Professor Sunil Khilnani visits a modern-day clinic which follows the practices set out by Charaka, a medical pioneer whose handbook is still widely used in India today. His text, known as the Charaka Samhita or 'Compendium of Charaka', is an encyclopaedic work covering different aspects of health and how to live a good life. Ayurveda is the best known of the Indian subcontinent's three indigenous medical traditions and continues to be an important adjunct to India's national health system. Today, it is part of government policy and a ministry funds Ayurvedic training and care. Charaka believed that health depended on the balance of basic humours - wind, bile, phlegm - and that "if these elements are disturbed from their proper bodily locations, illness follows. Such disturbance often occurs through our own thoughtlessness, what Charaka calls 'violations of good judgement'."

Produced by Mark Savage
With incidental music by the composer Talvin Singh.
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