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[[File:Ayurvedic man.jpg|thumb|upright|Human anatomy according to Ayurveda. Nepal, ca. 1800.]]
Let's begin with Ayurveda, or literally the "knowledge of longevity". The oldest medical compendia from which Ayurveda took its roots, are attributed to Sushruta (ca. 6th century BCE) and Charaka (between 100 BCE and 100 200 CE), which makes Ayruveda Ayurveda about as old Greek humoral medicine. If you look at the similarities between the two (as we will in a moment), it's hard to think that they've developed completely independently. But who copied from whom? That's hard to tell.
As the starting point we're going take, again, the five elements: earth, water, fire, air and aether. Unlike in Greek thought, were aether only existed in celestial bodies and was thus of little importance to medicine, all five elements are relevant to Ayurveda. Besides the Ayurvedic counterpart of aether is not so much a volatile substance as it's just vacuum, an empty space with the potential to filled with something.
[[File:Ajurweda EN.png|thumb|left|upright|Elements, ''doshas'' and tastes. It's actually more complicated than that, but I'd have to make this infographic at least in 3D to avoid all of the excessive simplification.]]
Water bounded by earth produces a ''dosha'' called ''kapha'' (pronounced ''{{small|KAP}}-hah''). ''Kapha'' is heavy, cold and moist; in the human body, it's responsible for holding everything together and, when in excess, it manifests itself in the form of phlegm. Fire bound by water is ''pitta'', which is hot, light and… not dry. Wait, what? It's not dry, because it contains water, but it isn't moist either, because the moisture is evaporated by the fire. So what od do you call something that's neither dry nor moist? Consider food: if it's too dry, then what you do is to baste it with something fat, right? And this is what ''pitta'' is like – fat, oily, unctuous. In your organism, in keeps digestion running and the associated "humour" is bile. And then there's the third ''dosha'', called ''vata'', which is a combination of air and void. It's dry, light and cold. In your body, it's responsible for breathing and motion and it's excess shows as… not a liquid this time, but somethign something rather gaseous. What you get by combining air and void is wind, and this is exactly what builds up in your colon when you've got too much ''vata''.
Just like in humoral theory, the domination of any one ''dosha'' in your organism determines you physique and your temperament. A ''vata''-type person is usually thin and bony, dark-skinned with thin, dry hair, an elongated and wrinkled face, and is quick-tempered, impatient and wavering. If you're a ''kapha''-type person, then you might be heavily built with pale skin, thick, oily hair and a round, soft face, slow, but persistent. And you can tell someone is a ''pitta''-type person by their muscular physique, ruddy complexion, soft hair with a tendency for early greyness and baldness, a face with sharp contours, as well as their high impulsiveness and motivation. But that's not all, for there are also people whose bodies are dominated by not one, but two ''doshas'' (''vata-pitta, vata-kapha'' and ''pitta-kapha'' types), as well as those who have all three ''doshas'' in balance (the ''vata-pitta-kapha'' type). This way, there are only three ''doshas'', but as many as seven different temperaments.
