[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.T.M.Nayar then proposed that the words ayurvedic system of medicine be replaced with  the pharmacological action ofIndian drugs. 22 Nayar s suggestion has two components.One is that  Ayurvedicbe replaced with  Indian, exhibiting either a sensitivity to non-brahman Tamiland unani practitioners and including their knowledge in the final proposal, ormore likely dismissing the rich and diverse histories of indigenous medical prac-tices, clumping them all together as  Indian to facilitate a more comprehensiveutilization of their possible medical and commercial benefits.The more significant transformation was less subtle, entailing a shift from theinitial goal of a broad study to encourage the development of ayurvedic medicine toan investigation of indigenous drugs in order to supplement and improve the bio-medical system.Leading biomedical doctors and colonial authorities therebyexpressed faith in the physical material of India but not in the knowledge pro-duced and recorded in, as surgeon general G.G.Giffard put it, the  unintelligibleSanskrit writings, a language of  priestly mysticism that is unsuited for scientifictruths.When M.C.Koman was appointed chairman of this committee and beganto carry out the investigation, the nature of this inquiry was not lost on the localvernacular press.The Andhrapatrika, a Telegu paper, observed that  the appoint-ment of Dr.Koman to make a research regarding these systems was not madewith the object of improving them but for incorporating in the English pharmaco-poeia the efficacious drugs which are used therein. 23 The Andhra Medical Journalalso took on the issue in an article in November 1922 entitled  Is Ayurveda to BeEncouraged? Or the British Pharmacopea to Be Enlarged? 24 The colonial plunder-ing of native material wealth with a rejection of indigenous forms of knowledgewas manifested in many realms, and medicine was no exception.Koman submitted three reports to the government of the Madras Presidencyfrom 1918 to 1920.In these reports, he considered a range of ingredients used forindigenous medicines and tested their effects on patients according to the stan-dards of Western science.What I want to focus on here, however, is not the KomanReport itself, but the response to this report by the Dravida Vaidya Mandal andthe Madras Ayurveda Society.The Dravida Vaidya Mandal represented primarilynon-brahman vaidyas who based their practices on Tamil texts, and the AyurvedaSociety represented brahman vaidyas who drew from Sanskrit works.Their Replyto the Report on the Investigation into the Indigenous Drugswas published in 1921.Aresponse of this sort was necessary, these practitioners argued, because the  learneddoctor, appointed by the Government, had thoroughly failed to understand theindigenous systems and had grievously erred on many vital points. Noting thatKoman judged the effect of some indigenous medicines as  beneficial, the vaidyascontinued that their protest  is not against what is declared as  beneficial etc., butcreating space for traditional medicine 25against the mortal wound inflicted on the vital parts. 25 These  vital parts areindigenous theories of health and the body, the areas of Indian medical knowledgethat colonial health administrators did not consider worthy of consideration.In his report, Koman asserts that  from what I have seen the science of Hindumedicine is still sunk in a state of empirical obscurity. 26 The vaidyas interpretthis rightly:  To them [Koman, biomedical doctors, and colonial authorities] theuse of drugs in Ayurveda is a matter of accidence [sic] which the learned doctorwas kind enough to say as  empirical.  27 Koman suggests that although there maybe some useful medicines in the indigenous pharmacopoeia, these were chancedupon by practitioners, not systematically hypothesized through the application oftheory.The vaidyas admonish Koman and the project in general for only beingconcerned with the properties of indigenous drugs while failing  to grasp the intri-cate principles of the indigenous systems [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]