Message from the Director

Folk medicine is the mixture of traditional healing practices and beliefs that involve herbal medicine, spirituality and manual therapies or exercises in order to diagnose, treat or prevent any ailment or illness. According to World Health Organization (WHO, 2008), it is mostly practiced by indigenous or native populations and as much as 80% of the population in certain countries within Asia and Africa rely on it for primary care. In India, the history of folk medicine can be traced to the Vedic era. The primary idea and procedures of Ayurvedic healing practices were polished over the centuries. Since time immemorial, knowledge of traditional healing and medicine were composed in many epic in Sanskrit Caraka Samhita, Sushruta Samhita, Ashtangahridayam and Ashtangasamgraha, etc. are some of the earliest available works. These works are foundations for the Ayurvedic practitioners, as they describe therapeutic methods in a systematic manner. Indian folk medicinal stream is rich and diverse. It may not be popular, organized and codified like other systems of medicine, but folk medicine is a repository of raw knowledge from the experiences of local healers and is prevalent in tribal and rural areas of India.