Maharishi Ayurveda

Maharishi Ayurveda is an Ayurvedic health and personal-care brand that began in India in the 1980s. It takes its name from the Maharishi Ayurveda health system, which Wikipedia describes as a form of alternative medicine founded in the mid-1980s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the man who developed Transcendental Meditation [7]. The company dates its official founding to 1986 [1], although its website also carries the slogan "Bewährt seit 1987" ("proven since 1987"). Most of its range consists of herbal food supplements, teas and Ayurvedic foods, with a smaller line of certified natural cosmetics for the face, hair, body and mouth.

Manufacturing takes place in India, while the European business is run from Roermond in the Netherlands. The brand is active and describes itself as selling in more than 50 countries. Its story is closely tied to the wider Maharishi movement, which has drawn criticism in a leading American medical journal, including over the marketing of its products and the discovery of lead in some items made by related companies.

According to the company's own history, the Vedic scholar Maharishi Mahesh Yogi brought together leading Ayurveda experts from across India in the late 1970s, along with Western physicians and scientists. Their task, as the brand tells it, was to collect and complete the old Ayurvedic texts and to check them with modern scientific methods. The system that came out of this work was named Maharishi Ayurveda.

Wikipedia presents the same system, also known as the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health, as distinct from traditional Ayurveda. It places weight on the role of consciousness and on positive emotions, and uses Transcendental Meditation as its main practice. Practitioners also use pulse diagnosis to look for what they call "imbalances", and then recommend herbal preparations, diet and daily routines. Wikipedia contrasts this with the traditional Ayurvedic doctor, who diagnoses and treats each patient individually, and describe the Maharishi version as a mass-market approach.

The brand credits Maharishi Mahesh Yogi with starting the system, but no individual founder of the company itself is publicly named. Wikipedia credits a different person, Balraj Maharishi, with introducing the original product, the herbal tonic Maharishi Amrit Kalash [7].

The founding date appears in two forms. The company's timeline states that Maharishi Ayurveda was officially founded in 1986 to make authentic Ayurveda accessible in a modern setting. The "since 1987" slogan instead matches the year its first production site opened. This article follows the explicit 1986 founding statement.

In 1987 the company opened its first production site, in Noida and Faridabad in northern India, to make Amrit Kalash. Over the late 1980s and the 1990s it expanded into Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, building the European arm that runs its webshop today.

In 1997, the company says, it received recognition from the All India Ayurvedic Congress for preserving and structuring traditional Ayurvedic knowledge [1]. During the 2000s it put more weight on quality control and on meeting European Union rules for food supplements and cosmetics.

Maharishi Ayurveda also says it was the only maker of Ayurvedic products chosen for the Indian Ministry of Health's Golden Triangle Partnership, a project linking the government's Department of AYUSH with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research [1]. The website does not say when this took place.

By its own account the company now employs about 2,000 people in India and sells more than 200 products to pharmacies and practitioners. It names India, Germany, the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia among its markets. Counting from its stated founding year, the brand reached its 40th year in 2026.

No parent company is publicly identified. The European website and webshop are operated by Maharishi Ayurveda Europe B.V., registered in Roermond, the Netherlands, with Shantanu Banerji and Dr. Richa Shrivastava listed as managing directors [5]. The company calls Roermond its headquarters. Wikipedia refers to the European business by a slightly different name, Maharishi Ayurveda Products Europe B.V. [7]; no change of name has been announced.

The European site says its formulations are developed by MAP India, but it does not describe the ownership link. Wikipedia lists the European company alongside other product companies tied to the Maharishi Ayurveda system: one in New Delhi, India, and Maharishi Ayurveda Products International (MAPI) in Colorado Springs in the United States. MAPI is in effect the American sister company of the European business.

Maharishi Ayurveda describes its aim as supporting health with Ayurvedic herbal products rooted in classical principles. Its formulas and lifestyle advice are meant to promote balance, which Ayurveda treats as the basis of well-being. The company says it does not compromise on classical recipes, on where it sources raw materials or on traditional preparation methods, and it lists authenticity, purity, quality and safety, and sustainability as its core values.

The brand presents itself as more than a product seller. Alongside the shop it offers personal consultations with Ayurveda practitioners, webinars and workshops, a short online course, an online "dosha test" built around Ayurveda's three doshas, Vata, Pitta and Kapha, treatments and retreats at selected centres, and training courses for professionals.

Sales run through several channels. Besides its own webshop, the company supplies a network of European specialist retailers and health professionals who work with its formulas [4].

On sourcing, the company states that most of its ingredients are organically grown or come from certified wild harvesting and selected organic partners, many in the Himalayan highlands. It also says it uses eco-friendly packaging where possible and ships parcels carbon-neutrally through DHL GoGreen.

The signature product is Maharishi Amrit Kalash, sold in two parts as MA 4 and MA 5. It is a herbal food supplement that the company calls its first product and describes as a "universal tonic"; its marketing also calls it a "super-antioxidant". These are the brand's own descriptions rather than independently tested claims.

The cosmetics line is a smaller part of the range. It carries the German label "kNk", short for "kontrollierte Naturkosmetik" (controlled natural cosmetics), and covers oral care, face care, hair care, body oils and aromatherapy oils. Named products include the Ayurdent Classic toothpaste, a Cleansing Milk, the Radiant Skin Oil face oil and a Skin Tonic. Product copy for an Ayurdent gum-care oil says it works against plaque and soothes the gums; no independent testing of this claim is documented.

Maharishi Ayurveda says it now relies entirely on certified natural cosmetics under the COSMOS standard [1], and states that it helped develop the earlier German BDIH standard. Its website also displays seals for ECOCERT, an organic seal, the Vegane Blume (vegan flower) mark, ISO 9001:2008 quality management, ISO 22000:2005 food safety, HACCP, WHO good manufacturing practice and good laboratory practice. These seals are shown without saying which products they cover.

Besides the 1997 recognition from the All India Ayurvedic Congress, the company displays an AYUSH Premium Mark Award; the year it was granted is not stated.

The controversies recorded around the Maharishi Ayurveda name mainly concern the Transcendental Meditation movement's activities in the United States, the American company MAPI and the Indian manufacturer, rather than the European business directly.

In 1991 the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article by Andrew Skolnick. It reported that the authors of an earlier letter to the journal promoting Maharishi Ayur-Veda had not disclosed financial ties to organisations selling the products, and it described the movement's marketing as misleading [7]. Two Transcendental Meditation organisations, then headed by Deepak Chopra, sued Skolnick, the journal's editor and the American Medical Association for libel. A court refused their request for an injunction in August 1992, and the case was dismissed without prejudice in March 1993 [7].

Also in 1991, a British case found two physicians guilty of serious professional misconduct for using the Maharishi approach in the unsuccessful treatment of HIV.

In 2008 a JAMA study by Saper and colleagues tested Ayurvedic products bought online and found detectable lead in two of 19 products from MAPI, named as Vital Lady and Worry Free. MAPI responded that it tests its products for heavy metals [7]. The same year, a lawsuit in the United States alleged lead poisoning from Garbhapal Ras, a herbal and mineral product made by the Indian company and bought at a clinic in Delhi. The Iowa Department of Public Health reported that the product contained nearly 3% lead [7].

Maharishi Ayurveda is active. Its webshop is trading, and its health blog published a run of new articles in September 2026, the latest on 25 September about the traditional herbal blend Triphala [6]. The brand describes its reach as global, with the European company in Roermond serving customers and trade partners across Europe.