Date : 07.04.94
In this article I would like to raise some questions about why Ayurved has not been given chance to considered scientific, and why this mistake is made by Govt. of India and our people at large.
I will start by an example, let us consider an Ayurvedic expert who has found out a drug that cures diabetes. He wants to find out whether this drug has different effect on the Kapha Prakruti, Vaat Prakruti and Pitta Prakruti persons. What ever be his results if finally he claims that diabetes is cures then any layman and any administrative officer in the Govt. of India and any scientific journal where he wants to publish his papers would expect that he finally carries out the blood sugar test and such other pathological tests which are actually bio-chemical tests to finally come to the conclusions diabetes has been cured. Let me repeat the objective of his experiment was not to prove whether diabetes was getting cured or not because objective of experiment was to find out how the same drug while curing diabetes behaves differently and patient shows different kind of response, depending on the prakruti of patient. So this person makes experiments with let us say 300 patients 100 each belonging to Kapha, Vaat and Pitta Prakruti and comes to a certain conclusion about the response time of the drug, with different prakrutees. Let us say that he finds a different behavior pattern and therefore further wants to prescribe different doses for patients depending on different prakrutees. Now such a paper will not be accepted by the so-called scientific would, unless he has in each case done the blood test.
I have discussed this imaginary experiment with many doctors both from Allopathy and Ayurvedic side and asked this question is it necessary that these results of the Ayurvedic man should be approve or authenticated by ICMR? The answer has invariably been ‘yes’. Although when asked this question in writing no agency neither ICMR nor CCRYS have confirm it is writing in fact none of them have acknowledged my letter.
I also wanted to know what was the reason that this case must be authenticated by ICMR and the answer was not and surprisingly I did not get what I was expecting. I got an answer which was quite unexpected to me and unacceptable. In my opinion this should go to ICMR for the simple reason that in this country ICMR is the only agency available with the Health Ministry which has to perform a dual rele the role of a facilitator as well as an authenticator. ICMR in collaboration with some studying Institute gives funds, gives sometimes manpower, sometimes equipments sometimes advice etc. so that an Institute can carry out certain experiments to establish certain fats, certain unknown facts and then finally when the Institute reports the completion of experiment ICMR’s role is changes into in authenticator’s role, during which ICMR will not work as a facilitator but of a critical examiner. They will examine the entire experiment in all points of view and then only their expertise will declare whether the experiment can be called successful or otherwise. The view of the ICMR then becomes final. Even though such an agency is available in Govt. of India it is very unfortunate that this agency work only in the field of Allopathy. If we compare another apex agency in Ayurveda namely CCRYS then everybody know that CCRYS does not perform the role of either a facilitator or an authenticator. Therefore the reason I would expect such an experiment to go to ICMR for authentication was because that is the only agency available for authentication. But unfortunately the answer was that the result has go to ICMR for authentication because the said expert has used the techniques of blood sugar to say that the diabetes was cured. This in my opinion is unacceptable because the result found out by the person mainly the blood sugar level had come down was only a biochemical technique. It was like a measuring rod. Today everybody can measure the length of a thing, today everybody can measure the temperature of something by using a thermometer, similarly, a person can send a blood samples to any pathological laboratory and the job of actually determining blood chemistry and All these experts is interested in knowing was whether the blood-sugar level has come down and this has nothing to do with Allopathy. Yet the ICMR’s arguments yet the arguments seems to be that it is because of this blood-sugar level which is involved in the experiment therefore the authentication must be done by ICMR. I would like to draw attention on a point that this person who has done his BAMS has studies the same Physics and Chemistry and Biology till his 12th std. as any other MBBS has done. He has studies the same pathology and chemical laboratory testing as an MBBS man has done. Then also why is it considered that he is not scientific while another MBBS is scientific. I raise this question because among educated classes they are believed to be various levels of scientific ness. Just as an MBBS would believe physics believes that a man of medicine is not scientific, because he does not understand so much of physics, so much of chemistry so much of maths and this ridiculous logic can be extended to any level. A person of mathematics does not believe that a person of physics of chemistry also scientific, because a maths expert ……………… in very very absolute and very very correct science. Now we also come to the question why I consider this ICMR’s authentication to be unacceptable. This is because the said experiment has two different aspects. One aspect is measuring blood chemistry by carrying out blood sugar test. Another aspect is of linking the observational data with the prakruti of the person. Therefore even if we grant that the first aspect is a monopoly of allopathy and not permissible to Ayurveda unless and until supported and authenticated by a Allopath. Even then my arguments remains that the second aspect is entirely Ayurvedic and ICMR does not today have qualification of dealing with such a subject. With in ICMR I am told that they exists …………… which is considered to be an expert in Ayurvedic field. But my submission is that any person can be considered an expert in a particular therapy only when that person has been treating patients by using that therapy and not advice. Simply bookish knowledge, theoretical knowledge, reading books, even passing exams but not treating patient is not sufficient to get any person any experience. And hence it is atmost necessary that an apex body like ICMR must be a well provided with sufficient manpower drawn from such people who had understood Ayurved, who have practiced Ayurved and who have also understood Allopathy. I would also say that today the reason has CCRAS is not able to perform the role of an authenticator is because no person in CCRAS is understanding in depth………….. biochemistry as understood by allopathic doctors. What do the pathological tests mean as they mean to the allopathic doctors. Also within CCRAS I feel that there are no persons who think in terms of redesigning experiments from Ayurvedic stand points. If we have to create an agency which can both as a facilitator as well as an authenticator within Indian System of Medicines then by submission is that, we are not looking for an expert Ayurvedic man who does not understand Allopathy or an expert Allopath who does not understand Ayurveda. But a person who has used both, then only such a person can fulfil a proper role of giving a lead to the scientific development of Ayurveda.
The objective of this article is to examine whether Ayurveda should be considered scientific or not. In my opinion Ayurveda is science. If we consider the history of Ayurveda and history of evolution of knowledge in Indian society, we find that as in modern society so also in old society. The science and technology are two different things. Science develop out of thinking and deliberation were as technology evolves out of science in such a way as to make a practical application of the scientific theory evolved. In this ………. We find that the philosophies which developed in Indian culture particularly the sankhi philosophy was providing the basic scientific, theoretical, philosophical background. On the basis of which the application of which the technology developed in fact various technologies developed. But the most prominent among them was the technology of Ayurveda. We could say that the other technologes that developed in fact Atharva Ved mentions four up Vedas 1) Ayurveda 2) Dhanurveda 3) Arthashastra & 4) ………… & these could be considered as technologies developed out of the pure sciences, manly sankhya. Sankhya is a subject that talks about, that considers the question how a human body is made. It considers the questions how the world is made, how the universe was made and comes to certain conclusions. It comes to conclusions that there are elements and there are 5 elements and these make the entire universe as well as the body and hence the concept “ “. It comes to the question of how the body gets nutrition and the answer is again that the body gets nutrition from these five elements. How do these elements give nutrition to the body, the answer is “ that means these five elements together work to create first of all the plant kingdom from where the animal kingdom gets the food. All these are the scientific research ? It is like Newton saying that all light that we see is made up of corpuscle and these corpuscle travel in a straight line and then they make impact in one eye and we see an object. This explanation is some what very similar to the explanation given by the Sankhya philosophy of a creation of five elements and from their the creation of the world.
Now, Newton belongs to 13th century – 17th century which is about 3 to a thousand years after the concept of Sankhya is developed in Indian culture. It is but natural that the science of physics changed and improved and developed and now we believe that light is not particles but waves and the wave theory and light continue for several years, several countries. Till in 20th century finally somebody established that light consists of several particles called which are packets and bundles of energy therefore they show the behavior of a wave propelled with energy. By this experiment I want to show that science is an ever developing thing and its application namely technology is therefore also an equally developing thing. Unfortunately, it can be seen that after Sankhya, the development of science went too much towards the side of psychology and therefore the scientific development that we see after Sankhya comes more in the side of ‘Atma Chintan’, ‘Vedanta’, ‘Adwaita’, ‘Buddhism’, Jainism etc. In fact the Buddhist literature could be said to be one of the best literature available for various psychological experiments and psychological.
The theory of Pradnya, the theory of Sheel, the theory of Ahimsa, the theory of Truthfulness, the theory of Krodh and Abhay. This philosophy of Buddha and Jain looks very different to the western world, because many of western philosophers if we look at their own life history we find that what they were in their actual life was quite different from what they stated in their philosophical volumes and yet these philosophical volumes have been accepted by people as great work. But the philosophers themselves have never been elevated to the level of God, as Lord Buddha or Lord Jain or Mahavir Jain were. Because these are the people who did not preach or write a philosophy but they behaved that philosophy. That apart, the point remains that the entire scientific development within Indian society during the BC 1000 to AD 1000 remained considered to the development of psychology, maths, but never to the developed what could be considered as further development of physics and chemistry. It appears that the chemistry did develop because we developed the science of fabrics, we the science of dying, but these developments are all technological developments, and not scientific developments. They Ayurveda that develops from the old science and continued as a technology used even till today, has not been able to give the support, the necessary theoretical support which comes to any technology when the corresponding science is also progressing hand in hand and therefore today if we want to make another quantum jump in the field of Ayurved then instead of saying that what was written 4000 years back is the final and ultimate truth. We must come forward to make a good viewing of the physics and chemistry into Ayurved. If we must make a good viewing of the biology, genetics, pathology into the Ayurved and then only work of Charwak and Sushrut. Unless the Ayurvedic community upto this Ayurved willl remain what it was 4000 years back and we would never be able to claim that India can produce scientists who are able to once again as to take a big as Sushrut or Charak did.
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In the whole dictation above a point about astronomy is also to be mentioned, because in those days astronomy also developed as a science.
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