Notes on the book “Modern and Global Ayurveda : Pluralism and Paradigms”
Modern and Global Ayurveda is a collection of papers presented at a 2004 conference convened by the Dharam Hinduja Institute of Indic Research at the University of Cambridge edited by Dagmar Wujastyk, an independent scholar in Indology at the University of Bonn and Frederick M. Smith, Professor of Sanskrit and Classical Indian Religions at the University of Iowa.
This book briefly touches the history of Ayurveda and then explores in detail its development in the modern times, its coexistence with classical western medicine, the ideological differences between the “ancient” and modern ways of teaching and practice, its growth in the West and it’s new appearance back in India. In other words, the book describes the current place of Ayurveda in our world.
The first chapter is an introduction to Ayurveda as a healing practice and the quick overview of its history. Here the two terms are drawn – “Modern Ayurveda” and “Global Ayurveda”. Modern Ayurveda refers to the ways of Ayurveda medicine in India, such as a tendency toward secularisation of the Ayurvedic knowledge and its adaptation to biomedicine. Global Ayurveda, on the other hand, refers to the Ayurvedic knowledge that has spread all over the world. Here also two directions are distinguished: the concentration on the scientific bases of Ayurveda and its promotion as a secularised discipline with no attachment to any spirituality or religion; and the popularised Ayurveda which became almost a synonym for the healthy positive lifestyle and is tied up with spirituality.
One of the most important points to be noted is that in Western countries Ayurveda is not a part of the medical mainstream and is not formally considered a medicine, which influences its legal status and its public acceptance. It makes the reader re-evaluate the structures of what we value as legitimate “knowledge” form so much of our social understandings.
The readers learn about the ways in which Ayurveda coexists with mainstream medicine, how it is welcomed by the Western cultures, especially now that the whole medical system is becoming plural with a high interest in complementary and alternative medicine. Here, what happens is that after the growth of western medicine with its separate approaches to mind and body it is beginning to accept a somewhat more eclectic approach to healing by letting in alternative medicine into the picture.
Throughout the book we also find an overview of the education and practice of Ayurveda in India and in other countries. The sole existence of the two different approaches to teaching and practicing Ayurveda – the “pure” Ayurveda and the modern type that is taught together with allopathic principles – has been a vital sign of the conflicting ideas within this system of knowledge.
These two approaches differ not only in the techniques used, but also in their connection with the spiritual side of the teaching, as one takes into account the spiritual nature of the medicine together with the empirical side, and another considers only the empirical science of Ayurveda. fact, Buddhist epistemology and some Indian philosophy would put spiritual knowledge at the top of the hierarchy. The author points out that it is of great importance to find a balance between there two approaches.
Another part of the book is meant to describe how Ayurveda is taught and practiced in modern India, which is a continuation of the previous topic in a way in that it is demonstrating the problems of standardization of Ayurvedic medicine which in turn influences the internal structure of this type of medicine as it has been reduced to being a supplier of pharmaceutical products. This way Ayurveda is losing its stance as an alternative system.
The fight between standardization and those following the classical personalied approach has been going on for decades as there are powerful Pros and Cons on both side of the argument. Chapter thirteen continues this topic by exploring the cultural part of the suppression and revival of Ayurvedic medicine in India, the reasons for an increasing popularity of Ayurvedic medicine and the difference between Ayurvedic practice now and before the rise of allopathic medicine.
One of the most important points here concerns the fact that the reduction of Ayurveda to just a pharmaceutical provider lowers its value as the system of knowledge and is destroying in from within. At the same time, some of the traditional Ayurvedic practices have been found to have integrated into the every day lives of people as traditions carried on for generations. These practices include using spices and herbs to aid the healing of an illness, which in fact is direct use of “pure” Ayurveda. Knowledgable Ayurvedic practitioners find that referring to some of these practices helps people accept and trust Ayurveda more as they begin to understand that they have been already using it in their families for generations.
This book seems to be a truly deep and detailed overview of modern-day Ayurveda, its roots and factors that shaped into what it is now. While there are many interesting points made in this book, I would like to reflect on those that struck me the most. First of all, the division between the two approaches of studying Ayurveda is very significant. What is especially striking to me is the way Indian students view Ayurvedic institutions – the fact that majority of the students go there only after not having been admitted to an allopathic college is something to take serious note of.
Basically, what happens is that they go there only to get “some” medical education and then go ahead and practice allopathic medicine. Interestingly, to a western mind a doctor who is qualified as both an allopathic doctor and an Ayurvedic practitioner seems to be superior in knowledge and skills to just an ordinary physician. Yet the reality is that most of the professionals who went to study in an Ayurvedic institution went there only because they were not able to pass the entrance exams to a regular mainstream medical school, which only shows that at least in some part their knowledge may be inferior to that of professionals who finished the allopathic colleges. It seems like thousands of people are involved in a big lie, a pretend play, and it is leaving a feeling of sadness and disappointment.
A similar feeling came up when I was reading about the way Ayurvedic medications are produced in our days, the “pharmaceuticalization” of Ayurveda. What this term implies is that in a way the whole system of Ayrveda practice is reduced to becoming a supplier of pharmaceutical products. This reduction of the larger deeper knowledge system is robbing it of its capacity to represent the alternative medical system (and that is what is happening with the educational issue as well). Standardization here wipes out all the personal touch in the preparation of the medicines as they are too time consuming and costly to perform.
Thus, there is no personal approach to the healing of people anymore, as these pharmaceuticals are produced on the basis of “one size fits all”. In addition, less economically fortunate parts of the population often don’t even ask the doctor for the prescription but go directly to the pharmacy instead and buy whatever the pharmacist advises them to. This way there is even no professional Ayurvedic practitioner involved at all.
To counter this approach some professionals try to resist standardisation of Ayurveda. As the famous Ayurvedic guru Pandit Shiv Sharma said in defense of non-standardized approach, the patients are non-standard, and their response to standardized drugs will not be the same. This is why a professional must create a medicine which would be a perfect fit for each particular patient. Yet, this approach to creating medications is very time consuming and expensive due to the labour involved, which is enough for pharmaceutical companies to dismiss these arguments and proceed with the production of drugs with concentration only on their chemical properties.
Resistance to classic Ayurvedic approach comes not only from the “Big Pharma” or the regulating institutions, but also from the people themselves. Patients don’t want to take time to heal themselves, instead they prefer to take a pill that would quickly eliminate the symptoms. Even if the patient turns to Ayurvedic medicine, he goes to the pharmacy to get something to reduce the symptoms, rather than to a doctor who would help him heal from within.
In some cases this happens due to the lack of money that people can permit themselves to spend on a doctors visit. Yet, more often the reason lies within a fear that Ayurvedic doctor would pose restrictions on the person’s diet, such as refraining from eating meat, spicy and fatty food, sweets, drinking alcohol, and smoking. Most people don’t want to restrict themselves.
This topic is something I find all over the world, not only in India. I have seen people overeat at a dinner and then take a pill that would aid digestion. I have seen people drink alcohol and then take a pill to feel better in the morning. I see people drink sugared soda drinks together with their meals and then take pills to lose weight. Our society as a whole is relying more and more on the pills, because pills mean quick results, no restriction, and most important – no effort.
We go to great lengths to achieve something outside of our beings, such as career growth, money, even building relationships and families. In all of this we forget about the value of our bodies. With an ever growing deficit of time, we save on our self-care, betting on quick resolution of daily problems. We leave out the long-term effect of this approach and turn to it only (if ever) in the moments of serious illness when already nothing can help. In this book we also find evidence that almost 90% of the patients in the Ayurvedic clinics had first tried allopathic medicine, and had turned to Ayurveda when nothing else helped, in desperate need to be healed.
Thus, the fundamental question that this book raises is for whom is this process of standardization if nobody, nor professional practitioners, nor the patients benefit from it. It seems that the only ones benefitting are the “Big Pharma”, as in the rest of the world and with the rest of the pharmaceuticals, and the only possible way out of this “tunnel” is reconnecting medicine with the social sciences, finding a common path where they could coexist without dominance of one or another, and where a great deal of the system would be dedicated to education of the people about their options in healthcare and the steps they could take in their lives to help prevent illness.