Traditional Indian medicine and history of acupuncture in India

Acupuncture, a component of Traditional Chinese Medicine, is well known to have been originated in ancient China and propagated to neighboring countries including India and now throughout the world.India having an ancient civilization had a rich traditional medicine called Ayurveda which consisted of herbal medicine, surgery, yoga and ’Suchi veda’ treatment. Ayurveda gained popularity throughout the ancient India and was also disseminated into the neighbors. Suchi veda was like a pricking therapy but there is no record of its consistent practice afterwards throughout the Christian era and Middle Ages.There is record of dissemination of Chinese acupuncture in India in the 6 th century but its use was not persistent afterwards, till it was re-introduced in the mid-twentieth century, by a Chinese trained Indian physician in 1959. Currently practice of acupuncture is fast developing throughout India. some state governments already officially recognized it and recently the central government of India declared state recognition to acupuncture as an independent system of therapeutics in the health care system of the country.