Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India, shares the distinction with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Middle Eastern Unani Tibb Medicine as one of the three oldest surviving comprehensive herbal medicine systems on the planet. These are distinct insofar as, unlike local or native herbal medical systems, they evolved over a diverse cultural and geographical area to enable them to treat the most diverse variety of human diseases.

Even a cursory examination of the three systems will reveal a number of fundamental similarities, including the energetic classification of diseases and herbs, such as the use of cosmological theories with descriptive energetic medical terms, such as "hot," "cold," "damp," "dry" and "wind." Also, each is based on a similar "elemental" system, which was also the foundation of early GrecoRoman medicine.