Our lineage
A medicine older than the record of it.
Ayurveda is the ancient medical system of the South Asian subcontinent, and it is not a survival — it is in continuous use. Nearly 80 percent of India's population uses it, either exclusively or alongside other systems.
Why it lasted
For a medicinal system to have stood the ravages of time since the Vedic period, the sole reason is its safe effectiveness. Ayurvedic medicine, with its deep understanding of the human being and their environment, optimises the interface between the two — and that is what it means by health.
Its preventive care is unparalleled. Twenty-first-century researchers, meanwhile, still struggle to explain how Ayurveda cures diseases that those same frameworks do not yet understand.
The thread
How the line runs.
- Seven generations
The Kariyat family
A lineage of Ayurvedic physicians specialising in paediatric medicine — bala-cikitsa. Dr Ayyappan Kariyat is its seventh generation.
- Kerala
The Ashta Vaidyan initiation
Dr Sudheer was initiated into the Ashta Vaidyan traditions by Vaidyamadam Rishikumaran Namboodiri — one of Kerala’s eight classical physician families.
- Chennai
Sri Venkataramana Ayurveda College
Dr Ayyappan took his Ayurveda Siromani and Vaidya Visarada there as a gold medallist, and later lectured and practised there. Dr Meera took her BAMS there between 1998 and 2003.
- 2009
IMPCOPS
Dr Ayyappan retired as Senior Medical Superintendent of the Indian Medical Practitioners’ Co-operative Pharmacy and Stores. Dr Meera was elected to its board in 2022.
- 2010
Sreehareeyam
Dr Sudheer becomes Chief Consultant. The clinic settles at Rathinam Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, and begins consulting at distance long before it became ordinary.
- 2020–21
The pandemic, and a paper
Team Dhanvantari is organised. Around 3,000 COVID cases are seen across both waves, a case report is published, and preventive medicine reaches twelve villages.
- 14 December 2023
Raj Bhavan
Sreehareeyam co-ordinates the felicitation of 33 AYUSH doctors by the Governor of Tamil Nadu.
