War" came for Sun
Tzu, "On the Origin of Species" came from Charles
Darwin, "A Brief History of Time” came from
Stephen Hawking, "The Selfish Gene" came from
Richard Dawkins, "What is Mind?" came from
Naskar, "Capital" came from Karl Marx, "Sapiens"
came from Yuval Noah Harari and so on. Greed of
hierarchically higher people always drives them to
incorporate imaginary divine intervention into
human creations, so that through these creations,
they can have authority over the people in their
national society as well as the global society. Hence
from the primordial urge for authority rises the
need to attach the term "Apauruseya" to the Vedas.

The Vedic Hymns were skillfully crafted by the

sages of ancient India through rigorous mental
exercise. The sanskrit word Veda is derived from
the root "Vid" which means "to know". The Vedic
literature was among the earliest written texts in
human history, and indeed they are of great
scientific and philosophical significance. The Vedas
are divided into four folds, namely - Rig Veda,
Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda. Of
these, the first three were the principal original
division, also called "trayi vidya", that is, "the triple

5
science" of reciting hymns (Rigveda), performing
sacrifices (Yajurveda), and chanting songs
(Samaveda). The Rigveda is the oldest of all the
Vedic texts, which is approximately from the
period of 1900 to 1100 BC.

And what you today know as Ayurveda is a sub-

section of the fourth Veda - the Atharva Veda. Like
it happens to all the ancient scriptures, the Atharva
Veda is an amazing mixture of wonderful scientific
truth and mystical and prejudicial non-sense such
as metaphorical magic spells. The scientific part of
this text is what we call Ayurveda, which deals
with various physical and mental ailments. And
when we talk about Ayurveda, the three most
important minds that you need to get acquainted
with are Charaka, Susruta and Vaghbata. All the
knowledge of Ayurveda rise from the scientific
compositions of the first two of these scientists and
detailed elaboration of the third one.

Charaka (1st century A.D.) wrote Charaka Samhita

(samhita- meaning collection of verses written in
Sanskrit). Susruta (4th century A.D.) wrote his
Samhita i.e Susruta Samhita. Vaghbata (5th century
A.D.) compiled the third set of major texts called
Ashtanga Hridaya and Ashtanga Sangraha.
Charaka’s School of Physicians and Susruta’s

6
School of Surgeons became the basis of Ayurveda
and helped organize and systematically classify
into branches of medicine and surgery.

In the ensuing years sixteen major supplementary

texts or Nighantus were composed by a few other
brilliant minds, such as Dhanvantari
Bahavaprakasha, Raja and Shaligrama to name a
few – that helped refine the practice of Ayurveda.
New drugs were added and ineffective ones were
discarded. Expansion of application, identification
of new illnesses and finding substitute treatments
seemed to have been an evolving process. Close to
2000 plants that were used in healing diseases and
abating symptoms were identified in these
supplements. Dridhabala in the 4th century revised
the Charaka Samhita. The texts of Susruta Samhita
were revised and supplemented by Nagarjuna in
the 6th century.

Thus, several scientific minds of a society which

was at large mostly ignorant, gave rise to a
fantastically effective natural system of maintaining
health, comprising eight major branches, that later
became known as Ayurveda. The eight branches of
this system were:

1. Kaya-chikitsa (Internal Medicine)

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2. Shalakya Tantra (surgery and treatment of head
and neck, Ophthalmology and ear, nose, throat)

3. Shalya Tantra (Surgery)

4. Agada Tantra (Toxicology)

5. Bhuta Vidya (Psychiatry)

6. Kaumara bhritya (Pediatrics)

7. Rasayana (science of rejuvenation or anti-ageing)

8. Vajikarana (the science of fertility and

aphrodisiac)

All the advancement in Ayurveda was based upon

the core scientific compositions of Charaka, Susruta
and Vaghbata – mainly the compositions of
Charaka and Susruta. Charaka, a 1st century man
of medicine is perceived as the father of ancient
Indian medicine. He was the Raj Vaidya (royal
doctor) in the court of Kanishka. He is most
celebrated for his scientific work known as Charak
Samhita. It is a remarkable book on medicine. It has
the description of a large number of diseases and
gives methods of identifying their causes as well as
the method of treating them. He was one of the
early scientists in the world to talk about digestion,

8
metabolism and immunity as important for health
and so for medicinal sciences.

Susruta on the other hand was a brilliant surgeon

who lived around 1500 years ago. His work Susruta
Samhita is literally the earliest scientific work on
the methodology of surgery. Let me bring up an
excerpt from my book "Prescription: Treating India's
Soul” in this context:

"He (Susruta) considered surgery as “the

highest division of the healing arts and least
liable to fallacy”. He studied human anatomy
with the help of a dead body. In Susruta
Samhita, over 1100 diseases are mentioned
including fevers of twenty-six kinds, jaundice of
eight kinds and urinary complaints of twenty
kinds. Over 760 plants are described. All roots,
bark, juice, resin, flowers etc. are mentioned as
useful in health purposes. Cinnamon, sesame,
peppers, cardamom, ginger are household
remedies even today.

In Susruta Samhita, the method of selecting and

preserving a dead body for the purpose of its
detailed study has also been described. The dead
body of an old man or a person who died of a
severe disease was generally not considered for

9
studies. The body needed to be perfectly cleaned
and then preserved in the bark of a tree. It was
then kept in a cage and hidden carefully in a
spot in the river. There the current of the river
softened it. After seven days it was removed
from the river. It was then cleaned with a brush
made of grass roots, hair and bamboo. When this
was done, every inner or outer part of the body
could be seen clearly.

Susruta’s greatest contribution was in the fields

of Rhinoplasty (plastic surgery) and Ophthalmic
surgery (removal of cataracts). In those days,
cutting of nose and ears was a common
punishment. Restoration of these, or limbs lost
in wars was a great blessing. In Susruta
Samhita, there is a very accurate step-by-step
description of these operation procedures.
Surprisingly, the steps followed by Susruta are
strikingly similar to those followed by modern
surgeons while doing plastic surgery. Susruta
Samhita also gives a description of 101
instruments used in surgery. Some serious
operations performed by him included taking
foetus out of the womb, repairing the damaged
rectum, removing stone from the bladder, etc."

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Another important name behind Ayurveda was
Vaghbata. Even though his work was not as
original as the two major founders of Ayurveda -
Charaka and Susruta, he made the works of these
two scientists more lucid. Vaghbata in the 5th
century compiled two sets of texts called Ashtanga
Sangraha and Ashtanga Hridaya. In his work, he
shed light on the Internal Medicine of Charaka
Samhita and the various surgical procedures of
Susruta Samhita.

Now the most important feature of these scientific

works is that in all of them, their composers
emphasized on the physiological aspects of human
life, unlike the contemporary abundance of
spiritual perspective in the society. They talked
about science and rationality in a society, where
everyone else was talking about demons, gods,
ghosts and witches. Even when they were
surrounded by ignorance, going quite against their
society, they nourished their intellect and made it
so strong and pure that it gave rise to some of the
most glorious works in human history.

Today, the Ayurveda that they created, falls under

the category of Alternative Medicine with all its
natural remedies. As I have said in Prescription -
"Ayurvedic remedies actually introduce active natural

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ingredients to the body. Ayurveda places great emphasis
on prevention of illness and promotion of wellness. And
that’s precisely what many of the Ayurvedic remedies
do. Ingredients like ginger, honey, turmeric, cinnamon,
clove, garlic etc. have in fact proven to have significant
influence in promoting health and preventing illness."

However, you must remember that Ayurveda is no

substitute for modern medicine. Modern Medicine
has evolved through rigorous efforts of thousands
of scientists through centuries. And I must admit
that Modern Medicine as it is today, is predicated
on the core principle of treating ailments, while the
ancient system of Ayurveda is mostly predicated
on the prevention of ailments. Therefore, utilizing
various natural substances recorded in the
Ayurvedic literature, in your daily life can help you
maintain a healthy body as well as deal with minor
bodily issues, and can greatly prevent major
ailments, but if a major disease does rise, remember
that Modern Medicine is the most effective tool that
you can have, not any ancient system, be it
Ayurveda or anything else. Hence, use Ayurveda -
it will keep you healthy, but sometimes the body
needs more advance treatment than Ayurveda can
provide, and that need can only be met by Modern
Medicine can provide.

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Nevertheless, quite similar to us modern day
scientists, all those scientists of ancient India were
ordinary humans with excellent minds. There was
nothing supernatural about their intelligence. So,
start seeing them the way they actually were. Stop
the paranormal fanaticism right now if you want
your society to grow. Grow a brilliant and rational
mind within yourself just as the scientists of ancient
India did. Use your ability of reasoning to
distinguish the genuine scientific works from the
hodge-podge of fantasies.

Ayurveda if embraced properly can become a great

promotor of heath in your life. In fact, all the Vedic
texts can become a great tool in the path of
humanity's progress, if their adjacent primordial
fanaticism, such as they being written by a mystical
figure called "Ganesha", is torn apart. Today you
know that “Rahu” and “Ketu” were imaginations
of the ignorant mind in an unqualified attempt to
explain the phenomenon of eclipse - you know
how positions of the sun, earth and moon
occasionally give rise to solar and lunar eclipses.
Likewise, one after another you need to get to rid of
all the prejudicial concepts in your society and only
then the good and beneficial ideas of the ancient
texts shall rise to aid humanity. It is only through

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 rational investigation of the ancient texts that they
can become a true help to human life.

Further Reading

Prescription: Treating India’s Soul by Abhijit

Naskar, 2016

What is Mind? by Abhijit Naskar, 2016

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