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Language: EnglishPages: 584PrefaceHumanity has been toiling hard to conquer pain and death since the dawn of human civilization. All sciences in one way or the other are engaged in the combat against these evil forces. Most probably, it is the history of the origin of philosophy and medical science. It is all the more true of the various philosophical and applied branches of knowledge in India. It is the common point where philosophy and medicine meet and strive with their respective specialized methods to overcome this nuisance affair. Pain occurs in different forms. We are sometimes spiritually pained whereas on several occasions we are mentally perturbed and there are occasions when we are physically attacked by pain through various diseases. In India, philosophers were more inclined to solve the problem of getting ultimate liberation from all kinds of pain particularly the pain inflicted by continuous wheel of death and rebirth. However, medicine is more concerned with the elimination of mental and physical pains. It does not mean that the fields of the two are separate. It is simply a distribution of work for achieving a common goal.In India, philosophy and medical science have developed with same motto. It is therefore, that we find that Ayurveda is largely related to Indian philosophy. The spirit of the darsanas is the fundamental basis on which this science of Ayurveda has developed. Just as a medical student cannot escape from the knowledge of natural sciences, similarly, an Ayurvedic scholar cannot hold himself aloof from Indian philosophy. In spite of so much affinity between these two branches of knowledge, we find that philosophy and medicine have been put into water tight compartments and they have had no contact with each other since a long time. The p