Contributions of Priest, Godmen, Fortune teller, Black Magician, Saints, Religious Leaders and Patriots to Our Ancient Health Care System

How could AYUSH overreach the mind of some political class better than the scientifically proven allopathic system of medicine? How AYUSH could snigger and giggle at science with its teeth deeply stained by superstition, science less Tridosha concept, meaningless diagnostic procedures and finally the ineffective products that enjoy the status in the medical realm in our country as ‘drug’?

The glory of cross pathy in rural India is incalculable because we have never attempted either to calculate the damage or survey the extent of medication health fraud, confusion in the epidemiologic understanding of various diseases in rural India and exploitation of the innocence the cross pathy is gifting to our nation.

The larger question is how AYUSH could look glittery and glossy although it is fully porous and impoverished? The answer lies deeper than what we have understood.

In ancient days (much before the advent of modern science and modern medicine) the human problems whether it was physical, psychological or family related, the God men and ‘near to God men’ (priests) were considered as the single depot for a solution. In ancient days (why even today), the people used to go to these God men and priests mostly with fruits, flowers and certainly with Dakshina (payment/donation). The priests of all religion, in general, were the first contact point not only for salvation but also for solving people from multi-various problems. These God men and priests would do the needful to please the God on behalf of the devotees and would get them the blessings of God. The God-men and priests generously depart the flowers to God and take away the fruits and donations because God never needs money and never eat fruits or anything.

Once the performance is over, the problems of devotees are supposed to have been solved or will be solved in the due course of time was a general belief. This was the practice followed once, nay, even today, by many.

If we look at the story of the creation of God by man, we can also find another truth that is, much before the creation of God, demon or satan or evil spirit, ghost etc., were created by man. Only to mutilate the effects of evil forces the man would have created God. Many other associated and or independent reasons also will be there in the creation of God.

Considering the statistical significance on the failures and disappointments of several devotees even after doing all rituals and not finding any relief, some God men would have branched off differently from the mainstream by carving a new marketing strategy and niche to take care of such disappointed people.

The new strategy was, specialize in removing the evil and bad spirits from the sufferer (black magic). These specialists of Ghost and evil spirit annihilators smartly created several evil spirits and ensured that different approaches are required to remove different evil spirits. Like several Gods, several types of evil spirits also were created.

In the crowded bazaar of several Gods and evil spirits, most sufferers is unlikely to know the real cause of his or her problem or which God or an evil spirit has cursed them. This need gap would have paved the way for a new group of specialists to arrive on the scene called astrologers or fortune-tellers.

Many astrologers have specialized and superspecialized either in using parrot or magic stick, horoscope reading, reading through numbers etc., so the sufferers could consult different specialties of fortune tellers to know the cause. According to their advice, suffers have started to visit and do the specialized practices to remove the evil spirit. At the same time, people also did the needful performances to please the appropriate God.

By looking at the pyramidal arrangement and game plan of the priest, fortune teller, and evil spirit annihilators, new strategists also got emerged with a special set of skills to fill the opportunity. These super specialists (saints who are almost equal to God) acquired knowledge about God, evil spirits, future reading and also the competency to recommend people to perform the most appropriate performances both to please the God and remove the effects of an evil spirit. In due course of time, these super specialists also would have started to give certain herbal, mineral, metal or animal based preparations to the sufferers either to consume or to apply over the body or to be kept safely in the house or to be tied in the neck, hand, wrist or leg.

These quadruped experts (priests, fortune tellers, black magicians, super God men) in solving all human problems would have evolved simultaneously in different parts of the India according to the local cultural and other practices followed in each locality. Hence we can find so much of diversity among these specialists and their recipes.

When such specializations started to give its dividend, naturally many of them would have thought of involving and engaging their children also in the same profession so that the legacy can be retained in toto. Perhaps this would have been the genesis of parambarya maruthuvam (traditional medicine). Perhaps with the availability of some feedbacks from the sufferers about the usefulness of some of the recipes and herbal or mineral or metal or animal based preparations, many additions, deletion, and iterations etc., would have happened and this process would have continued from generation to generation.

The remarkable intelligence in the management strategy of all early God-men or evil spirit annihilators, fortune tellers and saints (super specialists) in giving products (herbal, mineral, metal, animal) to people lies not just in their co-existence but in co-dependent solution providing agreement.

All these quadruped experts supported the existence of each other & the faith system and hence all necessary science required to prove and establish the inevitability of such interdependence and the usefulness of the faith system & its products (herbal, animal, mineral, metal) also got created perfectly. The irony was that no one questioned the merit may be due to the patriotic and the Indian-ness tag of the ancient health care practice.

When people started to follow the complete package such as doing offerings to God, doing the needful to remove the evil spirit by consulting the fortune tellers, taking some herbal, mineral, metal or animal based products from saints, but still suffered from the same problem without much relief. This situation would have created serious jigsaw to the above group of people who claimed to be existing purely for others.

Immediately the wisdom and innovation of some saints would have worked wonderfully. As a result, they brought karma of previous birth as a reason for such problems. It means, there was no failure on the part of priest in pleasing the God for the sufferer, the fortune teller in predicting the correct evil spirit, and the correctness in removing the evil spirit by the black magician and finally the correctness of the herbal, mineral, metal and animal based recipes of the super God men, but the previous karma of the suffer was the only cause which prevailed over everything.

The question is how AYUSH could bind to the nucleus of human faith better than the scientifically proven allopathic system? This may be due to the fact that AYUSH came with answers to all most all questions of man. Whether these answers were relevant, meaningful and solved the puzzle, no one bothered to know but it seems, the people were extremely happy as AYUSH answers all questions. Even for treatment failure, they brought the karma of previous birth and not the failure of AYUSH.

On the contrary, allopathic system or MBSS doctors admitted their limitations and never promised anything incredible or divine.

AYUSH has answers for all most all ‘why’ questions and on the contrary, the allopathic system came with explanations for most of the ‘how’ and ‘what’ questions.

Unfortunately, the ‘why’ questions could remain in the human mind as it has no conclusive answer and hence AYUSH perfectly occupied the space of human emotion whereas ‘how’ and ‘what’ questions as soon as got answered, naturally lost its importance.

Guruji’s, Swamijis, Saints, Sadgurus, Babas, Bhagvans, Yogis etc., were the real champions of promoting AYUSH perhaps for solving psychological and psychosomatic problems of man through its paramedical and wellness practices. Our patriotic fever and swadeshi obsession have converted AYUSH as an advanced medical science equal to scientifically proven and established allopathic system during the late colonial era to the early period of independence.

By copying all norms of allopathic system of medicine including the commas and semicolons, AYUSH has converted its curriculum to 5 ½ years with 6 month house surgency, 2 years post graduation (MD) with various branches of specializations, separate Governing body for education equivalent to MCI, the CCIM, Government postings as doctor, research centres….everything AYUSH got from Government. But where is science, proof, evidence, pharmacokinetic details………………………...?

Despite AYUSH occupying an exalted position in Indian patriotism, human emotion, faith, spirituality, God etc., has gone useless and irrelevant because it lacks any merit as a result, most AYUSH vaidyas in private are engaged in cross pathy. It failed purely because it was promoted as medical science – diagnosis, drug and cure based system equal to allopathic medicine. Our quest and pursuit did not stop with creating AYUSH as advanced medical science we have also produced graduates as a doctor in mass scale from AYUSH system.

Why our Government has done the above has its origin and answers in patriotism but ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions such as what the AYUSH vaidyas would prescribe to their patients to treat the diseases and how they would diagnose the diseases using AYUSH doctrines and how they can understand the underlying cause of diseases, all remains unanswered and mystery even to most AYUSH graduates. As a result of the above confusion, many AYUSH vaidyas in private practice migrates to allopathic practice (cross pathy).

Time has come we must promote AYUSH for wellness and paramedical benefits and not as drug and cure based medical science. Let us not trample and stampede the health needs of rural India with either with AYUSH or AYUSH vaidyas to opt back door entry into allopathic science.

S Ranganathan