Dangers of ayurveda dilution

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

 

Its nice to see that people around the world are getting interested

in ayurveda... the ancient indian system of healing which dates back

3000 BC. But at the same time it is seen that many unqualified and

so called ayurvedic doctors are diluting ayurveda and its practice.

 

Ayurveda can be harmful and can cause danger if practiced by

unqualified and unexperienced practitioners! The distinction should

be clearly made what should be done yourself and what should be left

in the hands of qualified ayurvedic physician.

 

AYurveda is a deep knowledge and In india it takes five and half

years (including one year hospital internship) to be an ayurvedic

physician (BAMS). Ayurvedic medicine should be practised only by the

ayurvedic physicians who studied University accredited degree

programs in ayurveda such as BAMS(INDIA), MD(INDIA), BA-Ayurveda

(Thames Valley University, London), BSc-Ayurveda (Manipal Ayurveda

University of Europe, London) or such other programs.

 

This discussion is to prevent the tendency to dilute and distort and

commercialise everything, including sacred knowledge.

 

 

DR NILESH WAKDE

BAMS,MSC(LON),ABAMC(LON)

AYURVEDIC PHYSICIAN & LECTURER

THAMES VALLEY UNIVERSITY, LONDON

MANIPAL AYURVED UNIVERSITY OF EUROPE, LONDON

TREASURER, BRITISH AYURVEDIC MEDICAL COUNCIL

[Guest guest]

I must applaud Dr. Wadke's posting. For some reason various people

have the uninformed concept that Ayurvedic medicine is something they

can pick up in their spare time. If the healing of disease

(especially chronic disease) could be so easily achieved then

obviously we would not have the depth of human suffering that we do.

The healing of disease can be achieved on one's own - the Yogi's and

other Naturapathic systems have done it but only after deep study -

usually under the direct guidance of one who has achieved themselves

and therfore can give direct authoratative advice. That path is

available only to the few as it takes great commitment and discipline.

 

Most of what is being called as Ayurveda by many in the modern days

is actually a kind of home remedy and folk medicine approach to

healing. This approach is clearly very limited and has little to do

with the practice of Ayurveda as a professional system of medicine.

Becuase of this unfortunate trend many think that they can practice

medicine without proper training - this is harmful to the patients

and to Ayurveda. In fact it is the most harmful trend in modern

Ayurvedic experience.

 

My great objection for many years is that even the professional

training recieved by modern doctors is poor and inadequate to the

practice of medicine what to say of those who have recieved no

training whatsoever. Ayurveda as a professional medical science is

one of the great achievments of human knowledge and to see it diluted

and distorted in the way in which it is is quite discouraging - one

can only pray that it will survive as a valid scientific discipline.

 

Ayurveda today is being taken over by bogus untrained doctors who

call themselves as 'Vaidya Ratna' - by vested paharmecutical

interests (we see what has happened to the western system of medicine

after being captured by the pharamcutical industry) - amaturs who

nothing of the science - and by business men. Where is the Vaidya in

all of this? Relagated to the sidelines. A deplorable and dangerous

state that will be quite difficult to recover from. In India we must

establish proper quidelines for professional practice including

proper professional organizations that have the political clout to

upgrade the professional standards from education through to

pharmacutical industry standards, on to throughly defined standards

of clinical practice and research. The days when ayurveda could be

casually practiced through the classical system have passed and now

we must get serious in the establishment of a modern sytem that will

recieve it's proper recognition among modern scientific thinkers.

Many feel that Ayurveda has not gotten a proper respect amongst the

modern medical people - it is only because Ayurveda itself has not

taken the steps necessary to gain their respect.

 

As for those untrained people who have read a book or two on Ayurveda

(mainly written by unqualified persons) - please keep in mind that

what your are advocating is not Ayurveda - it is a diluted - 'fast

food' approach to healing. It simply will not work. People give

advice on healing everything from sunburn to cancer without any

knowledge of what they are talking about. This is simply bad! it can

not be encouraged - to do so would be a disservice to the great

Master's who have developed this 'divine' science to a high level of

genius - that we can not simply throw away and make into a business

or even worse a circus act of smoke and mirrors and ego promotion.