Ashtanga Ayurveda - Eight branches of Ayurveda

Chikitsa means "treatment". 

Ayurveda understands that everything has a beginning, middle and end, which means that the conception and childhood phase impacts how an individual life develops. For this reason, opportunities should never be wasted, because the arrow of time only moves in one direction.

Graha means "environment" - what kind of environment is the person developing in? This includes the mental, social and spiritual environment.

Urdvangha means the upper part of the body, everything from the navel upward. This is the place where tissues are constantly being created and implies all of the metabolic processes, the functional physiology.

Shalya means external intervention in the body when its automatic systems are blocked and the system for regeneration does not work as it is meant to.

Damshtra means toxin, and toxins are created from the waste created by metabolic processes. They can also be introduced from the environment. 

Jara means the process of maturation and aging. 

Vrshan means reproduction.

The constant optimal maintenance of all of these aspects is Ayurveda. Diagnosis of what is happening with somebody should incorporate all of these aspects. None of these aspects exists in isolation from the rest, everything is interrelated and simultaneous.

The author Vaghbatt divided Ayurvedic studies into these eight different groups for practical reasons, but Ayurveda is a complex whole and it is important not to leave anything out if we are to correctly understand it. In order to be able to identify blockages, for example, we must understand what the normal function of everything is meant to be, then we will be able to identify what is dysfunctional.