Ayurveda is a science of positive health

The use of plants as source of medicine dates back to about 4000 to 5000 B.C. The Indian and Chinese were the pioneers in using plants as valuable sources of medicine.
Ayurveda is a science of positive health and its origin is almost as old as human race. Ayurvedic system of medicine deals with maintainance of health, prolongation of healthy and qualitative lifeand prevention of diseases. The Ayurvedic system of medicine is the integral part of the Indian tradition in which plants and herbs are used not only tocure the diseases, but also to provide a source of minerals and vitamins whichgive proper health and nutrition to human being. Though, the sources ofmedicine are plant kingdom, animal kingdom and minerals and metals, yet plantsare easily available in nature and can be used according to needs.
India is one of the few developing countries which has initiated institutions like the Centre for Medicinal andAromatic Plants (CIMAP), the Regional Research Laboratories (RRL) at Jammu,Bhubaneshwar and Jorhat, the All India Co-ordinated Project on the Improvementof Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of the ICAR, National Botanical Gardens,Forest Research Institutes, State Cinchona Directorates in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and in addition, many Agricultural Universities have been working on the technological advancement of this group of crops. However, except for CIMAP and few other centres under ICAR who have taken over a few selected crops for improvement, the replenishment of renewable inputs like quality planting material of improved varieties, developing extension literature, organizingtraining and quality testing, are very limited. _ Drug plants had been extensively described by Aristotle, Theophrastus and others as early as 77 B.C. Dioscorides (64-1600 B.C.) in his famous book ‘De Materia Medica’ has given invaluable and authoritative references about drug yielding plants.
Folk medicine utilise 1600 species which are newly identified as drug yielding plants and are well known for their use in about 4000 drug industries of various Indian systems of medicine like Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha (South Indian System) and Homeopathy, it is about 12% of present Indian flora. About 80% of the raw materials of medicinal plants are still now collected mainly from 75.17 million hectares of forest coverage.
Source:Science20