Ayurveda
by Sheela Rani Chunkath
My friend rang up a couple of days ago and said "I have some good news for you". While I was expecting her to say she was to become a grandmother she said that her CT scan showed that her kidney stone had disappeared. She had been taking a kashayam of peelapoo (Aerva lanata) and nerunjil mullu (Tribulus terrestris). (Please refer to my previous article for details). In addition she was having the juice of banana stem and raw papaya salad.
The other good news was that my yoga professor at the University who said that with his yoga prescription he had been able to address the infertility issues of four young couples. Some more good news! We have an International Yoga Day thanks to the new Central government and perhaps also because the West have embraced and almost appropriated our yogic tradition (perhaps in ways many of us may not always be comfortable with).
Do we have to wait till the West gives its stamp of approval to ayurveda before we believe in its efficacy and before government allocates enough resources to mainstream ayurveda. In Tamil Nadu, for example, many of our health field workers are primarily trained in the allopathic tradition and because we are an efficient state we take the allopathic point of view to the field practically stepping out of our ancient traditional practices from which Ayurveda and Siddha developed synergistically.
To popularise Ayurveda we must first stop imitating the allopaths. If allopathy has a 5½ year course, ayurveda has a similar course; If allopathy has post graduate degrees, ayurveda have similar degrees, allopaths call their degree MBBS (Bachelor and Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) ayurvedists call their degree BAMS ( Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery). If the allopaths need a 800-bedded hospital to set up a college, the Central Council of Indian Medicine prescribes a similar requirement for an ayurvedic college. We need to break away from thinking in allopathic terms and start thinking in ayurvedic terms. Ayurveda is a science based on a 5000-year old tradition. It is based on the Prakriti of an individual, on individual constitution and a so how can we have double blind trials which are conceived of on an allopathic basis. The vaidyar examines the patient, determines his prakriti and vikritti, his life style, his habits and then prescribes his diet, changes in his life style, drugs and other treatments.
To do superficial research just because the West demands it or our Western trained administrators are comfortable with it is to do ayurveda a great deal of disservice. And that seems to be what is happening. That is the bad news. The Central Council of Indian Medicine even prescribes qualification like the Medical Council of India. Why should physics, chemistry and biology be compulsory subjects in the +2 for one to pursue a course in ayurveda? There may be children from traditional vaidyar families or even those who have a love for the subject who may not have taken these subjects in the +2. It is time that our ayurvedic studies break away from imitating its allopathic counterpart. I met a student from one of the private colleges of Ayurveda who was lamenting that unless they stuck to the allopathic definition of diseases they could not get marks. The private college was a good college but the requirement were as such. It is time that we completely restructured our ayurvedic courses so that we get good ayurvedic vaidyars rather than allopathic clones masquerading as ayurvedic vaidyars.
One cannot confuse the student of ayurveda and teach him the germ theory of diseases when you should be teaching him the tridosha theory of diseases. The Philosophies are different. What is being attempted now is to take Ayurveda as close to Allopathy as possible and this can only be disastrous for Ayurveda.
There is no harm in each system learning about the other system but it should be taught not at the expense of its own theories. Today’s modern Ayruvedic Vaidyars are a confused lot who have to intern in the vaidyasalas of the older more experienced vaidyars who have learnt their medicine from traditional ayurvedic physicians or those vaidyars who have no inclination to imitate the allopathy doctors. The good news is that the number of traditional vaidyars is slowly increasing and we hope that ayurveda will be able to come into its own and that ayurvedic vaidyars will learn to read the pulse rather than sling a stethoscope around their necks.
--- The writer is retired Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu. She can be reached at Sheelarani.arogyamantra@gmail. com. Earlier articles can be accessed at http://arogyamantra.blogspot.com/