Types of Ayurvedic Researches

The Ayurvedic field has a vast scope for research in variety of ways. All what is needed that, it should benefit Ayurveda and the society at large. Here are a few examples. 

A) Literary Research – This is the most important but the most neglected type of research. Finding out various kinds of manuscripts, studying them to some extent and then select a few and concentrate on them is the first step required. Bringing out critical editing of the available texts is itself a tedious, time consuming job. But the work is most important because it is really the basis for any kind of research in Ayurveda. Exploration of textual information in variety of ways is another kind of literary research, which we have undertaken by the name  Triskandha Kosha.

B) Fundamental Research – Many Ayurvedic concepts are still unknown e.g. Rasa (The Taste). In modern medicine, importance is given to food calories, but the taste of food is just neglected. On the contrary the whole basis of study of a substance, is the ‘Rasa’ according to Ayurveda. A fundamental research is a must to explore many such things.

C) Clinical Research – This has been much tried until now, but the approach is of modern medicine. It’s like finding out antidiabetic activity of an Ayurvedic medicine. No doubt, first preference will go to those areas where the modern medicine has very little success or no success at all, e.g. hepatitis, arthritis, I. T. P, Multiple sclerosis, Cancer, AIDS etc. But the method of clinical research should be such, that it would benefit Ayurveda e.g. we have undertaken Cancer Research project. It’s a primary study and we want to understand Cancer in Ayurvedic terms. Once this is achieved we can think of Ayurvedic treatment properly. In this way clinical research can be taken up for any disease.

D) Drug Research – There is a misunderstanding between a drug and treatment. Many a people believe them to be one and the same. Actually treatment is basically understanding the disease and intellectually fixing up the guidelines. Medicine is just a part of treatment and treatment really  consists of medicine, its dose, time factors etc. But in modern medicine, the whole credit and discredit goes to the drug, forgetting all other aspects of treatment. So the drug research today has been confined to only clinical trials of a particular drug in a particular disease. This attitude needs to be changed. Identification of herbs, standardization of processes of manufacturing, analysis and toxological study of medicines containing gold, silver etc. are important drug researches yet unexplored to much extent.

E) Inter Disciplinary Research – The philosophy of Ayurveda has been derived from various Indian philosophies. There are so many areas, where inter disciplinary research can be taken up e.g. Yoga and Ayurveda, Astrology and Ayurveda etc. This will definitely enlighten various unseen factors. 

There can be pharmaceutical, anatomical, physiological etc. researches, but the approach should be Ayurvedic.