The Institute of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine (IAIM) previously and popularly known as Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT), Bangalore, is an institution whose goals include the conservation of natural resources used by Indian systems of medicine, demonstrating the contemporary relevance of the theory and practice of Indian systems of medicine and revitalization of social processes for transmission of traditional knowledge of health care.

As part and parcel of realizing the above mentioned goals, IAIM has set up several departments, the newest addition to which has been the Centre for Theoretical Foundations (CTF) group under the School for Trans-disciplinary Studies. Started a few years ago with many important objectives like preserving, cataloguing, editing and publishing Indian medical manuscripts, strengthening the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda and so on, the CTF has pre-eminent scholars well-versed in Sanskrit and the Shastras to achieve its objectives.

Realizing the importance of the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda alongside its practical utility, IAIM, through it's CTF, has undertaken several projects that are aimed at dissemination of the fundamental concepts of Ayurveda. This includes a very ambitious project titled 'Encyclopedia of Ayurveda'. As a spinoff of this project, the IAIM is at present releasing an e-book of the Ashtanga Hridaya and Ashtanga Samgaraha, two most important works that are comprehensive treatises of Ayurveda.

As is well-known, in-depth study of the originals texts of Ayurveda is dwindling among students and practitioners of Ayurveda, due to various reasons. This is greatly hampering the proper understanding of the fundamentals of Ayurveda. To overcome this lacuna, the IAIM has developed this e-book that is delivered on a CD ROM having these two important works. This e-book facilitates easy portability and easy access to the two books. Textual search facilities provided herein enhance the value of the e-book. IAIM hopes that this e-book will be well utilized by all those who are connected to Ayurveda by studying these works.

We express our gratefulness to the Dept. of AYUSH, Govt. of India, for supporting this very important cause and fervently hope that they continue their financial support in future also for this project. We congratulate the CTF team of our organization who have put in honest and sincere efforts in the preparation of this e-book and have facilitated its launch on a very important occasion, viz. the plenary session of the World Ayurveda Congress, which is being held in Bangalore in December 2010.

(Dr Bhushan Patwardhan)
Director, IAIM, FRLHT, Bangalore