Situating Ayurveda in Modernity, 1900–1919

Abstract

In this chapter, I consider the processes by which indigenous medicine was marginalized and then resurrected by the colonial state from the late nineteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth. In these discussions, the romanticization/vilification of the indigenous medical systems finally came to an end and was replaced by the beginnings of serious, systemic enquiry into the state of medical life in the sub-continent. The Medical Department found that myriad networks, relationships and experiences of Public Health policy were heavily reliant upon indigenous cultures of physicality, practices of extra-biomedical medicine and pre-colonial patterns of medical consumption. Ayurveda in the nineteenth century had focused primarily on scientific texts and their (re)production and had been more concerned with pandits than with practitioners; however, the Medical Department’s new, more pragmatic view of medical systems in action forced the focus to turn to the interactions between doctors and patients. Situating practitioners at the centre of discourse marked a profound shift in the way in which Ayurveda was conceptualized, both by the state and by the new practitioners.