Ayurveda: The Divine Science of Life 1st Edition

I know the author personally and can tell you that he has studied extensively over decades with some of the top Ayurvedic teachers in the world, which shines through in this book.It is both practical as well as specific, and based upon real traditional knowledge

Unless you already understand Ayurveda this book was complicated and difficult to read. I am an acupuncturist with an excellent understanding of the foundations of Chinese Medicine--I thought this would be nice to now and understand --for my own benefit I wanted to be able to see the similarities and difference between Ayurveda and TCM--this book is sitting on the shelf waiting for the day when I can decipher it. This seems like a great text book for Ayurveda but definitely not the place to start for a novice.

Todd Caldecott's book on Ayurveda is easy to follow and understand, even for a beginner like myself. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting an indepth understanding of Ayurveda.

Ayurveda and its principles have been gradually becoming moreaccessible to Westerners over the last thirty years. During this time,a few books have appeared by Westerners on the topic offering anoverview of the field, a few have described materia medica inAyurvedic terms, and a few texts from India may be available. To date,however, there has not been a single comprehensive textbook on thetopic written for the Westerner, by a Western clinical practitioner.Todd Caldecott's book now fills that gap, and also corrects somecommon misconceptions about Ayurveda.Ayurveda was a dying medical system in India by the turn of thetwentieth century, preserved in a few family lineages in South Asia,but largely supplanted by British colonial medicine and, in parts ofIndia, by Unani Tibb. After Indian independence in 1948, there was aresurgence of interest in this traditional national system. Theresurgence unfortunately was not based on the extant thin lineages ofclinical practice, but on books, and filtered through the lens of asometimes-fundamentalist approach of twentieth-century Hinduism. Twoaspects of the resurrected Ayurveda as taught in North America are atodds with the authentic original tradition. First, original Ayurveda was not a vegetarian system, contrary to common contemporary practice in North America. Second, the pulse diagnosis system in Ayurveda does notdiffer essentially from the Chinese system. Caldecott, who was trained in a legitimate lineage in India, practices now in Canada, and supervised a teaching clinic there for some years at the Wild Rose College in Calgary, has corrected these distortions. This is not just a philosophical consideration. Fewer than 3% of the North American population adhere to a strict vegetarian diet, and insisting on this as the ideal diet, besides contradicting core original Ayurvedic literature, essentially rules out benefit to much of the other 97%. Caldecott's text shows how the broad principles of Ayurveda can be applied in the social and dietary realities of 21st century North America.The book has everything you would expect in a textbook of humoralmedicine: theory, constitutional considerations, dietary and lifestyleconsiderations, pharmacology and pharmacy, pathology and disease,clinical methodology for assessment, therapeutic methods, a materiamedica of the fifty most important Ayurvedic herbs, and a formulary.

Ayurveda: The Divine Science of Life starts from the beginning on the language and evolution of Ayurveda easing into the fundamentals and evolving into the whole science. As a student of Ayurveda I have purchased over 30+ books on the science. I have reviewed all of the works of our US guru Dr. Vasant Lad. This book by Todd Caldecott will be your most solid beginning to work towards the other efforts available.I fully agree with the contributions noted in Paul Bergner's review. As I study this science and attempt to disect the avenue's we have for learning and applying the knowledge in a modern day Western lifestyle I am faced with large disconnect. With the delivery of information in the progression within this book you will find an ease to making the connections.This book now tops my list for recommended reading to the new Ayurved student.

This book is a pretty nice INTRODUCTION to Ayurveda and includes many of the key concepts one would need to start tackling the subject. It clears up a few large misconceptions I see printed elsewhere, such as the idea of eating for your dosha, though repeats some others such as not doing the seasonal patterns and applying them properly much justice. However, overall it is one of the better textbooks written by or for a western audience I've seen, and I've seen quite a lot of it. With this note I would also mention that his course based on the same book is also an INTRODUCTION to Ayurveda, and one should not feel like they will become a practitioner or it is proper "clinical" knowledge as it is titled to be. To become proficient in proper clinical practice takes many years under highly qualified people and while he Mr. Caldecot has some ties to more traditional practitioners vis avis Nepal, he does not have a proper and thorough grounding in how this science works to such a level as seen by Phd level vaidyas both in and out of the university, but instead has his own mixed background from various modalities with Ayurveda being only one of those sources.