Abstract
Over the course of ancient and post-classical Indian history, ‘Ayurveda’ evolved from a textual term for the knowledge of life into a medical tradition with a literary canon, recognized health practices, and practitioners asserting their expertise and expecting elevated social status. The pre-colonial development of Ayurveda reflected a holistic approach to the natural world, uniting beliefs about the physical structure of matter with metaphysical and religious insights. In Ayurvedic texts, medicine is closely associated with philosophy and ethics; similarly, medical practice was located within a wider context of ritual and social behaviour. Ayurveda gained coherence and influence as a collection of medical practices that were in harmony with, and indeed reinforced, both Sanskritic learning and the structure of the Indic societies that sustained it.
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© 2013 Rachel Berger
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Berger, R. (2013). Historicizing Ayurveda: Genealogies of the Biomoral. In: Ayurveda Made Modern. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137315908_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137315908_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-32968-7
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