Ayurveda originated about 5000 years back. It is said that it has a divine origin and was initially possessed by gods. It is believed that ayurveda was created by Lord Brahma. Lord Brahma is considered as creator of this universe according to Indian mythology. Brahma the creator, created ayurveda much before human came into existence. It was an unscripted knowledge which was passed to Daksh Prajapati. Daksh Prajapati is said to be the father of Parvati, a goddess who is well known as the wife of lord Shiva, the destructor. Daksh Prajapati obtained the knowledge of ayurveda in the form of shloka hymned by Lord Brahma. Lord Brahma gave the knowledge of ayurveda in a hundred thousand verses. These shlokas were in Sanskrit language and were verbally addressed to him by Lord Brahma. Daksh Prajapati is also known as the king of Himalaya obtained complete knowledge about ayurveda and learned it word by word. This knowledge of ayurveda was then passed on to two twin brothers popularly known as “physician of Gods” and was famous with name Ashwani kumar. These two brothers were excellent healers and did wonders by ayurvedic treatment. They performed such surgeries which are still considered very difficult and risky even in present scenario. Ashwani kumar were perfect in performing surgeries that they even had been successful in repairing and amputated body parts. They were even expert in medicine and had treated many people with there medicine. They had even done eye surgery which is only possible in this era. They had a famous and a very beautiful chariot made of gold. This heritage of ayurveda was then transferred to lords of rain and king of heaven lord Indra. Lord Indra a very well known God in Indian mythology graced the ayurveda by helping people in curing from there misery. He devised certain line of treatments that proved to be very helpful to people who were suffering from diseases and sorrows.
But during that era, diseases and immorality started dominating the planet and people were badly affected with the miseries and diseases. Health of people was deteriorating day by day and epidemics were causing loss of human and animal life. People were getting corrupted and truthfulness was losing its ground in the heart of people. Domestic animals like cows, goat etc. played a very important part in human evolutions were also dying. Life style of people was also getting disturbed which intern was inviting trouble to the society.
Seeing all these mishapennings and sorrows few learned men approached lord Indra to help this planet in getting diseased free. They went to lord Indra and dictated him about the grievances mankind was facing. After hearing all these grievances Lord Indra decided to shower them with the knowledge of ayurveda, by which they could resolve the problems.
A team of scholars were selected under rishi Bhardwaj and were blessed with the complete knowledge of ayurveda.
This is the first time ayurveda descended on earth. Till lord Indra, ayurveda had been in the hands of gods but when the knowledge of ayurveda was given to rishi Bhardwaj, it came in the hands of humans. It was a very important day in the human history according to mythology, as this was the first time people on earth could achieve longitivity by applying ayurveda in there lives. Ayurveda also provides the lifestyle techniques for healthy living and also teaches us social manners to improve over all personality. Now this prestigious life science was taught to Punarvasu Atrey a disciple of rishi Bhardwaj. Punarvasu Atrey was a very renowned scholar of his time. Due to his capabilities and learning skills he learned knowledge of ayurveda from rishi Bhardwaj. Punarvasu Atrey devoted his full life in treating people from ayurvedic remedies. Punarvasu Atrey had 6 disciples named Agnivesh, Bhel, Jatukarna, Parashar, Harit, and Ksharpani. Punarvasu carefully narrated all the light of ayurveda amongst his disciple. Each and every disciple observed and accessed the knowledge in his own way and all scripted this knowledge in there texts. Out of all these all the text written by Agnivesh became very popular. It was known as Agnivesh tantra. This text also exists in this era and is very popularly known as charak samhita. Charak samhita is considered as this golden book of the ayurvedic medicine. Any body who wants to become an ayurvedic physician must have complete knowledge of charak samhita.
There are other views present which are depicted in the chart below.
There is one another view famous about the origin of ayurveda.
According to the legends famous in India. There were two sections of powerful people on earth. One was devas (gods) and others were the daityas (devils). Once gods came to know that there is amrit (nectar) beneath the sea. By consuming even a single drop of that nectar, Gods becomes could live for ever and also can also enjoy youth for ever. All gods met and decided to extract that nectar from the bottom of the sea. But there was a big problem that the sea had to be churned (samundra manthan) in order to get that pot full of nectar. For this great amount of force was required and only this could be achieved with the combined effort of both devils and gods.
With some efforts Gods convinced devils for helping them in churning the sea to extract nectar. Sea was churned with help of shesh nag (big snake) and mountain in the center. Churning of sea was done rigorously. Many divine gifts came out of the sea. Then came out the visha (venomous) pot. It was so venomous that even a single drop it may lead to destruction of earth, so lord Shiva, the destructor came to rescue. He drank that poison and retained in the throat. Hence the problem was resolved. The sea was churned again. This time came out a God named Dhanwantry with a pot full of nectar for gods and a science in his hand called ayurveda for human beings. Lord Dhanwantry is also considered god in ayurveda as he was blessed with healing skills of ayurveda.
Though these mythological versions may seems to be unbelievable or unreal but in the back ground it is related to the sentiments of people and shows there respect towards ayurveda. It is a fact that ayurveda has been a gods gift to people so as to get rid off of their miseries and troubles.
