The History of the AAA is linked with the history of the development of Ayurveda in Australia. It all began in 1979 with the 1st International Congress on Traditional Asian Medicine, known as ICTAM, organised by the renowned Indologist and Head of the Department of Asian Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, Professor A. L. Basham, the author of A Wonder That Was India. Prof. Acharya Manfred Junius and Dr. Krishna Kumar were invited by Prof. A. L. Basham as Italian delegates to attend this breakthrough congress. This was the largest gathering of like-minded scholars, physicians, and practitioners of Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tibetan Medicine, Korean Traditional Medicine, Japanese Traditional Medicine and other forms of traditional medicine that ever took place on the subject on an International level.
From India alone there were over forty delegates including Ayurvedic scholars and practitioners, writers, physicians attending this congress led by the famous scholar, writer and physician, Vaidya Shiva Sharma of Bombay (now Mumbai).
The Congress was an astounding success, which led to the establishment of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine, also known as IASTAM.