This school is mandated to explore the relationship of the basic natural and social sciences such as biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, sociology and history with Ayurveda.
The centre will also explore the connections between Ayurveda Padarth Vignyan (Basic Concepts) and recent innovations in biosciences (such as complexity, fractal physiology, critical regulation and other quantum treatments).
Of late, there is a renewed interest in traditional Indian knowledge systems, especially those that directly impact our lives like Ayurveda and Yoga, in many parts of the world. In the last few decades, there has been a wide acceptance of Yoga in western nations and a growing exploration of Ayurveda. More and more people from all over the world are also flocking to India to get the Ayurvedic solution to their health problems. As the demand for Ayurveda is increasing, there is also a corresponding increase in the number of scientists studying and conducting research in the field of Ayurveda.
Though the number of persons studying and conducting research in the field of Ayurveda has increased multifold, there has not been a matching increase to facilitate learning and research in this field. Necessary and efficient tools have not been developed to facilitate easy and correct understanding of the Ayurvedic texts.
Further, it is to be noted that the system of Ayurveda has very strong foundations, both theoretical as well as practical. While the practical foundations are well established, the theoretical foundations based on the other Vedic systems, especially the six systems of Indian philosophy, in the required manner.
Unless the theoretical foundations of any subject is strongly established, it would be impossible for the practice of that subject to stand the test of time and other vagaries and sustain itself in a proper manner. Therefore it is imperative for a comprehensive medical science like Ayurveda to be established on strong theoretical foundations, based on which it can serve the world for a long long time. It is to undertake this very important, difficult and mammoth task that the Centre for Theoretical Foundations has been carved out as a separate Department under the school of trans-disciplinary studies of the IAIM, FRLHT.
Medical Manuscripts Programme
The Indian medical heritage has been extremely productive. India has one of the largest collections of medical manuscripts of any civilization in the world. While there is no precise enumeration of the number of manuscripts, estimates vary widely, putting it in the region of 20000 to 100,000 manuscripts. Several of these manuscripts are now in institutions such as – Oriental Manuscripts Libraries, Indological Research Institutions, Universities, Mutts and Archives and many are still in private collections. Manuscripts are also available in foreign libraries in U.K., France, Germany & USA and in Asian countries. It is based on this rich medical heritage that the Indian Medial Systems, especially Ayurveda is established. IIAM has, out of its own vision and concern, undertaken a pioneering and exhaustive programme for the preservation of the Indian Medical heritage by accomplishing the following tasks:
- Cataloguing – physical and e-cataloguing
Though the Indian Medical Heritage, is very rich, having more than a hundred thousand works on its different aspects, proper cataloguing has not been done either that will help in identifying or accessing these most important treatises. Manuscripts in general and the medical manuscripts in particular form a precious part of India’s cultural heritage. The urgency for initiating a program for conservation of medical manuscripts is firstly because there exists a real danger of losing a large number of manuscripts due to neglect. Realizing this great risk, and also recognizing the drawbacks in currently available catalogues of manuscripts in general and medical manuscripts in particular the IAIM has undertaken the difficult task of cataloguing all the Medical Mss available today. Apart from developing a physical catalogue of all medical mss, it has also developed an electronic Descriptive catalogue that will soon be hosted on its website that will give comprehensive information about any medical mss anywhere in the world, at the click of a button.
- Training in Medical Manuscriptology
The medical manuscripts that form the bedrock of Indian Medical Heritage are in forms of palm-leaf, old hand made paper and birch-bark. These mss have been written in ancient scripts like Grantha, Sharada, Nandi Nagari and so on, that too in a cryptic style. Even scholars well versed in the Indian Medical systems are unable to even decipher the text of these mss. This poses another major risk of the valuable information being lost to us. Unless human resources are developed to decipher, transcribe and edit these medical mss, this risk cannot be overcome. For this purpose, IIAM conducts comprehensive training programmes concerning all aspects medical manuscriptology where scholars and practitioners of Ayurveda are trained in deciphering, digitizing, cataloguing and editing Medical mss. The IIAM has also published a book called ‘Handbook of Medical Manuscriptology’ for this purpose. The most recent programme was spread over 7 weeks and was well-received by the participants.
- Digital Library of Medical Mss
To ensure that the valuable information housed in the rather brittle medical mss that are made of ancient palm leaves and birch barks, the CTF of IIAM also has a programme to acquire and preserve the digital copies of such important medical mss. Since the mss are digitized using high-end digital cameras and stored in DVDs, even if the original mss are lost due to various reasons, the digital copies of the same will remain intact for many centuries to come and they can be deciphered, edited and published at one’s own pace. This is another important initiative undertaken by the CTF in the preservation and propagation of the ancient texts dealing with Indian Medical Heritage.
- Publication of unpublished / important medical mss with translations etc
As the next logical step of cataloguing medical mss and training personnel in deciphering medical mss, IIAM has also undertaken the mammoth of publishing with translations into English (and in due course, other Indian languages), all the unpublished medical mss with valuable appendices. For this purpose it has identified the areas of Dietetics and ‘Nadi Vijnana’ on priority and is seriously working in this direction. Till date, it has brought out a valuable work on dietetics called ‘Kshemakutuhalam’ with English translation and annotations. Many more such valuable works are in the pipeline.
Programme for Strengthening of theoretical Foundations
The Indian Knowledge systems that have been in vogue for the last many millenniums, regard Ayurveda as one of the Upa-Veda-s (minor Veda-s), of the Rig-Veda. Ayurveda, being an Upa-Veda it has played a very significant role in the lives of people in the Indian sub-continent for many millenniums, catering to the health needs of all sections of the society. Each of the Indian philosophical systems has contributed to the evolution and practice of Ayurveda in its own unique and extensive manner. This was well known to the old practitioners of Ayurveda, for whom learning Sanskrit Language and some works of the Indian philosophical systems was mandatory. However in Ayurvedic educational institutions established after 1947, not much research has been conducted into this aspect so far. No documentation, as such, is available with regard to the part played by the Indian philosophical systems in the various subjects pertaining to Ayurveda. This has resulted in the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda being neglected to a very great extent.
- Conducting of RoTP programmes
To overcome this lacunae, IAIM conducts Re-orientation Training Programmes (ROTPs) for lecturers of colleges of Ayurvedic colleges from all over India. These programmes are spread over a week’s time, and are residential in nature. Expert resource persons are invited to train the participants and the deliberations will be interactive in nature. Relevant study material is also provided to the participants.
- Seminar of contribution of Indian philosophical systems to Ayurveda
A National Seminar was organized the CTF of IIAM on “Contribution of Indian Philosophical Systems to Äyurveda”, and held on the 6th and 7th of October 2007 at Choksi Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The Seminar was aimed at improving the understanding of the theoretical foundations of Äyurveda. The seminar was sponsored by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi and co-sponsored by Himalaya Drug Company, Bangalore and Arya Vaidya Pharmacy, Coimbatore. Stalwart scholars from different parts of India participated in the seminar and deliberated on the topics of discussion. Post graduate students of Ayurveda from all over the country attended the seminar. Poster presentations were arranged to disseminate the salient aspects of the topics.
The seminar ended with a panel discussion that stressed on the preparation the following for strengthening the theoretical foundations:
- Necessity of graded language texts in order to teach Sanskrit. They should cover at least three levels of difficulty and should be designed using Äyurvedic terminologies, idioms and phrases. They must be based on Päëinian grammar.
- Study of a Kävya text, at least one to two cantos of a Mahäkävya to be made compulsory.
- A small primer must be designed in order to introduce the students to the etymology of Äyurvedic terms.
- Primers on Nyäya-Vaiçeñika philosophy must be designed keeping Äyurveda in focus.
The proceedings of the seminar which will serve as a handbook on the above subject are also being published.
- Preparation of study material for strengthening the same
As a sequel to the above, study material on the basics of the theoretical foundations has been prepared. This material is prepared in such a manner that even persons not familiar with the basic tenets of Indian philosophy or Ayurveda, but having basic education of the pre-university level would be able to understand the same without undergoing undue difficulty. It also focuses on the syllabus that is prescribed for the BAMS courses at the Graduate level.
Literary research and outreach programmes
- Encyclopedia of Ayurveda
Textual research is one of the most important aspects that is very much required to strengthen the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda. As on date, this is one of the most neglected aspects in the field of Ayurveda. Further, students and researchers of Ayurveda are not well-versed in Sanskrit and hence are greatly handicapped when it comes to understand the technical terminology used in the source works of Ayurveda. Many a times, they are totally at a loss in explaining the exact meaning of such terms. This is greatly hampering proper understanding and dissemination of the original texts. To overcome this problem the CTF of IIAM has undertaken a very ambitious project of preparing Encyclopedia of Ayurveda both in print and electronic formats. This encyclopedia is a totally unique and mammoth one that gives extensive information about any technical word that is used principally in the Brihat Trayi and Laghu Trayi works of Ayurveda and other works also. Information about each word is given in 11 fields, which will help the person referring to the encyclopedia to get a complete picture of the meaning of the word along with its connotations, and references from all important source works of Ayurveda.
- Preparation of e-books
As a spin-off of the above project, IIAM is also engaged in the developing e-books of important Ayurvedic texts. These e-books have extensive facility like searching the given texts for specific words, topics and so on. This will eliminate the need for physically carrying around heavy books and also facilitate searching and locating any required information at the click of a button. Presently one e-book having four important Ayurvedic works is being released for public use and many more are in the pipeline.
- Project on Nadi-Vijnana
Recently many efforts are being made to strengthen the Ancient Medical system of Ayurveda on the basis of Genomics. This is based on ‘Nadi Vijnana’ which is an ancient science. There is sufficient proof for this in Vedic and allied literature. This is mainly based on study of the genetic changes that take place whenever there is a variation of any one of the Humors. Though the lineage of the practitioners of this science is almost lost, there is enormous amount of literature available on Nadi Vijnana belonging various periods. Presently, it is proposed to undertake first collect all the literature available, and after prioritizing them, publish the works one by one along with English translations. Based on these works, in due course, experiments will be designed and further, machines that can perform the task of Nadi experts will be manufactured.
Other important ambitious projects on the Anvil
- Running a neo-traditional ‘Gurukul’ for developing scholars in Ayurveda well versed in the theoretical foundations along with modern education
The CTF proposes to undertake another important task in realizing its objectives. Today, there may be only of a handful of scholars who have fully memorized the texts of the course works of Ayurveda and able to interpret them properly. This is one of the fields that have been totally neglected and is therefore serious implications. The proposed Gurukul, which will retain the traditional methods of teaching the source works of Ayurveda, and help students in understand not only the basics of Ayurveda, but also interpret them in a way that can be easily understood by modern medical practitioners. Thus, it will be a happy and unique blend of the ancient and the modern, oriental and the occidental, and will result in a generation of scholars who will bridge the gulf between the traditional and modern streams of knowledge in general and medical sciences in particular.
- Developing a ‘Corpora’ programme for Ayurveda
The word ‘Corpora’ is actually the plural of the word ‘corpus’. In the present context, it means ‘A large or complete collection of writings: the entire corpus of Old English poetry’
In Linguistic terminology, a corpora is a body of utterances, as words or sentences, assumed to be representative of and used for lexical, grammatical, or other linguistic analysis.
There is a huge amount of, almost inexhaustible, corpus of literature mostly in India and to some extent abroad dealing with various systems of Indian Medical systems. According to an approximate estimate we have nearly hundred thousand palm leaf, paper and other manuscripts dealing with the Indian medical systems, that too written in different Indian languages. Out of this vast literature only 2% has been printed and published. Even among the printed books, many books that were published in 18th &19th centuries are in a bad shape; as one takes up many of these books to read, they crumble into pieces, since they are worn out due to many factors like passage of time, bad quality of paper and binding etc. Similarly the innumerable manuscripts dealing with invaluable information are also on the verge of extinction.
Hence the only solution is to key in all the texts dealing with Indian systems of medicines that are in the different Indian languages and create a corpora of all such texts and make the same machine-readable. Further this will be hosted on the Internet providing wide accessibility. Search facilities based on the different criteria will also be provided.
- Fellowship programme in the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda and comparative / cross-cultural studies of traditional and modern streams of knowledge
The IIAM has been recognized as a Centre of Excellence (CoE) under the Dept. of AYUSH, Govt of India. Under this programme, the IIAM has a Fellowship programme to promote research and development in different fields related to Ayurved and Integrative medicine. The CTF is one of the important centres promoting this Fellowship programmes. Under the auspices of this centre, fellowship is awarded for research work inthe theoretical foundations of Ayurveda and comparative / cross-cultural studies of traditional and modern streams of knowledge
Conclusion
The CTF of the IIAM is one of the most important wings of the IIAM, that has undertaken the important and mammoth task of preserving and propagating the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda, and, as is evident above, has undertaken many pioneering programmes. These programmes need the patronage of scholars, students and clinical practitioners of Ayurveda and more importantly, the support of the Govt. of India, other institutions engaged in work related to Ayurved and also philanthropists. It is hoped that the work will receive due recognition and also showcase to the world the utility and relevance of Ayurveda as a comprehensive medical system that are based on strong and fool-proof theoretical foundations.
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