Subject: ayurveda

[Guest guest]

ok

AND?

do you want to respond to my audacious statement ;-)

 

with all due respect Ayurveda IS damaged

it doesn't mean its not venerable or has a lot to offer, but it is

damaged nonetheless

it is further damaged when it gets irrevocably mixed up with

paraspiritual philosophies like vegetarianism that have nothing to do

with it

 

fortunately the damage isn't as severe as other post-colonial

experiences, e.g. First Nations healing in North America

which by all accounts employed a highly sophisticated system of healing

that in part forms the basis of Thomsonism and physiomedicalism (i.e.

western herbal medicine)

 

the fault doesn't lie with Ayurveda, it lies with the colonial powers,

 

for e.g. one striking example of the damage in Ayurveda is in nadi

pariksha and other diagnostic techniques

 

most BAM Ayurvedic physicians aren't taught and don't practice nadi

pariksha, or the systems they practice are totally nonsensical, wholly

impractical and unsupported by the literature (of which there is a

dearth - Nadivijnanam by Kanada and another much more recent text by

Shankara Sen is about it - i do not trust much of the modern stuff at

all, for the same reason that people will tell our friend Bonnie on the

list that her problem relates to Kapha when it obviously doesn't)

 

personally, i use rely upon these texts (which for some reason are

translated incorrectly!), as well as my knowledge of Tibetan and

Chinese pulse dx

for eg. most modern texts on pulse dx will tell you that the vata pulse

is felt under the 1st finger

this cannot be inferred from the Nadivijnanam, which indicates it is

felt under the ring finger

thus the ring finger illustrates vata sthana, middle is pitta, and

index is kapha sthana

note the correspondences with the Chinese pulse diagnosis and the

concept of the triple burner

 

i explain this in much greater detail in my book which i hope to put

the finishing touches on this year

 

i think the Chinese generally have good understanding of pulse, but of

course the incorrect translations and correspondences like "Spleen" and

"Liver" serve to obfuscate the issue somewhat

 

best... Todd

 

 

On Tuesday, February 17, 2004, at 03:52 AM,

ayurveda wrote:

 

> Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:12:27 -0800 (PST)

> Rucha Kelkar <ayurbliss

> ayurveda

>

> Dear

>

> Your conclusions about Ayurveda seem to be very generalised.

>

> Best Regards

> Rucha