World Ayurveda Congress

The World Ayurveda Congress (WAC) is a platform established by World Ayurveda Foundation to propagate Ayurveda globally in its true sense.

The first World Ayurveda Congress (WAC) was held in 2002 at Kochi as an outreach programme, to create greater awareness and opportunities in the practice, science, and trade of Ayurveda. The subsequent Congresses organised at Pune, Jaipur, Bangalore, Bhopal, Delhi, Kolkata & Ahmedabad were not only helped in promoting Ayurveda within the country but also had a huge impact in propagating Ayurveda globally.

Previous themes of the Congress were “Ayurveda and World Health”, “Globalisation of Ayurveda”, “Mainstreaming Ayurveda”, “Ayurveda for All”, “Enriching Public Health Through Ayurveda”, “Health Challenges and Ayurveda”, “Strengthening the Ayurveda Ecosystem”, “Re-aligning the Focus on Health” and “Ayurveda for One Health”.

Healthconscious world seeks out Ayurveda

A world that is increasingly health conscious, and returning to its natural and ancient roots, completing the proverbial circle, spells good news for the world of Ayurveda.

A complete paradigm shift in our approach to the concept of wellness – moving away from what has till now been an area dominated by allopathy – that people are now placing their trust and lives into the hands of Ayurveda. With a growing awareness about Ayurveda, thanks to forums like the World Ayurveda Foundation, the suspicion and apprehension with which Ayurveda was treated in developing countries has made a turnaround, with people now seeking out knowledge and information on this well-rounded health system. A fear of things “synthetic” and “chemical” and with side effects is driving people to Ayurveda, seen as natural, without side effects, boosting immunity, and is improving the quality of life.

A global comeback

Ayurveda is making a big comeback, at the global level. European countries like Germany have always held Ayurveda in high regard, and offer courses in the subject. In fact in Germanspeaking countries, Ayurveda has grown from being seen as a relaxing wellness therapy to a complimentary system of medicine.

Ayurveda-based Traditional Medicine Systems (TMS) are very much in practise in most of the SAARC counties including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Japan. Australia and Switzerland have given Ayurveda recognition as a bonafide medical system, thereby allowing the setting up of Ayurveda clinics. Needless to say, Ayurveda did save millions of human lives by keeping a check on the spread of COVID-19 and increasing the immunity. The WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform shows that 1054 traditional medicinerelated clinical trials have been conducted on COVID-19 to date, while the WHO COVID-19 database of global literature on coronavirus disease lists 3803 research articles on traditional medicine.

No less than 192 Trials on Ayurveda and Ayush systems were carried out to mitigate Covid-19. According to the WHO global report on traditional and complementary medicine 2019, the number of countries with a legal and regulatory framework for traditional and complementary medicine increased from 79 in the year 2012 to 109 in the year 2018 and is continuing to increase.