The Indian subcontinent has traditionally been home to a wide variety of healing systems and practices, some of which date back hundreds of years. However, the ‘antiquity’ of a healing method does not mean ‘immutability’, despite claims of being ‘timeless’. This study uncovers the changes and related manifestations and politics, particularly during the colonial period, of one such self-proclaimed “timeless” system of medicine called Ayurveda. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the rise and growth of ‘medical nationalism’ in India. As a result, “Individuation” was in demand both in the medical profession as well as in the selection of medical systems.
Besides the Indianisation of the medical profession, there was a simultaneous attempt to write off western medicine altogether and replace it with ‘native’ healing methods. It was in this context that Ayurveda was presented by its practitioners and promoters as the most worthy ‘indigenous’ system of medicine and a ‘true’ claimant to the ‘national system of medicine’ of India. This soon collapsed into an Ayurveda revival movement that fundamentally changed Ayurveda, thereby shaping the “modern” form of the so-called “timeless” healing tradition. Incidentally, the socio-economic context in which all these politics of ayurvedic revival unfolded had enormous implications for the final outcome. This study sets out to capture these overlapping and interacting reflections on the modern transformation of Ayurveda, the politics of a nation, and the overarching currents of contemporary society and economy.
In other words, likewise, Western medicine, late colonial Ayurvedic and allied health discourses were not isolated discourses of “science” and medicine; instead, it was simultaneously a socio-political debate. Forces of medical renaissance, social issues, and political concerns easily interwoven into it, thereby transcending established medical boundaries. Therefore, the Ayurvedic discourse during the period under discussion was not only about plague, malaria or other disease; but it was also about purdah, brahmacharyalanguage, caste, caste, community, nation, colonialism, etc. This work exposes these distinct non-Ayurvedic practices in the Ayurvedic revivalist discourse.
Furthermore, following the ethno-communal discourse, the Ayurvedic tracts emphasized the preservation of sperm in the wider interests of the ‘nation’ and ‘community’. Indeed, the basis of British supremacy was also seen in the conservation of sperm by the English. According to Jagannath Sharma, it was due to prowess in preserving sperm that the English had ruled India for more than 100 years. Similarly, Suryabali Singh in his text argued that it was due to the loss of sperm that “we lost our independence and received universal disgrace”. It was argued that until and unless the youth of India recognized the importance of brahmacharya and tended to preserve the seed, India could never regain her independence.
These texts praised Hanuman and Bhishma Pitamah for their lifelong brahmacharya and associated bravery. Brahmacharya was considered the greatest asset of a young man and loss of sperm was considered synonymous with death. Brahmacharya and Ways and Means of Preserving Semen (viryarakhanopayah) was also one of the subjects in the syllabus of the Ayurvedic course conducted by the College of Ayurveda, Banaras Hindu University. Interestingly, efforts were made to circumvent the popular romantic characterization of Krishna as well and to restore a chaste, celibate deity. In this regard, a reinterpretation of Krishna raslila (convincing dance) was attempted. It was argued that since Krishna was an ideal brahmachari with firm control over his senses, people from respectable families allowed their daughters and sisters to play with him.
One very remarkable feature of the Ayurvedic discourse on brahmacharya was that, despite imposing severe restrictions on male sexuality, along with an uncompromising attack on so-called “wrong” sexual practices (such as masturbation, nocturnal intercourse, anal intercourse, and prostitution), the “Hindu” male was rarely held responsible for indulgence. during these “wrong” sexual acts. In other words, the ‘Hindu’ male was often seen as an ‘innocent entity’ who was defiled by some outside agency. – whether it is “Muslim rule”, modern culture and institutions, or immoral sexual behavior “nautch girls’, prostitutes and lower castes etc. Thus the responsibility for polluting the ‘Hindu’ male was always on ‘the other’; and it often showed prejudices in caste, class, gender and society. In other words, in such discourse, the ‘Hindu’ male was largely portrayed as a ‘poor’, ‘innocent’ and ‘vulnerable’ figure who could be easily ‘distracted’.
Interestingly, the ‘new’ fields in India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries focused specifically on those aspects of the medicinal market that have been either spared or overlooked by practitioners of Western medicine such as the production of tonics and organisms, panaceas or aphrodisiacs – a trend that continues to this day. These ‘new’ vagrants were very much aware of the fact that the Ayurvedic movement could not sustain itself without proving its marketability and utility to the masses. Therefore, they often resorted to techniques alien to the classical system of Ayurveda to meet the demands of the consumer market. After all, unlike nationalism, Ayurveda was not an abstract ideology; it was a medical system that produced consumer goods. Therefore, it had to create its own market and “consumers” out of “users”, apart from the ideological and emotional mobilization of the masses.
Methods of book marketing are the least explored aspects of the early history of print culture in the Indian subcontinent. Nevertheless, an exploratory analysis of this aspect of print culture provides some interesting insights into the Ayurvedic print market. The best way to advertise Ayurvedic texts was through newspapers. Publishers like Naval Kishore regularly advertised their forthcoming publications in the acclaimed Urdu daily Awadh Akhbar. Other publishing houses also used such techniques, with newspapers and magazines having the largest circulation among printed materials. However, keeping in mind the cost of advertising, the more convenient and economical way to advertise the existing and upcoming Ayurvedic texts was the books themselves. Book lists or notices of upcoming publications can often be found at the beginning or end of Ayurvedic texts. Some of the publishers also offered detailed catalogs (art book) who gave the names, prices and basic content of the books they publish. One could also order these catalogs by mail.
Such advertisements of Ayurvedic texts often carried prominent phrases in bold letters to attract readers and interest them in the text. The author (who was a contemporary Ayurvedic practitioner as well) often praised his achievements to convince the reader of the effectiveness of the treatment offered in the text. Some of the publishers also adopted the policy of free advance booking of upcoming Ayurvedic texts.
In fact, the Ayurvedic texts had huge commercial potential as they were targeting the non-specialist readership market, which was really big. These tracts were not only for practicing vaids but, as was often claimed, also for the common householder or grihastha. Indeed, the possibility of becoming ‘one’s own doctor’, which these texts offered, was very attractive. Some of these texts claimed that they were written in such “easy language” and “clear manner” that even a “fool” could understand them and derive benefit from them. Furthermore, an economic incentive was also present as these texts mainly contained home remedies for common as well as complex ailments.
As this work shows, the late colonial Ayurvedic discourse and movement was as full of social and political content as it was of intention. Nationalism and the anti-colonial independence movement were key factors that nurtured and shaped the Ayurveda discourse during the period under discussion. This general political context was important to the movement to revive Ayurveda as the champion of ‘indigenous’ medicine, often claiming the status of India’s ‘national system of medicine’. However, as it has been delineated, in its quest to create a distinct ‘indigenous’ identity distinct from that of ‘colonial’ Western medicine, Ayurveda actually absorbs many of the defining characteristics of Western medicine itself such as institutionalisation, pharmaceuticalisation , standardization and professionalisation. Such ambivalence is perhaps the hallmark of any revival movement. Nevertheless, what makes the Ayurvedic revival movement more interesting is that while Ayurvedic practitioners adopted many features of Western medicine, they almost failed to internalize its most important feature. – spirit of investigation/experimentation. In the absence of such a spirit, Ayurvedic practitioners remained focused on the blind adoption of what may be called “ancient received wisdom” in modern times. It was precisely this lack of spirit of inquiry that made even Mahatma Gandhi hesitate to fully endorse this ‘swadeshi’ system of healing (that is, Ayurveda) in the field of medicine. In fact, Ayurvedic practitioners were in many ways trying to establish their dominance in the field of medicine without substance. They focused on rhetoric, organization, mobilization, etc., to revive Ayurveda as an “indigenous” medicine, but very few of them actually worked towards promoting new research in Ayurveda.
The present work also delineates the social dimension and content of late colonial Ayurvedic discourse. In parallel, the economic context in which the Ayurvedic revival movement developed has been discussed, with particular emphasis on the Ayurvedic print and pharmaceutical market. All this clearly shows the connections between the emerging discourses of Ayurveda, the ‘nation’ and various aspects of society (ie caste, caste, community and gender) in the late colonial period.
Excerpted with permission from Ayurveda, Nation and Society: United Provinces, c 1890-1950, Saurav Kumar Rai, Orient Black Swan.
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