The origins of Ayurveda have been traced back to 5,000BCE and earlier, when they originated as an oral tradition. Some of the concepts of Ayurveda have been discovered since the times of Indus Valley Civilization in the Indian sub continent. The first recorded forms of Ayurveda as medical texts are evolved from the Vedas. Ayurveda is a discipline of the “ upaveda” or “auxiliary knowledge” in Vedic tradition. The origins of Ayurveda are also found in Atharvaveda. which contains 114 hymns and incantations described as magical cures for disease. There are various legendary accounts of the origin of Ayurveda, e.g. that it was received by Dhanvantari (or Divodasa) from Brahma. Tradition also holds that the writings of Ayurveda were influenced by a lost text by the sage Agnivesa.

There are three principal early texts on Ayurveda viz. the Charaka Samhita, the Sushruta Samhita and the Bhela Samhita. The Sushruta Samhita is based on an original from the 6th century BCE, and was updated by the Buddhist scholar Nagarjuna in the 2nd century BCE. The Charaka Samhita, written by Charaka, and the Bhela Samhita, attributed to Atreya Punarvasu, are also dated to the 6th century BCE. The Charaka Samhita was also updated by Dridhabala during the early centuries of the Common Era.

The Bower Manuscript is also of special interest to historians due to its inclusion of excerpts from the Bheda Samhita and its description of concepts in Central Asian Buddhism. In 1987, A. F. R. Hoernle identified the scribe of the medical portions of the manuscript to be a native of India using a northern variant of the Gupta script, who had migrated and become a Buddhist monk in a monastery in Kucha. The Chinese pilgrim Fa Hsien (c. 337–422 AD) wrote about the healthcare system of the Gupta empire (320–550) and described the institutional approach of Indian medicine. This is also visible in the works of Charaka, who describes about hospital and how it should be equipped.

Ayurveda names three elemental substances, the doshas (called Vata, Pitta and Kapha), and states that a balance of the doshas results in health, while imbalance results in disease. One Ayurvedic view is that a the doshas are balanced when they are equal to each other, while another view is that each human possesses a unique combination of the doshas which define this person’s temperament and characteristics. In either case, it says that each person should modulate their behavior or environment to increase or decrease the doshas and maintain their natural state. A geometrical presentation of three doshas with the five elements which constitute the metabolism of human body is presented below for easy understanding.