Ayurveda books

If you are just an ordinary enthusiast who wants to get started, avoid hundreds of pages of obscure ancient books and health-preserving Internet celebrity books with unknown origins. Prioritize the official translation that meets your needs. If you want to popularize basic science, read the introductory books of Western reformists. If you want to practice at home, choose down-to-earth guides written by traditional Indian doctors. Do professional research before reading classic ancient books. Practitioners with different positions have great differences in book selection. There is no need to follow the trend and buy all the books in the Internet celebrity book list.

I first came into contact with Ayurveda when I traveled to Yunnan in 2017. The owner of the B&B where I stayed was a naturopathic practitioner and gave me a hair treatment with warm sesame oil. At that time, I was working on a project and only slept three or four hours a day for half a month. After finishing it, I actually fell asleep until the afternoon of the next day. When I came back, I searched for related books like crazy, and I fell into a big trap the first time. At that time, the top-ranked book on an e-commerce platform had the words "Ayurvedic Health Bible" and "Cure Chronic Diseases and Eliminate Edema in Three Days" on the cover. I placed the order without thinking. It said that all people with insomnia should drink 30ml of pure ghee on an empty stomach every morning. I drank it for three days. I didn't feel better about my insomnia and had diarrhea for two days. Later I found out that the book was an OEM content compiled by a ghee seller, and it didn't have any professional content.

Later, I met two Ayurveda friends in the circle, and their preferences in choosing books were completely at two extremes. One is a consultant who studied under an American tutor and specializes in mind-body and soul adjustment. She recommends Deepak Chopra's "Perfect Health" to everyone she meets, saying that it explains the three physical constitutions of Vata, Pitta and Kapha in a very simple way. There is not much ancient and mysterious content. It can be used by ordinary people by adjusting their daily routine and matching three meals, so it is not easy to make mistakes. But another physical therapist who went to Kerala, India, to study with traditional doctors for three years, especially looked down on Chopra's book, saying that his content was "too arrogant." He cut out a large number of herbal compatibility and physical therapy operations in traditional Ayurveda, leaving only the chicken soup for the body and mind that is adapted to Western society. If you really have a headache, brain fever, or seasonal discomfort, you can't adjust it according to his book. He has a copy of "Ayurveda" on his desk all the time. "Yurvedic Home Remedies" was written by an old doctor in India who has been practicing for 50 years. Many small prescriptions in it have been clinically proven. For example, people with Vata constitution are prone to cold joint pain in winter. Massage the joints clockwise for 15 minutes with warm ginger oil for a week to relieve the pain. I tried it myself when I was cooling down last winter, and it was indeed more effective than baby warmers. However, the ginger oil was spicy when it was first applied, and it took two minutes to feel comfortable.

Of course, neither of the two schools of thought is right or wrong. If you want to figure out what your physique is and what you should pay attention to when eating and sleeping, Chopra's book is enough. If you want to learn to do some daily conditioning for yourself and deal with minor problems, you still have to choose the practical practice of the traditional school. Books, but most of these books are based on the climate and eating habits of India, so you have to make flexible adjustments when using them. For example, it says that you can drink more ghee daily to nourish yourself. I recommended it to my bestie who is lactose intolerant. She drank it and ran to the toilet eight times in three days, chasing me and scolding me for half the street.

If you really want to do professional research and study in depth, you have to read the Chalukya Collection and the Wonderful Wen Collection. These two books are equivalent to the "Huangdi Inner Canon" and "Treatise on Febrile Diseases" in the field of Ayurveda. However, there are very few full translations in China. Most of them are excerpted versions, and many terms are not translated. It's accurate. I bought an excerpt from "The Chalukya Samhita" before, in which the "seven tissues" were directly translated into seven body fluids, which almost led me astray. Later, I found a friend who studied Sanskrit and compared the original text fragments to figure it out. If you don't have a professional foundation, there is really no need to touch it. The more I read, the more confused I became.

To be honest, I have bought more than 20 related books, and now I only read two of them frequently. One is used to popularize science for customers who come to the studio to experience it, and the other is used to check small prescriptions for daily conditioning. If you really want to adjust your body, you still need to see a professional doctor for consultation. The content in the book is a general template. Everyone’s living environment, eating habits, and physical deviations are different. If you copy it, you will definitely encounter pitfalls. After all, whether it is Ayurveda or traditional Chinese medicine, the core is "thousands of people try their best," right?