http://www.indianetzone.com/27/history_baidya_community.htm Legend has it that Dhanvantari was born when the devas and asuras churned the ocean. He is considered to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu and has four hands - in one he holds medicinal herbs and in one the text of Ayurveda. He was the first Baidya. Another legend about his birth is that when the sage Galava was on a pilgrimage and dying of thirst, he accepted water from a Vaidya girl named Virbhadra. He blessed her and said she would have a son. But as she was unmarried, Galava chanted a Vedic mantra and a boy arose out of a wisp of grass and it was this child who was Dhanvantari. He is also known as Amritacharya or Ambastha. He was a Baidya because he owed his birth to a Vedic hymn and he was an Ambastha because he had no father and was brought up by the mother and her family. So Baidyas are also called Ambasthas. But Baidyas say that Ambastha is the name of a place on the banks of the river Indus from where o...
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