Mapping the History of Ayurveda

Culture, Hegemony and the Rhetoric of Diversity

K P Girija

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000481426
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

This book looks at the institutionalisation and refashioning of Ayurveda as a robust, literate classical tradition, separated from the assorted, vernacular traditions of healing practices. It focuses on the dominant perspectives and theories of indigenous medicine and various compulsions which led to the codification and standardisation of Ayurveda in modern India.

Critically engaging with authoritative scholarship, the book extrapolates from some of these theories, raising significant questions on the study of alternative knowledge practices. By using case studies of the southern Indian state of Kerala – which is known globally for its Ayurveda – it provides an in-depth analysis of local practices and histories. Drawing from interviews of practitioners, archival documents, vernacular texts and rare magazines on Ayurveda and indigenous medicine, it presents a nuanced understanding of the relationships between diverse practices. It highlights the interactions as well as the tensions within them, and the methods adopted to preserve the uniqueness of practices even while sharing elements of healing, herbs and medicine. It also discusses how regulations and standards set by the state have estranged assorted healing practices, created uncertainties and led to the formation of categories like Ayurveda and nattuvaidyam (indigenous medicine/ayurvedas).

Lucid and topical, the book will be useful for researchers and people interested in social medicine, history of medicine, Ayurveda, cultural studies, history, indigenous studies, and social anthropology.

1 The intersecting triad Kalari, Vishavaidyam and Ayurveda

DOI: 10.4324/9780429295966-2

The chapter delineates the transformations that took place in two indigenous healing practices or nattuvaidyam of Kerala, namely, kalari and vishavaidyam, in their co-existence and interaction with Ayurveda. The idea of knowledge that evolved in relation to these practices is analysed while contextualising the research and discussing a few key terms used in the book. The tenuousness of the popular and scholarly perception of nattuvaidyam as folk medicine, which is considered a marginalised tradition among medical practices in India, in contrast to the institutionalised and systematised modern Ayurveda has been given special attention. The study expounds the limitation of using modern taxonomy with strict boundaries to understand indigenous healing practices because each practice frequently intersects with other practices and are interconnected with a common underlying philosophy. The idea of taxonomy was not absent in indigenous medicine, but the philosophical underpinnings of taxonomy are different from the classificatory norms of a later period. However, in the early twentieth century, practices acquired authenticity and legitimisation through their association with linguistic and regional identities and upheld the norms of a new classificatory system. A majority of the texts used in Siddhavaidyam are in Sentamil (in the ancient Tamil language). The practice associated its origin and evolution with the Dravidian movement, Tamil language and the State of Tamil Nadu although the geographical and linguistic boundaries of the state were defined only in the twentieth century and the practice was spread across South India. Similarly, Ayurveda is projected as the health practice of India by interlinking its texts with the Sanskrit language and upper-caste practitioners. The umbrella concept nattuvaidyam used to describe varied indigenous medicines or ayurvedas were gradually transformed and divided into a systematised and codified Ayurveda and a supposedly non-codified and non-scholarly nattuvaidyam. The major norms in the theories in classifying some practices as scholarly and the other assorted practices into the realm of non-scholarly folk medicines are deliberated in this chapter. The chapter concludes by detailing the construction of a specific kind of history for Ayurveda in India, which resonates with the history of India, a particular reading of history where the decaying of the golden age of any valuable practice commences with the period of the Mughal emperors and is further accelerated during the colonial period. The transformations within two unique practices of Kerala, kalari and vishavaidyam, in particular, and nattuvaidyam vis-à-vis ayurvedas, in general, are discussed. The changes within nattuvaidyam that had happened over a period of time pinpoint to its earlier vital association with the ayurvedas and the contemporary dissociation from an institutionalised and modernised Ayurveda.

Methodological musings

In order to write about the emerging dominance of the historical, Prathama Banerjee argues, it is essential to understand the discursive and material processes through which the non-historical is constituted. She states that in the process of writing history, there are ways in which the primitive, the indigenous and the other are situated (Banerjee 2006, 9). Taking a cue from Banerjee, it is suggested here that to understand the privileging of certain knowledge systems such as modern Ayurveda over other indigenous healing practices/ayurvedas, one has to look at this process from the location of the latter, because assorted indigenous healing practices have been positioned in a particular way as marginalised practices in the history of the production of knowledge and in the making of modern Ayurveda. This makes possible the viewing of the discursive field through which the latter is validated as a significant site of knowledge. The processes not only involve the configuration of certain norms that endorse authentic knowledge but also function as the necessary conditions through which that knowledge can be accessed.

Methodological questions reflect the subject position of the researcher within the data gathered, the people interviewed, and the theories put into use to interpret these different registers. The success of the researcher lies in combining the three registers which often move in divergent directions. Dissonances arise between the theories and the field of research in the course of this work. But the conceptual tools provide firm support to hold the materials together without erasing their diversities and diverging character. This study has drawn from a variety of sources in its writing. These include government reports, correspondence and proceedings in continuation of the reports, government orders of the earlier princely states of Travancore and Cochin as well as that of Malabar/Madras Presidency, “Proceedings of the Committee on Indian System of Medicines”, the first “Committee Report on Indigenous Systems of Medicine”, etc.¹ Vernacular sources such as texts used for learning vishavaidyam and nattuvaidyam were also utilised. A variety of magazines on vaidyam such as Sukhashamsi (1922), Arogyavilasam (1926), Ayurvedic Gazette (1932–33), Ayurvedachandrika (1947), Aroghyabandhu (1958–68), Vaidyabharatham (1971–72), Physician Ayurveda Masika (1978), Ayurvedaratnam (1978), etc., published in the twentieth century have been examined along with the newspapers of that time. Dhanwantari, the first vaidya magazine published from British Malabar requires special mention. It started publication in 1903 and went on for 23 years initiating significant discussions on nattuvaidyam. Autobiographies and biographies of vaidyas, ballads used in kalari, etc., have also been used, apart from archival materials. Interviews of practitioners of vishavaidyam, kalari, siddhavaidyam and Ayurveda were utilised to supplement the textual materials.² The fieldwork comprised of extensive interviews, attending workshops and seminars conducted by the practitioners and protagonists and the observation of practices.

In the attempt to understand the epistemological premise of nattuvaidyam, the study raises a few questions. In vishavaidyam, the modes of classification (of snakes, other animals, plants and their poison, medicines administered, etc.) are different from the methods of modern scientific classification. Yet they follow a logic and pattern of broad classification which needs to be located in the specificity of the practice. Both kalari and vishavaidyam do not use written texts as everyday reference books for practice. However, the practitioners memorise verses through reiteration during the course of learning and use them as mnemonic devices at the time of practice. In kalari, the memorisation and reiteration happen at the level of the body and in bodily actions, through everyday practice. The vaythari or verbal codes have only a secondary role in practice.³ No texts are used in kalari as a ready-reckoner or as a reference book, either for doing kalarippayattu or for treating muscle injuries and bone fractures to date. But after the mid-twentieth century, a proliferation of texts can be seen, written by practitioners on marmavaidyam and published through both well-known and less-known publishers.⁴Kalarippayattu and related healing traditions still do the learning through everyday practice and not by referring to any texts, especially written texts.

In vishavaidyam, the reiterated and memorised verses act as a code for treating the person affected by poison. The vaidya may refer to a text in case of doubt, but generally s/he uses her/his memory to recall the series of medicines required for treating each case. A variety of medicines are prescribed in the texts for specific diseases and individual cases of poisoning. Forgetting one compound of medicine is not a matter of great concern, as the vaidya can easily recall another group of medicines. This was a common practice in indigenous medicine. In contrast, in the modern Ayurvedic educational institutions, learning takes place based on texts and thereafter in practical classes at hospitals. All this leads to the question of locating the diverse outlook and the congruence among the text, content and author in the different contexts of indigenous as well as modern Ayurveda practices. How does one approach practices which have a set of norms and codes in an oral textual form? This is a question that I encountered during this research and one which has not yet been resolved completely. The challenge was to situate indigenous practices that followed a unique set of techniques of learning and had a different approach to the body and health, within their internal logic and strategies.

Kalari and vishavaidyam, the two distinct knowledge practices, have been juxtaposed here to understand the specific and varied processes of transformation they have undergone over the years. One is ‘successful and organised’ if we posit a linear way of understanding progress, and the other is not ‘successful and organised’ but still has not become extinct. The transformation of the practices and their negotiations with the state as well as other practices, amidst their survival history is studied in the light of the increasing influence of modern education. ‘Education’ here refers to ‘modern’ educational practices that proliferated from the nineteenth century through various formal and informal systems. These included formal schools, colleges and universities that imparted education to students who enrolled in these institutions, as well as civil society systems such as the film societies, the library movement, the literacy movement and various programmes of non-governmental organisations meant to conscientise the masses.

Can we think beyond taxonomy?

In the context of this research, the two indigenous practices that I look into can be approached as healing traditions or medical practices. But they do not strictly follow the framework of this classification and address a wide range of issues concerning the body that cannot be classified as rational/irrational or scientific/non-scientific. Prescribing any medicine for the cure of a disease is invariably a suggestion to regulate the dietary regimen, reinstate the equilibrium of the body and bring about a change in lifestyle. Thus, these practices invoke a reordering of mental and bodily activities, implied in a ‘care of the self.’⁵ Diagnosing disease and prescribing medicine for it constitutes a procedure that takes into consideration not only the specific bodily dispositions but also the conditions of the humours in the body in order to give instructions for re-ordering the routines of the patient. Each practice could be seen as a code of conduct that leads to another code of conduct or another set of practices. The chikitsa or treatment considers other codes of practices like jyothisham (astrology) or mantram (magical incantation), and seemingly enfold an entirely different realm of philosophical schools.⁶ The boundaries of different practices overlap in such a way that a rational material practice leads to a non-rational one.

Kalari and vishavaidyam were distinct practices that prevailed in certain regions of South India that came to be named Kerala and Tamil Nadu. These practices were instrumental in the maintenance of health, vitality and well-being of the people. Through a study of these two practices, I try to ascertain the general nature of nattuvaidyam vis-à-vis Ayurveda and the transformations it has undergone from the nineteenth century. The practices also lead to the production of many vernacular texts that gave prescriptive and descriptive narratives about treatment. Vernacular languages have always been considered lower in status in relation to ‘main’ languages like English and Sanskrit. The very idea of the vernacular is produced within the larger discourse of hegemonic languages.

Kalari consists of bodily exercises that were categorised and reduced as a martial art in the early twentieth century. Forms of healing such as bone-setting and vital spot massaging were integral parts of kalari. In the medieval period, reading and writing or rather education was also an activity the kalaris were involved in (Ganesh 1997).⁷Kalarippayattu functioned as a dispute redressal mechanism of the kings as well as that of other people who could financially afford the practitioners (Vijayakumar 2000). As mentioned above, kalari constitutes a series of practices and overlaps with areas of indigenous education, sports and medicine, if we...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Glossary
• Introduction: Dialogic epistemes: Documenting the liminal space in indigenous medicine
• 1: The intersecting triad: Kalari, Vishavaidyam and Ayurveda
• 2: Conceptualising Ayurveda: Intersection of Print and Indigenous Medicine
• 3: Construction of a classical tradition: Refashioning Ayurveda
• 4: Foregrounding a functional body: The body in Nattuvaidyam
• 5: Reinvention of education: Consecrating knowledge in twentieth-century Kerala
• Conclusion: Vidya to Vidyabhyasam: Ways of Knowing to Knowledge
• Bibliography
• Index