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Maharishi Ayurveda Achievements 2006
Review of Maharishi Ayurveda achievements by Dr Anand Srivastava, for 2006
Dr Anand Srivastava, chairman and managing director of Maharishi Ayurveda Products Ltd, gives an overview of the unique attributes of Maharishi Ayurveda that make it unsurpassed by any system of healthcare in the world, and a progress report on developments and plans for Maharishi Ayurveda worldwide, including product research and development, training of Maharishi Ayurveda physicians and acquisition of lands for Maharishi Vedic Organic agriculture.
Ready to create a disease free society
Maharishi Ayurveda builds on its successes and gears up for unprecedented growth. In July this year, during the Guru Purnima celebrations at Maharishi’s headquarters in Meru, Holland, Dr Anand Shrivastava, Chairman and Managing Director of Maharishi Ayurveda Products Ltd, described Maharishi’s unique vision of a disease free society, and offered unprecedented achievements toward realising this goal.
Before explaining the activities of Maharishi Ayurveda Products, Dr Srivastava took a few minutes to review the science of Ayurveda; this is summarised under “What is Ayurveda?” Compared to contemporary herbal medicine, Dr Srivastava noted, Maharishi Ayurveda has the advantages of being founded on time tested clinical practice over millennia, and a vast clinical literature; it also has the technology of optimising the synergistic effect of combining herbal ingredients. See “Synergy” (page 9) for an explanation of this phenomenon.
Maharishi Ayurveda Products has set the standard of perfection
The production facility of Maharishi Ayurveda Products is one of a kind. It opened in 1986 and now distributes to over 45 countries worldwide. Its purpose, Dr Srivastava explained, was to synthesise ancient knowledge with modern production technology to provide uncompromised quality with consistency, batch after batch.
The facility has certifications that put Maharishi Ayurveda Products ahead of all other manufacturers of Ayurvedic preparations. These include:
ISO9001 2000 for maintaining production systems at the highest standards of quality and consistency (the International Organization for Standardization sets criteria for all types of organisations no matter what size they are or what they do. It assists both product and service oriented organisations achieve standards of quality that are recognised and respected throughout the world);
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) for food safety. This is an internationally recognised method of identifying and managing risk and requires chemical analysis at every stage from harvesting and suppliers’ warehouses, through transit, to each step of production;
GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) This ensures cleanliness and the quality of manufacture;
GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) and ISOIEC 17025:1999 (General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories) These confirm that every test performed on products is of high standard and efficacy. They also show that laboratory personnel are suitably qualified. These are very important in justifying anywhere in the world the claims of product purity;
WHOGMP (the manufacturing certificate of the World Health Organisation) Organic certification is also held for two farms, one for ordinary herbs planted and harvested by trained villagers, and one for high altitude herbs grown in Uttar Kashi.
Dr Srivastava pointed out that these certificates have to be renewed every one to three years. To ensure it continues to meet the requisite standards, Maharishi Ayurveda Products employs a rigorous regime of internal audit.
So far, Maharishi Ayurveda Products has standardised 1,200 products in several distinct ranges
Divine Product Range This is a new range to be available soon. It requires special Vedic astrological consultation for its production.
Rasayana Range This is a range of nourishing formulas and includes the best known product of all, the master rasayana Maharishi Amrit Kalash.
Classical Range This supplies clinics all over the world.
Rasa Aushadhi Range These are extremely powerful life-saving medications that were on the verge of extinction. Due to poor quality control in recent times, these had lost their efficacy. Maharishi encouraged the revival of this knowledge about 25 years ago, and with the expertise of one of the most eminent scholars in the field, Dr Dwivedi, these were recreated. The Rasa Aushadhi Range can only be used in India at present, but Ayurvedic doctors there are satisfied with their results. Hospitals in India will also be using them soon.
Health Professionals Range for doctors around the world.
Food Supplement Range “over the counter” products available in countries around the world.
Health Food Range including churna food supplements to which new items are being introduced for balancing the diet and preventing many functional disorders.
Personal Care Range which is growing all the time.
Maharishi Ayurveda Products alone was selected for collaboration by the Government of India
Dr Srivastava took well-earned pride in relating Maharishi Ayurveda Products’ crowning achievement, which took place in just the last few months.
There are 7,000 manufacturing facilities in India producing Ayurveda herbal medicines. Out of all these, Maharishi Ayurveda Products was the one and only manufacturer to be selected by experts from the Government of India for their “Golden Triangle” project to be conducted with three major Indian scientific institutions. The purpose of the project is to standardise production of, and research on, Aushadhi herbal medicines.
Department of Health experts scrapped their shortlist of favoured producers – some very long-established and with significant reputations – as soon as they visited Maharishi Ayurveda Products, near the end of their tour. The decisive factors were the standards and, above all, the commitment of the personnel that they encountered at Maharishi Ayurveda Products. Standards set by Maharishi Ayurveda Products will in future have to be met by all others wanting to manufacture these products.
Research is conducted with leading institutions
Maharishi Ayurveda Products, Dr Srivastava told his international audience, has a large research and development department employing 17 scientists with PhDs and Masters Degrees. Topics of research include cancer, cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, toxicity, anti-ageing, insomnia, antioxidants, cholesterol, anxiety, hyperacidity, hormone replacement therapy, and neurophysiology and intelligence.
Collaboration is ongoing with five major Indian institutions: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, Indian Toxicology Research Centre in Lucknow, CGHS (Central Government Health Scheme) Central Hospital in Jaipur, King George Medical University in Lucknow, and SMS Medical College in Jaipur.
Seventy-six studies on products have been completed in the above-mentioned fields and 40 have been published to date.
Maharishi Ayurveda hospitals
Maharishi Ayurveda hospitals create a worldwide requirement for more demand for Maharishi Ayurveda inpatient treatment has been high, Dr Srivastava stated, with 844 people visiting the existing hospital in India in the last year. Many of these patients had serious diseases, coming only after having used conventional medical treatment. Even so, patients have had good results and have praised the efficacy of Maharishi Ayurveda. How much more Maharishi Ayurveda could achieve by also keeping healthier people healthy!
To meet the demand that Maharishi Ayurveda has itself created, people must have hospital treatment available to them in their own localities – everywhere in the world. Otherwise less scrupulous providers will meet that demand, and Ayurveda’s reputation could become tarnished. See “Future plans” (below) for the projected expansion of medical services.
Maharishi Ayurveda medical training aims to meet the world demand
To date 8,000 allopathic doctors around the world have been trained in Maharishi Ayurveda. Two-week education courses continue to be offered in many countries and Vaidyas – Ayurvedic doctors – help train distributors and health professionals.
Anand explained that in India, Maharishi Ayurveda offers courses for Vaidyas and other health professionals in order that they can see the depth of Maharishi Ayurveda and incorporate it into their practice.
Future plans
Future plans for the expansion of Maharishi Ayurveda involve products, hospitals and clinics, and medical education. These include the following initiatives:
Products:
Land has been purchased in northern India for a production facility with a capacity at least 15 times more than the current one. Production is scheduled to start in March 2007.
Processing centres are being set up around India close to the sources of raw materials in order to reduce wastage of perishable produce, and to save costs.
Dedicated herb collection centres are also to be set up. Three thousand people have been trained so far to recognise and harvest herbs.
A large-scale organic dairy is planned near the Brahmasthan of India, with several thousand cows. This will provide top quality milk and ghee for herbal products, avoiding the need to import these from New Zealand.
New organic herbal farms are to be set up, following successful trials.
Development of new products will continue in response to market feedback, including a range especially designed for children.
Clinical trials will continue to be conducted on new products.
Hospitals and clinics:
Construction of an international hospital in India with 1,000 rooms is planned. Six regional hospitals with 500 beds are also envisaged, as well as state hospitals with 250 beds, and 400 districts hospitals with 100 beds each.
Super-specialty clinics are also planned, to provide dedicated treatment for heart disease, diabetes, and other prevalent disorders.
Medical education:
Maharishi Ayurveda is addressing the need for 1.2 million Vaidyas – two or three for every 10,000 of the entire world’s population.
In addition, at least twice as many Technicians will be needed to provide the residential physiological purification procedures of Panchakarma.
Maharishi Ayurveda alone can create a disease-free world
It was the vision of a disease-free world that Maharishi gave to him 25 years ago, Anand Shrivastava reflected, that had inspired all the achievements to date, and which now provides the joyful challenge that faces Maharishi Ayurveda Products in the coming years.
We are fortunate here in UK to have a Maharishi Ayurveda Health Centre
Staffed by fully qualified and highly experienced doctors and Technicians and situated in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, the Maharishi Ayurveda Health Centre provides a range of traditional Ayurvedic treatments in a serene and caring setting. Comfortable accommodation is available in the immediate vicinity.
Panchakarma, or seasonal purification therapy, is recommended at least twice a year in order to help prevent ageing and the degenerative disorders that are so common today. See the advertisement below for contact details.
A wide range of Maharishi Ayurveda products and publications are readily available in the UK. One can browse and search the extensive website www.maharishi.co.uk or request a printed catalogues and product and treatment brochures. Orders can be placed online, by email, or by phone.
What is Ayurveda?
True Ayurveda is a complete science of life in its entirety, not merely a system of herbal medicine. Maharishi Ayurveda applies the supreme wisdom of the Vedic Rishis (“seers” or sages) to consciousness, mind, body, and environment.
According to the traditional texts, the purpose of Ayurveda is simply stated as: “To maintain the health of the healthy and to cure the sick”. This is achieved by creating and maintaining “balance in the doshas, agnis, and dhatus; proper elimination; blissful senses; and the mind and Bliss at the deepest level of Atma.”
The doshas are the three governing principles – Vata, Pitta and Kapha – responsible for all activity in the physiology as well as the environment. The agnis are the 13 processes comprising metabolism; and the dhatus are the 7 classes of tissue and their associated waste products.
Balance in all the above elements eliminates the degeneration that otherwise occurs with age, and this naturally leads to a long and healthy life.
The synergy of Maharishi Ayurveda herbal products
Synergy creates an effect much greater than that of the component ingredients through their interaction with one another and with the physiology. Synergy is not understood or utilised elsewhere, as it is in Ayurveda.
Maharishi Ayurveda products have demonstrable therapeutic effects while using much lesser quantities of herbal ingredients than the conventionally acknowledged “therapeutic dose”.
It is the efficacy of these sophisticated formulas that accounts for them being unaltered over thousands of years. This, of course, contrasts not only with modern herbal medicine but, even more so, with modern drugs.
Further Information
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Disclaimer: The following information is presented for the sole purpose of imparting education on Ayurveda and neither the information nor the products are intended to diagnose, treat, mitigate, cure or prevent any disease. If you have a medical condition, or are pregnant or nursing it may be wise to consult a health professional before making changes to your diet or routine.
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