Dr. David Frawley is one of the few Westerners ever recognized in India as a Vedacharya or teacher of the ancient wisdom. In 1991 under the auspices of the great Indian teacher, Avadhuta Shastri, he was named Vamadeva Shastri, after the great Vedic Rishi Vamadeva. In 1995 he was given the title of Pandit along with the Brahmachari Vishwanathji award in Mumbai for his knowledge of the Vedic teaching. Over the years Vamadeva has received many awards and honors for his work from throughout India.

Vamadeva (Dr. Frawley) carries many special Vedic ways of knowledge (vidyas), which he passes on to students in India and in the West. His vast knowledge is rooted in intuitive and past life influences, as it is more than could be gained in a single life experience, though he has studied many traditional texts and with many teachers.

In India, Vamadeva is recognized not only as a Vedacharya (Vedic teacher), but also as a Vaidya (Ayurvedic doctor), Jyotishi (Vedic astrologer), Puranic (Vedic historian) and Yogi, a rare feat for an American born in Wisconsin. He is now a visiting professor for the Vivekananda Yoga Kendra in Bangalore, India, a government approved deemed university for yogic and Vedic studies and also a teacher with the Sringeri Shankaracharya Math, the most central of the traditional Vedantic centers in India.

In India, his translations and interpretations of the ancient Vedic teachings have been given the highest acclaim in both spiritual and scholarly circles. In America he is well known as a teacher and practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine and of Vedic astrology (Jyotish) and has done pioneering work on both these subjects in the West. In Sept. 2000, he was regarded as one of the 25 most influential Yoga teachers in America by the magazine Yoga Journal.

Vamadeva (Dr. Frawley) presents authentic Vedic knowledge in the Western world and in a lucid presentation recognized by the tradition itself. He has worked extensively teaching, writing, lecturing, conducting research and helping establish schools and associations in related Vedic fields over the last thirty years. He has studied and traveled widely gathering knowledge, working with various Vedic teachers and groups in a non-sectarian manner. Presently, he is working with closely with the Vedic Cultural Fellowship to establish a major teaching and retreat center.

Vamadeva sees his role as helping to revive Vedic knowledge in an interdisciplinary approach for the planetary age. He sees himself as a teacher and translator to help empower people to use Vedic systems to enhance their lives and aid in their own Self-realization. He sees Vedic wisdom as a tool for liberation of the spirit, not as a dogma to bind people or to take power over them. Vedic knowledge is a means of communing with the conscious universe and learning to embody it in our own life and perception.

He has authored a virtual library on the Vedic Sciences and Hinduism. Further information on his books, courses and articles can be found at the American Institute of Vedic Studies.

Vamadeva has been a devotee of Ramana Maharshi, the great sage of South India, since 1970. He specially carries on the work of Ganapati Muni, one of Maharshi's chief disciple, whose teachings he received through K. Natesan of the Ramanashram in 1991, who he has been in close contact with ever since. Natesan passed on Ganapati's writings to him, many in hand written form never published, for their preservation and propagation. Ganapati's work that he has taken up includes both the Vedas and Tantra, as well as Ayurveda and Jyotish

In 1988, Dr. Frawley created the American Institute of Vedic Studies to promote special programs in Ayurveda (Vedic medicine) and Vedic Astrology (Jyotish), perhaps the two most practical aspects of Vedic Science. The Institute is now involved in major activities in these two related fields, which constitutes the main course material that it offers. But it also has extensive activities in other Vedic fields as well.