Saturday, December 20, 2008

Ayurveda- Time to introspect ourselves

Quest of a human being to find out ultimate truth of life have taken him many a miles in life. Ability of differentiation among good and bad segregate us from the category of canines. But as it enables us to become higher class and establish us on the top of the pyramid of evolution or we can say food chain, our ability to analyse and quest of running ahead of our mates incepts instability and jealousy. Later on it becomes a bad trait of our personality and hunger to succeed makes us vampires of real world and ultimately leads us towards self destruction.

Since the time Ayurveda made a come back on the global scenario, a debate started about the efficacy of Ayurveda medicines and its procedures. Whether it is scientific or a fluke was a big question mark on this science. Inability of the folks in the field to represent this philosophy in a scientific manner and lack of knowledge has put this ageless ancient tradition of healing on the back foot. Series of allegation and cross questioning to counterparts of the medicines will lead us nowhere but it shows our lack of patience. Time never remains the same, thus changes the mode of perception time to time, and accordingly changes the methodologies of our learning and teaching. So adoption of same laws does not hold significance. In the era of evidence based medicine practice to treat patients by old law will never earn a good name for the science. My statement is not contradictory, but if you go into the mode of self introspection, you will realize the relevance of my words. During the period when world was  not having a potent system of medicines, ancient intellectual entities of the world created a system of absolute healing, basic principles were drawn from the daily life. Ayurveda was built on the foundation of strong observational skills, and till date principles hold the truth. That was the time when various Samhita were written. But, if you observe centuries AD, none out us emerged with a work which can be compared to the Samhita. This is not an understatement but establishes our lack of application and intellect as well. How can we blame counter parts not to question us? Over the period of times, texts books have been published in view of passing exams and CCIM norms for syllabus books does not hold any relevance. I don’t know how many will agree to my opinion but I know 80% will come in opposition. Quality of the matter present in text books leads us to more and more confusion and tendency to translate or reiterate the books in the classroom shows the lack of innovation and teaching methodologies.

One can build many number of premium institute of technology, but if it does not produce any kind of innovative research and keeps on teaching older version of knowledge, I doubt the credibility of the Institution. Same is true for the premium institutes of Ayurveda. Knowledge that does not reaches to the mass, is as good as non existence of the same.

There is a big question whether Ayurveda Medicines have side effects or not? I say, they do have. And people who do not believe the same, for them answer is, go through ayoga, atiyoga and mithya yog lakshani. Sages were very clear of effects and efficacies, and it is mentioned that any subject becomes Siddhant only after a strong scrutiny and practice of the same over thousand times. So I insist on evidence based medicines. Though, if you plunge deeper into the texts you will realize that everything is there, but it needs to be sorted out. Only lack of application among us is there. What is the protocol of research in Ayurveda in leading PG Institutes? I remember one of my friends XYZ needed a PG thesis work for submission as deadline was nearing and requested me to offer the same, I was amazed and disappointed with the way he was going ahead and as per Sheshvat anumaana I can guess the condition of his mates. I don’t intend to take away the credit from real researchers and do respect them from the core of my heart. There is a lot of work which is yet to be done in this field and my article is not meant to hurt anyone but I wanted to appeal everyone to raise the bar of their practice and share the knowledge with everyone. Ayurveda need not to prove anything to anyone, but the torch bearers of the same need to prove their credentials and I am also one of them.

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