Ayurvedic Guide to Wellness: Ayurvedic Rasayanas

Rasayanas: A Conversation with Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra (cont'd)

There are herbs whose healing properties vanish if they are not shadow-dried painstakingly over a period of several days. Some suppliers are in a hurry to get their herbs to market and take shortcuts, such as heat-drying or drying in sunlight, and such herbs become useless for the healer.

My deep knowledge of the properties of ayurvedic rasayana substances has been obtained both via traditional instruction at ayurvedic school and through actual on-hands work, through years of observation and working closely with my father and his staff. The traditional knowledge in each vaidya family is closely guarded and is passed on from generation to generation. I have been fortunate in being able to learn first-hand from my father.

I work very closely with the suppliers in India through every stage of the process, to ensure that the best raw herbs are utilized to make the AyurBalance formulations, and to ensure that the processing and testing is meticulous.

Q: Can you elaborate on the care that needs to be taken during the processing?

Vaidya Mishra: To get the maximum healing benefit from a plant, firstly, it has to be eaten as a whole plant, not an isolated active ingredient. Although some modern medicine experts and scientists contend that clinically removing the active ingredient from a healing substance and offering it in measured potency doses is beneficial, many others are beginning to realize that the body can absorb and assimilate the benefits better from a whole food or a whole plant. Ayurvedic healers have always believed that Nature knows best, and to tamper with Nature's healing vibrations is to dilute what she is offering you.

Secondly, the "cooking" or processing done on an herb in the interests of modern manufacturing, packaging and delivery convenience needs to be as minimally intrusive as possible. If an herb or spice that is inherently a rasayana, such as Amalaki or Turmeric, is processed incorrectly to make the final product, the results can be significantly affected. Most herbs, for example, lose their healing intelligence if subjected to high heat. Cold-pressing and similar traditional methods of extraction are best. Chemical solvents and artificial preservatives, colors and aromas have no place in authentic ayurveda.

Thirdly, just as poor processing practices lower the intelligence quotient of a rasayana, meticulous following of the procedures for augmenting the efficacy of an herb can make the resulting product much superior. For example, the Amla fruit is processed many times in its own juice using a traditional technique to concentrate its healing power more and more in each successive version of the Amalaki Rasayana.

Choosing the best ingredients is the first step, processing them correctly is the second, and the last step is laboratory testing, especially for microbiological contamination and heavy metals. The testing occurs at least two phases--first each raw herb batch is tested, and then the final product is also tested. Once the product qualifies on all three of these counts, then you are getting a true rasayana.