Despite Ayurveda's 2000-year long history as a robust indigenous medical system of India, it has a dynamically, continually changing past and present: as Ayurveda spreads from the East to West and encounters new influences, it has become redefined by cultural and social biases.
Beginning in the 1960s, Ayurveda has begun to be advertised as "alternative medicine" in the Western world. Due to different laws and medical regulations in the rest of the world, Ayurvedic practices or terminology have also been adapted specifically for Western consumption, notably in the case of "Maharishi Ayurveda" in the 1980s.
Ayurvedic and European doctors initially encountered one another through the spice trade that also exchanged botanicals and pharmaceuticals. Some Indian medicinal knowledge had already spread through texts and oral transmission. Later, the export of medicines along with the basic knowledge of their traditional applications became an intentional, large-scale commercial enterprise. By the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, during the British colonial period, this exchange reached its peak. Colonial Britain and British scholars initially took a keen interest in the ancient medical system and encouraged the study and practice of Ayurveda.
Besides the initial pre-colonial and colonial transfers of Indian medical knowledge, Ayurveda arrived to North America and Europe as Indian immigrants spread across the globe. However, very little information about Indian medicine (homogeneous or otherwise) became accessible to the public. In the 1970s and 1980s however, the political and social environment was largely characterized by an effort and rebellion against the mainstream. During this time, Ayurveda came into public view primarily through the New Age movement that rallied around the work of a few individual spiritual leaders.
Today, Ayurveda has specialized its chief market even further to young, white, middle to upper class society. The past couple of decades have brought a surge in products, books, and classes that address proponents, through Ayurvedic versions of beauty care, yoga, aromatherapy and weight loss programs. Interestingly, this trend has reached India as well; even modern Indian Ayurveda is being marketed for both Indian and Western audiences.
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