Heilung aus der Ganzheit

The translation of the Sanskrit term "Ayurveda" means "knowledge of life" (ayus = life, also long life; veda = knowledge, also sacred knowledge). This indicates that Ayurveda was originally understood as more than just a purely curative medicine. The peak of Ayurveda was reached in the first centuries after Christ's birth. During this time, the great classical works were created, including the collections of Caraka and Sushruta, totaling four classical textbooks that are still regarded as the foundation of Ayurveda today, even though they are used very limitedly. The advantage of the present study lies in the fact that Wolz-Gottwald, as an expert on these texts, refers to them and is aware of the richness of their comprehensive approach. Therefore, the book offers, in contrast to numerous other books on Ayurveda, a penetrating quality that delves deeply into the extensive efforts of Ayurvedic therapy. It does not start from a dogmatically fixed unitary perspective, nor does it adhere to an analytical science that dissects everything into unconnected parts; rather, it attempts to extract the holistic fundamental conception of therapy and psychotherapy from the multitude of individual schools and directions. In this process, some divergent teachings reveal themselves as simplifications and coarsenings of the original thinking in classical Ayurveda. At the same time, the study makes a significant contribution to philosophy. Philosophy is generally misunderstood in the West as a purely theoretical discipline of thought. The textbooks of Indian healing and life science, created 2000 years ago, show that it can also stand in the midst of living practice. Here, philosophy has found a way out of the confines of study rooms. Therapy and psychotherapy penetrate boundaries through the inclusion of yoga and spiritually philosophical practice.