Ayurveda Ayu means life and Veda means knowledge, and so Ayurveda is often referred to as the “Science of Life� – however it is more an instruction for enhancing life and is both a living system of Ayurvedic medicine and one of the oldest continuously practiced in the world. Ayurveda is the traditional holistic health system in India and is more than 5,000 years old. It uses a constitution based model (the doshas) for determining your state of health and works as a form of mindbody medicine.