India is hoping to encourage more Filipinos to integrate into their lifestyle the Ayurveda, an ancient system of Indian traditional medicine and health interventions, according to India Ambassador to the Philippines Shambhu Kumaran on Thursday.

“What we are trying to do is to bring in Ayurveda to the Philippines. And the conversation is about how we can work with institutions, government to make that access available to Filipinos,” he told reporters in an interview.

In 2022, the Philippines became the first country in Southeast Asia to sign a deal and initiate partnership in Ayurveda and other traditional systems of medicine.

The memorandum of understanding was signed between the National Institute of Ayurveda, Jaipur (NIA) and the Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Healthcare (PITAHC).

This week, an Indian delegation led by NIA Vice Chancellor Sanjeev Sharma met with various government officials and expressed hopes to see Ayurveda get institutionalized in the Philippines.

Ayurveda, Kumaran said, is already known in the country but the practice is “very lowkey” and done in an “unstructured manner.”

Aside from improving the population’s well-being, he said cooperation in the area could also help build a catalogue of Ayurvedic medicines that uses herbs only found in the Philippines, boosting the country’s traditional health system.

Kumaran said India is willing to help develop infrastructure, advance discussions with health authorities on the establishment of a certification system for Ayurveda practitioners, and export Ayurvedic products from India.

“We are looking at setting up a research center which is something that the government of India will fund, we are also offering scholarships and also short-term courses in Ayurveda-related fields,” Kumaran said.

“We have a developed system that the Philippines can use. (For the research center), we are ready and we are waiting for the Philippine government to tell us,” he added.

At present, PITAHC Director General Annabelle Pabiona-De Guzman said there are at least seven Ayurvedic practitioners in the Philippines on the institute’s record.

Ayurveda originated in India more than 3,000 years ago and encourages well-being through holistic lifestyle interventions, with treatment focused on suitable diet, herbal remedies, as well as yoga, and meditation.

“This is not merely a system, this is a way of life. The main aim of Ayurveda is to keep a person disease-free, how we can prevent the disease and how we can promote health,” Sharma said.

“It works on entirely different principles and is not based on the synthetic or chemical medicines,” he added. (PNA)