Sri Lanka has its own indigenous scheme of traditional medicine, which is called “Hela wedakama” (apart from Ayurveda). This system has been practiced for thousands of years in the island nation. On the other hand, the Sri Lankan āyurvedic tradition is a mixture of the Sinhala traditional medicine, the mainland āyurveda and Siddha systems of India, the Unani medicine of Greece through the Arabs, and most importantly, the Desheeya Chikitsa, which is the indigenous medicine of Sri Lanka. College teaching of these systems began in 1929 at what is now the Institute of Indigenous Medicine of the University of Colombo. The Siddha Medicine Unit moved in 1984 to the University of Jaffna.