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:: This is 'not' Ayurveda
"AURVEDA
Goes Global,”
blazed the headline in a leading weekly this summer. The cover story waxed
eloquent about West’s discovery of this 5,000-year-old
Indian discipline, dropping the names of celebrities who have turned to
our traditional remedies to cure their post-modern ailments – Naomi Campbell,
Demi Moore, Cherie Blair and the ubiquitous Madonna were prominently mentioned.
“Ayurveda continues to grow rapidly as one of the most important systems
of mind-body medicine, natural healing and traditional medicine,” the
article quotes a Dr. David Frawley
as saying, “as the need for natural therapies, disease prevention and
a more spiritual approach to life becomes ever more important in this
ecological age.” That sounds like an appropriately New Age sentiment,
but tellingly, the article calculates the success of this otherworldly
science in material terms: Ayurveda, it seems, accounts for $60 billion
of a $120 billion “ global herbal market ”.
There is no argument about the increasing popularity of Ayurveda.
Clinics professing to offer ayurvedic treatments are sprouting like herbs
in places as far afield as London and the Italian Dolomites, and “ayurvedic
tourism” is already a significant money-earner for our national exchequer.
Kerala, in particular, has made a fetish out of advertising its
ayurvedic spas, and several five-star hotels, which not so
long ago would have looked down at anything so desi, have cashed in on
the rage. But what exactly is it that they are selling? Tourist brochures
show a winsome blonde in a bikini being massaged by a lady in a traditional
red-bordered white Kerala sari, with jasmine in her hair and a brass lamp
at her side. This is effectively packaged exotica: not Ayurveda as a remedy
for disease, but rather as an up market beauty treatment –a relaxation
cure for the jaded. A 5,000 year- old science has become the diversion
of choice of the era of the 15-second sound bite.
“Pamper yourself with the wisdom of the ancients,” the slogan
might as well say.
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“This
is not Ayurveda,”
say traditional Ayurvedic practitioners.
“This is a travesty of Ayurveda. People are taking what
is meant to be a total system of medicine and reducing it to a few
superficial treatments. Ayurveda is meant to diagnose and treat
the entire person, not one part of his or her body. And the principle
behind our treatments is vital. Our massages, for example, are not
intended for transient pleasure. In fact massage is the wrong word
for them - they are really oil applications. |
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The benefit of the treatment comes from the oil, not from the rubbing. But instead it is the massage that is being promoted rather than the medicinal purpose of the oil.” True enough, professional Ayurveds are also critical of the way in which the cosmetics industry has latched onto Ayurveda. |
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The hottest range of beauty products in North America
these days- soaps and moisturisers, anti-wrinkle creams and conditioning
shampoos - claim to be based on Ayurveda. But it calls itself
“Aveda”, a more digestible brand name, in order to appeal
to a mainstream clientele. “Aveda”, snorts one Ayurved dismissively. “That
means, against the Veda!”
Both our Prime Minister Vajpayee and former President KR Narayanan are beneficiaries of Ayurvedic treatments- but it is more of a challenge to get the word out around the world. Most countries, not just in the West, do not recognize Ayurveda as a system of medicine, which makes it impossible to export medicines and oil except as “herbal dietary supplements”. Ayurvedic practitioners are also not recognized as doctors (though many of them have graduated from a rigorous four-year course taught by the Central College of Ayurveda in India), and as such would not be licensed to treat illnesses. This leaves them little choice but to offer the cosmetic treatments, especially massages, which have less exacting licensing requirements.
An
ancient science has been reduced to a modern fad.
Get in
touch with us:
Visit us at: www.zamorins.com
E-mail us at: response@zamorins.com
Postal address: Zamorin's Health Retreat Pvt Ltd,
P.O. Porkalangad, Near Guruvayoor
Kerala 680 517, INDIA.
Tel : +91 4885 222349, +91 487 2366841
Mob: +91 98460 68950