AYURVEDA

Ayurveda India’s traditional medicine has been in practice for close to three millennia. Even today, this ancient system serves the need of millions of Indians

The adaptation of a traditional knowledge system for current use comes with its challenges, which, if dealt with lackadaisically, can endanger the welfare of its users

Few challenges that the Ayurveda establishment has for long failed to skillfully address

SPECULATION VERSUS FACTS

• They contain useful portions alongside obsolete ones. Therefore a dispassionate sifting through their contents is a prerequisite for their prudent practical use.
• Valuable observations relating to health promotion and illness management need to be carefully shifted from outdated theories, implausible conjectures, and socio-religious superstitions.
• An example would make this point clear, while documenting its observation of the benefits of physical exercise, an Ayurvedic classic notes-a sense of ease, improved fitness, easy digestion, ideal body weight and handsomeness of bodily features are the benefits that would accrue from regular exercise.
• These observations are as valid today as they were1500 years ago when they were first documented. But such continued validity cannot be claimed for the physiological and pathological conjectures the same text contains

FACTORS RESPONSIBLE

• Two main factors-one theoretical and the other epistemological have led to this sad situation.
• The tridosha theory of Ayurveda is a rough and ready model that the ancients devised to systematize their medical experience.
• Clinical features of illness and therapeutic measures to manage them were all classified based on this heuristic model.
• Recasting the theory in a way that retains the relevant aspects while jettisoning the obsolete parts is a priority area in Ayurvedic research.
• The research centres under the Ministry of AYUSH have remained oblivious to this important work and their omissions have resulted in retaining the theory, lock, stock and barrel. Consequently, outdated pathophysiological conjectures have become fossilized in the current approach to the subject.
• The other factor that has been instrumental in choking the renewal of Ayurveda is the widespread belief among its academics that ancient texts, by their being divined by sages in deep yogic states retain timeless relevance.
• This notion of epistemic superiority has its roots in the hugely influential memorandum on the Science and Art of Indian Medicine authored by G.Srinivasa Murti.
• The memorandum formed the part of two reports; of the Usman committee (1923) and later, of the Chopra committee (1948).
• The flawed idea, antithetical to the Yukti –Vyapashraya (reason-based) character of classical Ayurveda, has kept the field from demystifying its theories and achieving the reforms long overdue. In short, the belief in epistemic superiority has dethroned ancient medical writings from being revisable scientific treatises into being dogmatic scriptures.
• A century ago, P.S.Varier of the Arya Vaidya Sala Kottakkal noted that the Sareerasthana (section on body structure and function in the Ayurvedic classics) must firstly be revised and made clearer and the remaining parts must be suited to it
• Secondly after this the other important works should also be corrected. Necessary additions must be made either by translations or by collaboration with experts in portions still deficient.