Profile

Dr. Ajayan Sadanandan is an accomplished Ayurveda physician, academician, researcher, and ethno-medico botanist with over 18 years of combined teaching, clinical, and field experience. He currently serves as Director of the SKVM Ayurveda Marma and Medicinal Plant Academy in Thiruvananthapuram and is widely recognized for integrating classical Ayurvedic wisdom with ecological and experiential learning approaches.

He has contributed extensively to academic and institutional development as Professor and Head of Department in reputed Ayurveda colleges and as a visiting professor and research guide. His core expertise includes medicinal plant identification and conservation, herbal drug standardization, extra-pharmacopoeial drugs, and Agastya Marma Shastra, a traditional therapeutic system inherited through a lineage-based Gurukula training. Dr. Ajayan is particularly known for pioneering nature-immersive education programs that teach Ayurveda directly within forests, sacred groves, and natural habitats, helping students understand medicinal plants in their ecological context. He has led ethnobotanical surveys across multiple Indian states, established institutional botanical gardens, documented rare endemic flora, and published research on Marma therapy, immunomodulation, and traditional herbal knowledge.