MS Valiathan's "Towards Ayurvedic Biology"

M S Valiathan wrote a great document titled “Towards Ayurvedic Biology: A Decadal Vision Document - 2006”. Valiathan is one of those extremely few thinkers who can straddle between different epistemic categories, in his case between modern biology/medical science and Ayurveda. We live in a dogmatic era of militant scientism, which pervades all scientific (even non-scientific) discourse. Valiathan was a cardiac surgeon, and the president of Indian National Science Academy. He also served as faculty at Georgetown University, PGIMER and IIT Madras.

I was surprised to find his trilogy on the Three Greats of Ayurveda: Caraka, Vagbhata and Sushruta. Unfortunately, since the publication of the decadal document, not much seems to have happened in terms of the methodological and ontological basis of Ayurveda. Epistemic shame is put on traditional forms of knowledge, in all fields, whether it is medicine, history, mathematics, sciences, etc. The “scientific” method usurps other forms of experience and investigation. I recommend Hayek's writing on scientism. 

Read also this passage from Sabira Zaidi:

Scientism, I must point out at the outset, is not to be confused with the spirit or temper of science, which is a most valuable asset of man. Scientism is rather an aberration in the sense of being a patently unscientific attempt to apply wholesale and uncritically the methodology and conceptual models of physical sciences to the study of human existence and experience. It holds the mistaken belief that all phenomena must ultimately be expressed in 'physical language', studies empirically, and presented quantitatively - a thing which cannot be put in the categorical test tube is suspect. In other words, it postulates that higher and more complex entities, can and should be explained in their lower, baser, or simpler elements, and the latter, being more tangible, are also more real. This may be described as the reductive fallacy.

Valiathan once wrote: 

At this time there is no common ground where physicists, chemists, immunologists and molecular biologists can interact with Ayurvedic physicians. Ayurveda is not only the mother of medicine but also of all life sciences in India. In spite of it, science has been completely divorced from Ayurveda... But these are the interdisciplinary areas where advances will take place". Earlier in another article, he had written, "To ignore the testimony of thousands of patients over many decades is reminiscent of the derisive attitude of Edward Jenner's contemporaries in Gloucestershire who despised the claim of milkmaids that cow pox gave them protection from small pox! When Jenner wrote to his mentor John Hunter on the observed facts and the arguments against it, Hunter gave his reply, "Why think? Why not experiment?". That applies to Ayurveda whose time to experiment has arrived.

Returning to the document, here are some key points that one can do well to think about:

...the soul of Ayurveda, suppressed for hundreds of years, found expression after India gained freedom.
....epidemiological transition in the developed world led to the realization that the elimination of infectious diseases by antibiotics was hindered by the development of bacterial resistance and more importantly, non-communicable diseases such as atherosclerosis, cancer and mental disorders were multifactorial in origin and not amenable to “one antibiotic – one microbe” approach."

A hymn to be chanted during the treatment of jaundice follows:
Let them (both) go up toward the sun, thy heartburn and yellowness;
with the colour of the red bull, with that we enclose thee
With red colours we enclose thee, in order to lengthen life;
that this man may be free from complaints, also may become not yellow.
They that have the red one for divinity, and the kine that are red –
form after form, vigour after vigour, with them we enclose thee
‘In the parrots, in the ropanâkâs, we put thy illness;
likewise in the haridravas we deposit thy yellowness.

At least the ancients knew that poetry can heal (and also wound). 

He (Buddha) was venerated as the supreme physician by Vagbhata because he could remove the sorrow (dukha) originating from birth, senility, and disease.

"Caraka’s House for Treatment (based on Caraka’s description and the design of houses in the Kusana period when Caraka lived: the house had rooms for patients, physicians, attendants, medications, procedures, musicians, story tellers and friends. It was located in serene surroundings."

This, more than most other things, demonstrates the truly integrated approach to getting well. It is hard to imagine, in a modern hospital, a room for musicians and storytellers and friends. 

In the Ayurvedic view, countless causes exist within the body and outside, but they are innocuous so long as they remain in equilibrium with the body constituents. They cause disease only when the equilibrium is breached by the individual’s imprudent use of his sensory and motor organs. As a corollary, the Ayurvedic management of diseases laid more stress on the restoration of equilibrium by a variety of measures, and less on the elimination of a cause.

Here is the full document.

-Mohit Patel