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Ayurveda: The Divine Science of Life, 1e

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Ayurveda and its principles have been gradually becoming more
accessible to Westerners over the last thirty years. During this time,
a few books have appeared by Westerners on the topic offering an
overview of the field, a few have described materia medica in
Ayurvedic terms, and a few texts from India may be available. To date,
however, there has not been a single comprehensive textbook on the
topic written for the Westerner, by a Western clinical practitioner.
Todd Caldecott's book now fills that gap, and also corrects some
common misconceptions about Ayurveda.
Ayurveda was a dying medical system in India by the turn of the
twentieth century, preserved in a few family lineages in South Asia,
but largely supplanted by British colonial medicine and, in parts of
India, by Unani Tibb. After Indian independence in 1948, there was a
resurgence of interest in this traditional national system. The
resurgence unfortunately was not based on the extant thin lineages of
clinical practice, but on books, and filtered through the lens of a
sometimes-fundamentalist approach of twentieth-century Hinduism. Two
aspects of the resurrected Ayurveda as taught in North America are at
odds 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 not
differ 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 humoral
medicine: theory, constitutional considerations, dietary and lifestyle
considerations, pharmacology and pharmacy, pathology and disease,
clinical methodology for assessment, therapeutic methods, a materia
medica 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.