The Need and Importance of Incorporating Academic Research Results in to the Curricula of Ayurveda in India.

Every year a noticeable number of MD and PhD students pass out from various Ayurveda colleges across the country. Each of these Post Graduate (PG) and doctoral students do submit a research thesis as a part of fulfillment of their respective degrees. As on 01/04/2015 there were 98 PG Ayurveda colleges in India with an admission capacity of 2441 seats each year. Moreover many of the post graduate institutes provide doctoral level (PhD) education which is primarily involved with research thesis. Such meticulous research carried out under the supervision of an academic expert should not go in vein and hence the research findings need to be slotted in to the respective areas and disciplines of Ayurveda syllabus. This will help in bringing in the latest scientific trends of Ayurveda to graduate students. Distressingly such practices are not in vogue in Ayurveda education system and most of the colleges follow the same stereotypic pedagogy using the classical texts of Ayurveda or their respective commentaries written decades back. Use of classical treatises and their respective commentaries offers very limited access to the recent scientific developments of Ayurveda as these commentaries are mostly one time efforts and do not undergo repeated revisions thus limiting the inclusion of present day innovations. In this commentary an effort has been made to understand the source, output, need and importance of such academic research finding with reference to their incorporation in to curricula of Ayurveda.