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MAPPING THE HISTORY OF
AYURVEDA

This book looks at the institutionalisation and refashioning of Ayurveda as a robust,

literate classical tradition, separated from the assorted, vernacular traditions of heal-
ing practices. It focuses on the dominant perspectives and theories of indigenous
medicine and various compulsions which led to the codification and standardisation
of Ayurveda in modern India.
Critically engaging with authoritative scholarship, the book extrapolates from
some of these theories, raising significant questions on the study of alternative
knowledge practices. By using case studies of the southern Indian state of Kerala –
which is known globally for its Ayurveda – it provides an in-depth analysis of local
practices and histories. Drawing from interviews of practitioners, archival docu-
ments, vernacular texts and rare magazines on Ayurveda and indigenous medicine,
it presents a nuanced understanding of the relationships between diverse practices.
It highlights the interactions as well as the tensions within them, and the methods
adopted to preserve the uniqueness of practices even while sharing elements of
healing, herbs and medicine. It also discusses how regulations and standards set by
the state have estranged assorted healing practices, created uncertainties and led to
the formation of categories like Ayurveda and nattuvaidyam (indigenous medicine/
ayurvedas).
Lucid and topical, the book will be useful for researchers and people interested in
social medicine, history of medicine, Ayurveda, cultural studies, history, indigenous
studies, and social anthropology.

K P Girija is an independent scholar based out of Kerala, India. She has a doctor-
ate in cultural studies from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society from
Manipal University, Karnataka, India. She acquired a fellowship from the Centre for
the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi to pursue her PhD. She was a fellow
at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla (2017–19) and a grantee of the
Kerala Council for Historical Research, Thiruvananthapuram (2019–20). Girija is
interested in questions that explore the politics and history of knowledge formation,
the liminal space of interaction among heterogenous knowledge practices and their
philosophical and psychological foundations. Currently, she is working on a project
that analyses the intersection between knowledge, caste and the subject through the
life narratives of Ayurveda practitioners.
MAPPING THE HISTORY
OF AYURVEDA
Culture, Hegemony and the Rhetoric
of Diversity

K P Girija
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 K P Girija
The right of K P Girija to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-27223-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-27300-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-29596-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429295966
Typeset in Bembo
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vi
List of Abbreviations ix
Glossary x

Introduction: Dialogic epistemes: Documenting the

liminal space in indigenous medicine 1

1 The intersecting triad: Kalari, Vishavaidyam and Ayurveda 16

2 Conceptualising Ayurveda: Intersection of print and

indigenous medicine 42

3 Construction of a classical tradition: Refashioning Ayurveda 68

4 Foregrounding a functional body: The body in Nattuvaidyam 97

5 Reinvention of education: Consecrating knowledge

in twentieth-century Kerala 125

Conclusion: Vidya to Vidyabhyasam: Ways of knowing

to knowledge 158

Bibliography 165
Index 175
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book derives its energy and inspiration from the paths that I traversed over the
years and from the fond memories of many who happened to be there with me on
the journey. The primary research for this book was shaped when I had the fortune
to be supervised by Professor Tejaswini Niranjana at the Centre for the Study of
Culture and Society (CSCS), Bengaluru. Her comments and guidance lent order,
value and clarity to my scattered thoughts and ideas.
To Bindu K C, who always listened to me passionately and boosted my confi-
dence by reassuring me that my ideas were relevant, I owe my thanks. While envi-
sioning the work in 2009, the initial ideas could be brought into sharp focus with
the intricate and challenging comments from Rochelle Pinto. Had she not been
there to give assurance and consistent moral support during the early years of my
academic life, I would have left academics forever. I thank Rochelle for her faith in
my work.
I am extremely grateful to:
Milind Wakankar, Anup Dhar, S V Srinivas and Sitharamam Kakarala for their
insightful comments that urged me to work hard and aspire for more.
Ashish Rajadhyaksha, for all his valuable comments and suggestions, which I
took years to comprehend and to incorporate into my work, and then only to a
certain extent.
Vivek Dhareshwar, for introducing me to a new way of looking at my reference
materials by asking a different set of questions.
Lakshmi Arya, for her detailed comments on one of my chapters.
Prathama Banerjee, for giving me extensive inputs during the first two years of
my research.
Rakesh Pandey, Aditya Nigam, Ravi Vasudevan and Sarada Balagopalan of CSDS
for their inputs at various stages.
Leena Abraham, Madhulika Banerjee, Barbara Ramusack and Waltraud Ernst for
engaging with the work at different stages. To Leena, especially for being an affec-
tionate mentor whenever I needed.
 Acknowledgements vii

Sasheej Hegde, Udaya Kumar, Sundar Sarukkai, Raju S., P. Sanal Mohan, Nizar
Ahamed, Rajan Gurukkal, Raghava Varier, M.V. Narayanan, K.N. Ganesh, Sujatha V.
and Yasser Arafath for engaging with the chapters at various stages.
My thanks go to many of my friends for being with me in the difficult stages of
writing, without whom I may not have completed the work, friends who believed
in me when I had stopped believing in myself during the unanticipated journey
through the world of research and writing:
Navaneetha Mokkil, not only for her suggestions at various stages of my work
but also for her hospitality.
Smriti, for her unexpected and invaluable inputs.
Meera Moorkoth, for being vigilant about keeping the mast intact, when the
ship of my research was on the verge of sinking.
Ambika, for her unconditional hospitality, for the wits, jokes and walks that made
life much more bearable in Bengaluru.
Teena, for the long-distance conversations which made the writing much lighter
and easier, and for the extensive editing.
Srija Kammath for the tedious editing work.
Rajesh K. P., for the long conversations that cleared my hazy thoughts.
Amruth M. and Dinesan Vadakkiniyil, for sharing various articles and reports, for
their enriching suggestions whenever I had writer’s block and for showing consis-
tent concern and trust in my work.
Carmel Christy, Shamshad Hussain, Ratheesh Kumar and Ratheesh
Radhakrishnan for taking pains and time to read some of my unfinished chapters,
and for listening to my rambling thoughts patiently.
Haseena, Habeeb and their little cherubs, Shada and Sheza, for being around
during all the turmoil of writing, for being non-judgemental of my dramatic mood
swings, for the food, unyielding care and support, laughter and endurance.
Gowri, for her relentless assurance and conviction.
Hameeda C.K., for her warmth, hospitality and confidence in my work.
Shobhana P.K., for helping me navigate through the rare collections of the State
Central Library.
My immense thanks to all the health practitioners I had interviewed. The pro-
longed conversations, the extensive details and the food and warmth they provided
me with were a humbling experience.
I am indebted to the following archives, libraries and the librarians who
were incredibly helpful in providing materials: Appan Thampuran Library and
Museum, Thrissur; Sahitya Academy, Thrissur; Sri Chithira Thirunal Public Library,
Thiruvananthapuram; Government Ayurveda College, Tripunithura; Government
Ayurveda College, Thiruvananthapuram; Publication Department, Kottakkal
Aryavaidya Sala; Kerala University Library, Thiruvananthapuram; Kerala Council
for Historical Research, Thiruvananthapuram; Centre for Development Studies,
Thiruvananthapuram; Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; National
Institute of Indian Medical Heritage, Hyderabad; United Theological College,
Bengaluru; CSCS library, Bengaluru; Folklore Department, Calicut University;
viii Acknowledgements

Desaposhini Library, Kozhikode; Directorate of Archives, Thiruvananthapuram;

Regional Archives, Kozhikode and Kochi, and Central Archives, Chennai.
I owe my thanks to:
Surendran, for being there in my life without making demands, and also for
undertaking the cumbersome process of editing at different stages of my work.
Santhakumari, my amma by custom, for her endurance and support that enabled
me to do the long years of research without feeling guilty for avoiding many of my
expected familial responsibilities.
I thank the Kerala Council for Historical Research for giving me a grant to
write this book. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of Routledge for their
extensive comments and suggestions. My sincere thanks to Shoma Choudhury and
Shloka Chauhan of Routledge for being empathetic editors. However, I am solely
responsible for all faults that remain.
My loving thanks to Sanjay, my son, for letting me pursue my search without
hindering me and having no complaints on losing his comforts, and to him I dedi-
cate this book.
Preliminary versions of some sections of Chapters 2 and 3 were published as
“Interface with Media and Institutions: the Reordering of Indigenous Medical
Practitioners in Twentieth-century Kerala” in History and Sociology of South Asia,
11(1), (2017), 1–18;“Refiguring of Ayurveda as Classical Tradition”, Pragmata Journal
of Human Sciences, 3(1). 2016, 43–62. Preliminary version of a section of Chapter 4
was published in Humanities Circle, 4(2), 2016, 89-108.
ABBREVIATIONS

AH Ashtanga Hridayam
AMAI Ayurvedic Medical Association of India
AS Ashtanga Samgraha/m
AVP Aryavaidya Pathshala
AVS Aryavaidya Sala
BAM Integ Integrated Degree Course in Ayurveda
CS Charaka Samhita
DAM Integ Integrated Diploma Course in Ayurveda
DAS Diploma in Ayurveda Shastra
DIM Diploma in Indigenous Medicine
DMS Diploma in Medicine and Surgery
HMC Higher Medical Certificate
IKS Indigenous Knowledge System
ISM Indian System of Medicine
KAP Kottakkal Aryavaidya Pathshala
KPAP Kanyaka Parameswari Ayurveda Pathshala
KSA Kerala State Archives
LMC Lower Medical Certificate
SNDP Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sangham
SS Susruta Samhita
SSMC Santhigiri Siddha Medical College
TAP Travancore Ayurveda Pathshala
TSA Tamil Nadu State Archives
TSP Tripunithura Sanskrit Pathshala
VVC Vishavaidya Visarada Certificate
GLOSSARY

Aachaarakkai - customary homage through bodily actions

Aachaarangal - customs
Aadibhasha - ancient language, first language
Aalochana - thought, imagination, pensive
Aana - elephant
Aarogyam - health, lack of illness
Aashissu - blessings
Aathman - soul
Aathuravritham - regimen of illness
Aavarthichathu - repeated, processed repeatedly
Adavukal - bodily postures/strategies in Kalarippayattu
Adimurai/Adithadai - Kalarippayattu in the southern Kerala and
Tamilnadu style
Adivasi - tribes, indigenous people
Agadatantra - indigenous toxicology
Aikya - united
Ajnaanam - lack of knowledge/wisdom
Alochikkatheyulla - without thinking/thought
Ammumma vaidyam - grandmother’s/elderly people’s knowledge in
indigenous medicine
Angathaari - defence in Kalarippayattu with weapons
Apachaya - decomposing
Arivu - knowledge, knowledge of the self, wisdom
Arogam - state of not having disease
Asannihitham - absent, indiscernible
Ashtangas - eight branches/divisions
 Glossary xi

Ashtavaidya - Ayurveda experts from certain Brahmin fami-

lies who are traditionally entitled to the title
Asukham - illness, imbalance of humours
Avidya - lack of knowledge of self, ignorance
Ayanangal - the movement of sun and moon
Baatha - possession of spirit, that which affects
Balachikitsa/Balavaidyam - specialised branch of treatment meant for
­children, paediatrics
Bhasha - language, Malayalam
Bhavam - coming into existence
Bhuta - that which happens, that cannot be seen
Bodham - wisdom, knowledge of the self, consciousness,
cognition
Brahmaandam - gross matter, universe
Brhatrayis - The three canonical texts that codified indig-
enous healing practice Charaka Samhita, Susruta
Samhita and Vagbhata Samhita or Ashtanga Hridayam
Chaan - a measurement, length between the thumb and
the little finger of an open palm
Chakras - energy centres in the body in Yoga and
Siddhavaidyam
Charyaakramangal - routine, regular activities
Cheppadividya - A skilled performance where the balls placed in
the bowls disappear and reappear from unex-
pected places
Chikitsa - treatment for disease
Chikitsamanjari - garland of medicines for different ailment
Chuvadukal - positioning of the feet in kalarippayattu to keep
the body firm in each posture
Dai - traditional midwife. Also known as pathichi, pet-
tichi and vayattaty.
Dashtan - person bitten by a poisonous snake
Deepanam - digestion
Deha/m - body where the soul resides
Dehi - that which gives vitality to the body
Desakaalangal - place and time
Dhaara - oil bath for the upper body
Dhaarapathi - wooden table used for oil bath and massage
Dhanwantari - God of Ayurveda
Dhatu - seven elements of the body (plasma, blood,
muscle, bone, fat, bone marrow and semen) in
Ayurveda
xii Glossary

Dhootalakshanam - signs or clues gathered from messenger’s

speech, actions, mannerisms, etc., in toxicology
and other practices
Dhushikkaavunnava - that which degenerates under certain conditions
Dinacharya - routine, customary
Dosha - three bodily humours in Ayurveda (vata, pitha,
kapha)
Dravyam - matter, medicine, object
Edukkum - lift, gather, take
Ezhuthu - writing
Gajavaidyam - indigenous healing treatment for elephants
Gajavaidyan - expert in the healing practice of elephants
Grantha/m - manuscript, text, book
Grihavaidyam - home medicine
Gulika - tablet
Guna - quality inherent in matter, food, medicine, etc.
Guru - master, teacher, hard, heavy, fatty
Gurukkal - master, especially in Kalarippayattu
Gurukula - learning through staying with a teacher for a
period of time
Hridayam - heart
Indriyas - sense organs
Janam - people
Jeevan - life, vitality
Jnaanam - knowledge, wisdom
Jyothisham - astrology
Kaaranaroopam - causal form
Kalari - a practice that includes Kalarippayattu (fencing
art), healing practices for bone setting, muscle
injuries and vital spot massaging.
Kalarippayattu - bodily exercises which were termed as martial
art in the nineteenth century.
Kankettu - a form of magic; literal meaning – tying the
eyes of the viewer
Karmam - actions, duty
Kashayam - concoction, brew
Kayam - body, asafoetida, strength, fever, dirt
Kayikaabhyaasam - physical exercise, sports
Kizhi - medicinal pouch
Kolthari - defence in kalarippayattu with sticks
Kottaaram - king’s court
Kriya - action, work, verb
Kshanam - fraction of a second, invitation
Kshayam - decrease, tuberculosis, degenerate
 Glossary xiii

Kudilan - wicked
Laaghavam - ease
Lakshana samanwayam - symptom complex, a combination of symptoms
Maathra - second, pill
Madhyama - middle, intermediary
Malas - waste, excreta
Mandali - viper
Mantra/m - incantation, magical spells
Marma/Varma/Marmam - vital points in the body
Marmanivaidyam/
Marmavaidyam - massage and treatment for vital points in the
body
Matha pandithar - religious leaders
Meythozhil/meythari - body art, body exercise
Meyyabhyaasam - body art, body exercise
Meyyu - body
Meyyu Kannavuka - body becomes the eye
Moorkhan - cobra
Muchaan - three chaans, a measurement
Muthassi Vaidyam - grandmother’s/elderly people’s knowledge in
indigenous medicine
Nadi - channel, pulse, nerves
Nattu/Nadu - native, region, country, folk, local
Nattuchikitsa - indigenous treatment
Nattuvaidyam - indigenous healing practices
Nattuvaidyan - indigenous healing practitioner
Nattuvaidyasala - practicing place of indigenous medical
practitioners
Netravaidyam - indigenous treatment for eyes, ophthalmology
Nikshnathar - experts in work, action, knowledge
Nithyabhyaasam - regular and systematic practice
Ottamooli - special medicine for particular diseases, one-
time medication, single ingredient medicine.
Oushadam - medicine
Pacha parishkari - ultra-modern person, one who does not respect
tradition.
Pajanam - internal combustion, digestion
Panchabhutas - air, water, earth, fire and ether (what the human
and the Universe is made up of)
Panchakarma - a combination of five treatment meant for
cleansing and rejuvenation.
Panchendriyas - five senses - eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin
Pantheeran - a 12 chaan stick used in Kalarippayattu
Paramparya vaidyan - traditionally-trained medical practitioner
xiv Glossary

Parishkaaram - reform, modern

Parishkritham - reformed, renewed, modernised
Pathshala - schools, learning place
Pathyam - dietary regimen
Payatti theliyuka - become sharp through consistent practice
Payattukal - defence techniques using body
Peethanethran - yellow-eyed
Pindaandam - subtle matter
Pinnokkaavastha - backwardness
Pizhichil - oil bath
Pothu - public
Praacheena - ancient
Praanan - life, vitality
Praasam - alliteration
Prabancha - universe, cosmos
Prabhavam - radiance, effect of medicine on the body, grace
Prakriti - disposition of body/mind, mannerism, temper-
ament, nature
Pratheekshitham - expected
Pravruthi - action, job
Prayogam - medicinal compositions, action, application,
practice, usage
Rajavembala - king cobra
Rajilam - krait family
Rasa - taste, flavour, aesthetic quality
Ritucharya - seasonal regimen
Saahacharyangal - environment, situation
Sahajam - innate
Sahasrayogam - a text comprising of 1000 medicinal compounds
Samgraham - essence of a large repertoire of knowledge, con-
cise version
Samhitas - the three canonical texts that codified indig-
enous healing practice: Charaka Samhita, Susruta
Samhita and Vagbhata Samhita/Ashtanga Hridayam
Samudayam - community
Samyaavastha - equilibrium/balance of bodily humours
Samyam - equilibrium, similarity
Sara Sastram - the science of breath
Sareera/m - body
Sastras - science, medicine
Sheetham - cold, cool
Shuddha - pure, not mixed, pristine
Shuddhiyillatha - impure, degraded
 Glossary xv

Siddhavaidyam - healing practice that uses minerals and metals

with herbs
Sloka - verse, poem
Sneha - oil, ghee, love
Sookshmajnaanam - subtle knowledge
Sookshmam - infinitesimal, subtle, invisible, oblivion, opaque
Sthoolam - visible, obvious, large
Sudras - castes hierarchically positioned below Brahmins
and above lower castes
Sukham - health, peace, comfort
Sukhamaranam - peaceful or comfortable death
Sutras - techniques, ruse, trick
Swathantraravuka - become free
Swasthavritham - regime of health
Swasthyam - in harmony with body - mind
Swethan - white-coloured
Talam - clogging oil on the pate or around the eyes
Tantra/m - technique, strategy
Thadhesseeya - indigenous, native
Thanmayeebhaavam - harmonious blending, seeing the other in
oneself
Tharimarunnu - small pieces of dry herbs, medicinal plants and
leaves
Thonnuka - recall instinctively, instinctive feeling
Tridoshas - three bodily humours (vata, pitha and kapha) in
Ayurveda
Ulpannam - product
Upa-vaidya - assistant medical practitioner
Upajayam - renewal, nourishing
Upasana - devotion, dedication, worship
Urumi - a foldable/flexible sword used in Kalarippayattu
Ushnam - hot, heat
Uthama - final, super, best
Uzhichil - medicinal oil massage
Vaasthusastra - architectural knowledge
Vadivukal - sturdy body postures in Kalarippayattu
Vaidya - medical practitioner/healer
Vaidya Sastram - indigenous medical science
Vaidya/n - indigenous male health practitioner
Vaidyam - health practice
Vaidyaratnamalika - diamond garland of medicine (allegorical use)
Vaidyas - indigenous health practitioners
Vaidyasala - place where patients are treated and medicines
are given
xvi Glossary

Vanakkangal - bodily expressions in Kalarippayattu that pays

homage to the guru and others
Varmakalai - kalarippayattu (northern Kerala and Tamilnadu
style)
Vaythari - verbal commands in kalarippayattu
Vayu - air, oxygen, breath
Veerya - potency of a medicine
Vendiran - a tactful person, someone difficult to deal with,
a snake that when it bites produces the effect of
hybrid poison.
Verumkaimura - bare body defence in kalarippayattu
Vichakshanar - learned, sapient
Vidya - a combination of skill, expertise, knowledge,
learning and wisdom
Vidyabhyasam - education
Vipaka - action of a drug after digestion or assimilative
transformation
Vishachikitsa - indigenous toxicology
Visham - poison
Vishavaidya/n - toxicology practitioner
Vishavaidyam - indigenous toxicology
Vridhi - increase
Vyayamam - physical exercise
Yeshassu - fame, reputation
Yogam - medicinal compositions, fate
Yukthialochanam - logical thought, appropriate thought

Note: This glossary is not exhaustive and not a general statement of what the non-
English terms stand for in all situations. It provides a pointer to what the terms mean
in general situations. The specific meaning and the connotations of the terms are
clarified only in the main text.
Introduction
DIALOGIC EPISTEMES
Documenting the liminal space in indigenous
medicine

Avanaparambu Maheshwaran Nampoothiri was a 90-year-old nattuvaidyan (indig-

enous medical practitioner) from Wadakkanchery taluk, Thrissur district. He was a
well-known vishavaidyan (expert in indigenous toxicology) and gajavaidyan (expert
in the medical treatment of elephants) from central Kerala.1 Paradoxically, despite his
reputation and social acceptance, until his death in September 2020, this celebrity
vaidya (indigenous health/Ayurveda practitioner) did not have official registration
to practice vishavaidyam (toxicology) or gajavaidyam (Ayurveda meant for elephants).
According to the State medical rules, he was an unregistered and hence unauthor-
ised medical practitioner.This meant that the State had the legal right to punish him
for his unauthorised medical practice as the government did not recognise, control
and monitor his practice through a medical registration. He could not get registered
as per Travancore-Cochin Medical Practitioners (TCMP) Act, 1953 because the
Act permitted a practitioner to register within a period of one year from the date
from which the Act comes into force. The Act also insisted that the person should
have been a regular practitioner for five years preceding the first day of April 1953.2
However, in reality, Avanaparambu Nampoothiri was one of the top experts invited
and consulted for the medical treatment of elephants belonging to the Guruvayur
and Cochin Devaswom Boards constituted by the state government to manage the
respective temples.3 He was the adviser for the management of elephants at the
Guruvayur Devaswom. Noted elephant veterinarian, Dr. Jacob Cheeran was a close
associate of Nampoothiri and used to consult him for the treatment of elephants.4
On the one hand, this practitioner did not have a legal right to practice vaidyam. On
the other hand, his expertise in the field of treatment of elephants and snakebites
was acknowledged unofficially. Furthermore, colleges such as Kottakkal Ayurveda
College and Travancore Ayurveda College used to invite him on occasion to take
classes for the students on vishavaidyam and gajavaidyam.5

DOI: 10.4324/9780429295966-1
2 Dialogic epistemes

Nirmalanadagiri Swami was a 76-year-old spiritual leader and nattuvaidyan, who

practised at his ashram in Ottappalam taluk, Palakkad district in central Kerala.
Several patients including people suffering from cancer and dengue fever used
to approach him for a cure. The Ayurveda doctors of Palakkad district filed a
case against Swami’s unauthorised practice as he was not a registered practitioner
and had learnt vaidyam traditionally. During enquiry by the state officials, Swami
informed them that he did not offer his medical knowledge to anyone formally as
an Ayurveda doctor. And he asked the officials to prevent the people who came to
consult him from seeking cures. Thus, he would be free from the task of assisting
them with his traditional medical wisdom.6 The officials could not do anything to
prevent patients from consulting the Swami for cure or relief from pain that could
not be mitigated by Allopathic treatments.7 Subsequently, the case was withdrawn
by the Ayurveda doctors and they began to invite Swami to take classes for them
on vaidyam.8
The two above-mentioned cases are examples of Ayurvedic practitioners who had
expertise in their knowledge system, were well-recognised and had acquired trust from
their patients, the public and the State. Yet, they did not have a medical registration
under the TCMP Act, 1953 because of the conditions laid within the Act and were
unauthorised practitioners throughout their lives. These instances hint at the contra-
dictions within norms set by the state institutions and their infeasibility in classifying
vaidya as registered and unregistered practitioners and vaidyam as accredited Ayurveda
and unrecognised nattuvaidyam (indigenous medicine). Nattuvaidyam is Ayurveda, even
though in the twentieth century, the institutionalised, modernised and standardised
Ayurveda separated itself as a distinct entity independent of nattuvaidyam. The evolu-
tion of Ayurveda from nattuvaidyam is central to the arguments elucidated in this book.
By the twentieth century, indigenous healing practitioners trained through differ-
ent modes and registered under TCMP Act and Ayurveda doctors educated through
the newly evolved educational institutions were the only people authorised to prac-
tice vaidyam. However, the state of things was different at the level of practice. A
large number of paaramparya vaidyas (traditionally trained practitioners/nattuvaidyas)
still practised with their unique knowledge and expertise in Ayurveda and its spe-
cialised fields such as marmavaidyam (vital spot massage), vishavaidyam, netravaidyam
(treatment for eyes), ottamooli vaidyam,9 chintamani vaidyam (part of Siddhavaidyam),
etc.10 The liminal space of relentless interaction among heterogeneous indigenous
medicines is often visible and accessible not only at the level of practice but also
within the discursive field constituted by the theoretical framework. Through a
close reading of the practices, archival materials, vaidya magazines and secondary
sources as well as interactions and interviews with practitioners, this work maps the
continuous interaction among practices. It delineates the sharing, incorporation and
appropriation of knowledge, the simultaneous weeding out of practitioners from
different cultural locations, and the institutionalisation of classical Ayurveda as the
alternative healing practice of India. Basham uses the term “classical tradition” to
describe Ayurveda (Basham 1976, 18–43).11 This has been reproduced continuously
by scholars and practitioners. The refashioning of Ayurveda as a ‘classical tradition’
 Dialogic epistemes 3

occurred through a series of processes and within the larger discursive field of bio-
medicine and modern education. This includes interaction among diverse health
practices, selective assimilation, simultaneous exclusion of heterogeneous healing
practices, and weeding out of practitioners who had oral learning and depended on
vernacular texts. Interestingly after a while, during the 1980s some of the obliter-
ated practices popped up again and flourished within the new requirement driven
by the tourism industry.
Until the late twentieth century, the scholarship on indigenous medicine postu-
lated Ayurveda as ‘the classical’ tradition of India, but what constituted this classical
Ayurveda had always been based on certain presumptions (see Leslie & Young 1993,
Leslie 1976; Panikkar 1995, Sujatha 2007). Such scholarship was located within the
muted spaces of the transition of heterogenous ayurvedas into an institutionalised
and standardised ‘classical’ Ayurveda practice of India. The category ‘Ayurveda’ was
more often assumed or taken for granted rather than analysed, interpreted or empir-
ically explained. It was used as an already-known category that existed from the
Vedic period onwards and did not need further examination or explanation. Such
assumptions tend to become normative and taken for the truth to understand par-
ticular historical moments in the history of indigenous medicine. The assumptions
become further complicated by historicising them and foregrounding the ideas of
codification in canonical Sanskrit texts to further strengthen them. This has fig-
ured over the years in the historiographical landscape of India and functions as the
foundational premise to study Ayurveda vis-à-vis indigenous medicine. The basic
question, what constitutes ‘Ayurveda’ had not been asked until the mid-twentieth
century.
The studies range from adopting a comparative framework between biomedicine
and Ayurveda or nattuvaidyam and Ayurveda, to address the internal specificities of the
diverse practices.The proclivity is either to locate indigenous medicine in the margin
of modern knowledge (Kumar & Basu 2013) or to idealise them as the pure essence
and tradition of a particular region and people (Zimmermann 1982). Scholarship
also delves into the internal logic and concepts used within the knowledge practices
and the hierarchical structures within them (Mukharji 2011, Hardiman & Mukharj
2012). However, the interface of incessant sharing among heterogenous practices and
reorganisation within them have rarely been explored even though acknowledged.
Because diversity is a challenging realm to deal with and explain. All over India,
practices that use or are supposed to use Samhita texts or the Brhatrayis (the great
threesome) and their translated versions are identified with classical Ayurveda (Leslie
1976, Panikkar 1995,Wujastyk 1998). Charaka Samhita, Susruta Samhita and Ashtanga
Hridaya (hereafter CS, SS and AH) are the canonical Sanskrit texts known as the
Brhatrayis or Samhitas that become the visible correlation between a codified text
and its corresponding knowledge, Ayurveda.This presumption sees India as a mono-
lithic entity without considering the regional specificities, the herbs that grew in
each region specific to the nature of the soil and climate, the vernacular and oral tra-
ditions of healing and the subsequent resources tapped by the practitioners for thera-
peutic treatment. Many processes constituted the institutionalisation, standardisation
4 Dialogic epistemes

and the subsequent claim of classical Ayurveda as ‘the indigenous medicine of India’.
Miscellaneous practices to which this classical Ayurveda is indebted to in incorporat-
ing medicines and practices are clubbed together and named folk medicine/popular
medicine/nattuvaidyam, during the institutionalisation process of Ayurveda. Prior to
the nineteenth century, the term vaidyam was an umbrella concept to describe all
kinds of assorted practices. During the nineteenth century, the adjective ‘nattu’ (nadu,
place to which one has a belonging or anchoring) was added and the regional term
nattuvaidyam (native medicine) came into existence. It is obvious that the assertion of
nattu happened in the context of the presence of an outsider, the coloniser. By the
mid-twentieth century, the separation of Ayurveda was solidified through selective
rejection of and incorporation from diverse health practices and their categorisation
as nattuvaidyam/folk medicine.
In 1915, the Travancore Ayurveda Pathshala, the first government Ayurveda
school was supervised by the Nattuvaidyasala Superintendent (Mohanlal 2014). By
1917, the designation of Superintendent of Nattuvaidyasala was converted into the
Director of Ayurveda as per the request of the Superintendent. In 1950, the name
of the department was changed to the Department of Indigenous Medicine and
in March 1995, a Department of Indian System of Medicine & Homoeopathy
(ISM&H) was formed to regulate institutionalised and standardised Ayurveda and
Homoeopathy. In November 2003, the department was again reconstituted as
AYUSH by incorporating some of the hitherto excluded practices such as Yoga,
Naturopathy, Unani and Siddha along with Ayurveda and Homoeopathy. On
16 December 2011, Sowa Rigpa, the Tibetan medicine was incorporated. On 9
November 2014, the Ministry of AYUSH was formed to support the above-men-
tioned fields of indigenous medicine. However, many other specialised streams such
as marmavaidyam, ottamooli vaidyam, chintamani vaidyam, etc., are excluded from the
purview of the AYUSH department and are still known as nattuvaidyam. Apart from
Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Homoeopathy,
what else constitutes the Indian System of Medicine is a point of debate. Through
the inclusion of selected practices over time, the department makes it clear that it is
aware of these excluded practices.

Normative premises
This work discerns two major perspectives in the theories that set the norms to study
indigenous medicine. The first one is the idea of a centre-periphery relationship
between classical Ayurveda and the assorted practices/nattuvaidyam. The second one
is the idea of a vertical flow of knowledge from the classical tradition to the ‘lower’
health practices. These standpoints function as the normative foundational premise
of the larger scholarship on indigenous medicine and limit a nuanced understand-
ing of the field of practice on its own terms.The realm of practice, in fact, questions
the flimsiness of the hegemonic perspective in the theories on indigenous medicine.
In an established centre-periphery model, what was undermined is that the centre
is always shaped and reorganised by the very presence of the periphery and the
 Dialogic epistemes 5

roles of the centre/periphery often change, if at all the model sustains. The centre-
periphery model conceives of a spatial metaphor to describe the structural relation-
ship between the advanced metropolitan centre and the less-developed periphery.
In this economic model envisaged by Immanuel Wallerstein, under-development is
a necessary condition for the capitalist expansion at the centre. (Wallerstein 1974).
Connell describes the problems of the centre-periphery theory as follows: reading
from the centre is always based on a claim of universality of the centre in which
the periphery is incapable of claiming this universality because of its specific nature.
The premise of this theory is built upon exclusion and hence they suggest remedial
measures for the antinomy seen in the periphery rather than engaging with the
ideas from the periphery. Exclusion invariably leads to grand erasure of the periph-
ery (Connell 2008, 45–47). In the centre-periphery model, the periphery is looked
into or theorised only to understand the issues emerging in the centre and not vice
versa. The norm is the centre, and everything else is a deviation from this norm.
Even though the centre-periphery model is formulated in the context of the eco-
nomic under-development of countries, it is extended to a variety of fields by sociolo-
gists and historians.The centre-periphery model can be equated with the earlier great
and little tradition models of the Orientalist perspective where the Aryanised Sanskrit
traditions or the European tradition always represented the great tradition and assorted
regional and local practices represented the little traditions. Separating traditions into
great and little is premised upon the idea that reformation and learning is a process that
has to trickle down from above, from the literate, elite, and hence from great traditions
to the oral, marginalised and little traditions (Redfield 1961). It has been pointed out
that this differentiation exposes the larger global or civilizational agenda of reforming
the little traditions (Hardiman & Mukharj, 2012, 2). Leslie inaugurated this model in
1976 through his work on indigenous medicine, Asian Medical Systems: A Comparative
Study. It is seen as the pioneering work in this field and quoted consistently by scholars.
Another set of studies show a muted anxiety between ‘tradition’ and ‘modern’ as well
as ‘science’ and ‘religion’ (Gupta 1976). Here science and biomedicine represent the
great tradition. The necessary condition to initiate a dialogue with the little tradition
(nattuvaidyam) was to eradicate the non-scientific elements and ritualistic aspects of
it. Therefore, the institutionalised and modernised Ayurveda occupies an in-between
position in its dialogue with biomedicine and nattuvaidyam. But the status of Ayurveda
often changes from centre to margin depending upon the dialogues with the other.
The folk medicine (nattuvaidyam) hardly gets to the centre from the periphery, but its
marginality acts as a determining force in shaping the centre, i.e. Ayurveda.
The vertical perspective imagines that knowledge flows only from top to bottom
where the upper area is imagined as occupied by the elite/upper-caste/dominant
literate communities.12 There is a close relationship between these two models; both
visualise a solid centre or upper position constituted by the rich, powerful and
educated class who are always seen as an organised group to establish themselves at
the centre/top. The peripheries, semi-peripheries and the bottom supposedly con-
stituted by the scattered, poor and uneducated class look upon the centre or the top
as their ideal role model perpetually.
6 Dialogic epistemes

In the studies on indigenous medicine, reverse osmosis could not be imagined in

both the models where the periphery or bottom is occupied by assorted practices
and practitioners from diverse cultural backgrounds. Heterogeneity is arduous to
tame and analyse, especially in nattuvaidyam because it addresses multiple notions
of body, disease and healing and is practised by people across religion, caste and
community. Lambert states that heterogeneity could be partially the reason for the
relative invisibility of the assorted practices (Lambert 1992, 1069–76). Nevertheless,
a horizontal imagination is not an alternative to engage with the hegemonic models
that study indigenous knowledge practices. Instead of imagining a binary relation
and reverse flow of knowledge from the poor/lower-caste/non-literate communi-
ties to the other, I argue that one can address the liminal spaces of unremitting
dialogue among diverse healing practices and practitioners. The multiple centres of
power and expertise in specialised areas of practice regulate the norms of the inter-
actions among the practitioners. The sharing and dialogue were not always smooth;
there were techniques of withholding medicinal compounds by not sharing the
complete list of medicines/ingredients used and there were secret scripts and tech-
niques of language that was used to document knowledge in medicine. The book
attempts to address this gap of the unaddressed liminal space of interaction amongst
diverse healing practices or ayurvedas. It foregrounds the transitions that happened
in the domain of indigenous medicine when dialogical healing epistemes engaged
with colonial and post-colonial transitions along with the subsequent interventions
of the state. This has to be foregrounded within the existing and changing hierar-
chical collaboration of caste and knowledge, the tensions that evolved and were
dealt within the old and new hierarchies, and the massive changes that happened in
the democratisation of Ayurvedic education. Democratisation invariably brought in
other kinds of tension related to standardisation, selective incorporation and elimi-
nation of vernacular texts and knowledge.
Many scholars agree that the institutionalisation of Ayurveda ensued through
the interaction and consolidation of a variety of healing practices, many of which
still prevails in India (Varier 1980, Panikkar 1995, Sujatha & Abraham 2009). While
everyone accepts that there is an interaction between diverse healing practices, what
is lacking is the mapping of the nature of the sharing, the subsequent consolidation
and the extent of the contribution of the practices. However, at the level of theori-
sation, while conceding the sharing between diverse medical practices, scholarship
focuses on studying Ayurveda as an already existing or pre-given codified healing
practice and system of India with internal cohesion and having a uniform curricu-
lum and texts. In such formulations, it is inevitable that other healing practices are
placed as marginalised practices in relation to Ayurveda. This rhetoric of diversity
fails to address the actual realm of diversity, the interactions as well as tensions within
them, and the internal concealed methods adopted to preserve the uniqueness of
practices even while sharing elements of healing, herbs and medicine. The regula-
tions and standards set by the nation-state often estranged the assorted healing prac-
tices, created uncertainties and perplexities and led to the formation of categories
like Ayurveda and nattuvaidyam (indigenous medicine/ayurvedas).
 Dialogic epistemes 7

Assorted practices and their diversity are difficult to grasp and they resist
detailing of standardised and homogenised characteristics even though the basic
principle to view the body and disease remains broadly identical. So, the com-
pulsion of the period to negotiate with a state-sponsored modern medicine and
its supremacy in dealing with the body and disease led to the making of a par-
ticular classical Ayurveda. In other words, the discursive field created through
the grid of colonial modernity sets the conditions to witness some practices as
being more visible, authentic and valuable while obfuscating many other diverse
practices and the live interaction amongst them. The codified and standardised
texts for learning, and a particular kind of literacy, as well as literacy in a spe-
cific dominant language, are preconditions to access institutionalised Ayurveda.
Caste and class become elusive players in setting these conditions of legitimacy
in the institutionalisation of Ayurveda. In this formulation, the existing learning
through mnemonic devices was treated as inferior and equated with illiteracy.
The practitioners who used these devices to recall knowledge in healing were
seen as ignorant and their practice was categorised unscientific compared to the
systematised Ayurveda. These processes of the refashioning of Ayurveda in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been elaborated in this work
by specifically looking into some of the predominant practices (ayurvedas) that
existed in South India.

What constitutes Indigenous?

Indigenous knowledge in different regions has been explored and studied by schol-
ars in multiple ways. The concept ‘indigenous’ emerged in the 1970s in the context
of the American Indian Movement and the Canadian Indian Brotherhood (Smith
1999, 7). However, the concept ‘indigenous’ is a loaded term and evolved within the
context of colonialisation in various continents to point out or mark an ‘other’ out
there as a pure original being/practice of a particular region. It is often conflated
with traditions within cultures and the attributes of traditional practice are also
subsumed within the concept of ‘indigenous practice.’ Cultural forms are identified
and classified as tradition within the historical relationship between the coloniser
and the colonised that devalue and restructure the very tradition (Dirks 2002). The
idea of ‘tradition’ changes tremendously during the period of colonial intervention
and with the inauguration of the enlightenment era, its meaning is entangled with
and constituted by the idea of modernity.13 What is traditional is always determined
by the norm of what is not modern and not resourceful enough to be incorporated
into the capitalist mode of production.Traditional practices are placed in opposition
to modern western knowledge, inaugurated by the arrival of new scientific con-
sciousness (Visvanathan 2007, 182–217). The common way of understanding any
indigenous practice is to push them into the realm of tradition, assuming tradition
as something situated in the past, negotiating with the present through its ‘pastness’.
For instance, in 1917, His Excellency’s reply to the address presented at the opening
of the Ayurvedic Dispensary at Cheruthurthy, Shoranur, states:
8 Dialogic epistemes

The essential part of any institution – a research institute well equipped and
well managed – should be on modern lines. By this means alone can the
accumulated traditions of the past be tested and freed from all the dross which
inevitably gathers round a system which looks too exclusively to the past.14

Tradition, with its attributed baggage of pastness, innocence and irrationality, is

posited as the ‘less other’ against the ‘modern’. At times, tradition also serves as a her-
itage and symbolic capital of a community, caste or region depending upon its cul-
tural market value and related visibility. For instance, Kalari which includes bodily
exercise, vital spot massaging and bone setting became established as the martial art
(kalarippayattu/fencing in kalari) restricted to a geographical location named Kerala
(Vijayakumar 2000); Ayurveda became the indigenous healing practice of India
(Basham 1976) and Siddha became the unique healing practice of Tamil Nadu by
the mid-twentieth century (Weiss 2009). Another approach, the ‘inventing tradition’
model, involved a process of formalisation and institutionalisation of practices with
reference to its past and its repetitive nature (Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983). These
perspectives apply certain norms and logic in the ways of thought which, in fact,
follow different forms of logic (Glenn 2000). Scholars find tradition and modernity,
not only as self-critical sites but as “a complicity of opposites” (Visvanathan 2007,
183). However, while sharing some commonalities as well as contrasting perspec-
tives, ‘traditional practices’ borrow many elements from practices that have different
systems of logic. Another concept ‘endogenous’ was coined in the context of Africa,
by Paulin Hountondji by acknowledging that there is no absolute origin and the
concept of endogeneity is relative (Hountondji 1995, 1–10).
I use the concept ‘indigenous’ without placing emphasis on their autochthonic
nature. In this work, ‘indigenous’ indicates those practices which have sustained
themselves in a limited or enlarged geographical area within nurturing or hostile
situations for centuries, irrespective of their point of origin. These practices have
been adaptive and have attained certain attributes unique to the region where they
are located. This work will also retain the Malayalam term nattuvaidyam for ‘indig-
enous medicine’ throughout the book and use both terms interchangeably when-
ever necessary. The study does not approach indigenous knowledge practices as
self-sustained, non-hierarchical and homogenous. It probes the play of power within
indigenous practices and in their negotiation with the dominant and state-patron-
ised system of education, since “education played an authentic role in the process
of anthropologising, critiquing and traditionalising indigenous practices” (Sujatha &
Abraham 2009, 35–43). The divisions based on content and form between textual
knowledge and non-textual knowledge, the conceptualisation of spatial and tempo-
ral divides between the ‘modern’ and the ‘traditional,’ the secular and the religious,
the material and the spiritual, etc., indicate some of the notions incorporated into
processes through which certain practices acquired a privileged position over other
indigenous practices.
Teaching, learning and transfer of skills are integral to both modern education
and indigenous knowledge practices. There seems to be some crucial difference
 Dialogic epistemes 9

in how these systems and practices negotiate with each other and develop their
perspectives towards life, health and death. How are knowledge systems derived,
divided, differentiated and systematised? How do they attain positions of rela-
tive privilege? These questions are central to unravelling the processes that led to
the segregation of practice, knowledge and skill in many indigenous systems. The
term ‘knowledge systems’ is used in this work to indicate a wide range of systems
and practices that generate and transmit knowledge and skill, responding to the
instrumental and institutional needs of various periods. The idea of a system that is
inherent in a set of interacting or interdependent components which form an inte-
grated whole (Parsons 1951) was applied to the study of indigenous practices from
the early twentieth century. This was arguably because of the presence of shared
norms and values as well as a functional relationship. The origin of the concept of
indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) can be traced to the debates over intellectual
property rights among the Australian and Canadian tribes (Lewinski 2008) where
IKS was posited against the hegemonic western knowledge system. In the Indian
scenario, such a conceptualisation is inappropriate because, here, a dominant and
institutionalised practice such as Ayurveda as well as a tribal medicinal practice is
also IKS.When I use the term IKS, I intend to attribute neither a collective margin-
ality nor an assumed collectivity to different IKS. Though knowledge is a modern
concept with connotations of objectivity, rationality and distanciation, by using the
term IKS, I would like to associate it with ‘indigenous health practices’ inclusive of
knowledge, expertise and labour.
In this work, I do not separate ‘practice’ from ‘knowledge’ but see it as inclusive
of knowledge.The concept of ‘knowledge’ that gained prominence in the late eigh-
teenth century did not bear any single definition. Plato’s definition of knowledge
as ‘justified true belief ’ necessitates three conditions for anything to be considered
as knowledge: justification, truth and belief or the justification of belief as truth.
Knowledge is also defined as “a product of social, material and intellectual activity
of people; an ideal reproduction in sign form of objective properties and connec-
tions in the world, of the natural and human” (Frolov 1967, 212). In The Penguin
Dictionary of Philosophy, knowledge is not the same as belief or opinion (Mautner
1997, 328). From the nineteenth century, the buzzword knowledge began to be
considered equivalent to modern education because education is meant for the dis-
semination of modern, western knowledge (Kumar 2004; Seth 2007). By this time,
knowledges position and construct knowers in objective ways and in order to access
knowledge, a subject has to undergo a certain refashioning (Seth 2007). This is not
so in the case of ‘practice’ or rather ‘ways of knowing’ where knowledge, knowing
and the knower/subject are intermingled. I use both knowledge and practice as
interchangeable terms to denote ways of knowing in vaidyam. However, the word
‘practice’ is not sufficient enough to represent vaidyam, as practice merely indicates
the application or acting out of something. In Malayalam, the equivalent term for
practice is prayogam. But in the context of vaidyam, prayogam signifies ‘the composi-
tion of medicines’ in addition to the corresponding terms like action, practice, use,
and application.
10 Dialogic epistemes

The work also lays out an understanding of the processes involved in making
modern education the axis of knowledge production and in the simultaneous era-
sure of other knowledge practices through the observation of select nattuvaidyam
and their texts and internal concepts. Modern education, an important component
of ‘modernity,’ acts as an influential system working through a series of processes,
which include incorporating different and diverse knowledge systems into a cen-
tralised form of knowledge production. It applies its norms to all other systems,
fixing conditions for what qualifies as knowledge and also introducing stipulations
to access that knowledge. More importantly, this assimilation and erasure takes place
not through coercion, but through methods of incorporation, standardisation, cate-
gorisation and simultaneous differentiation (Cohn 1996). It need not amount to the
total extinction of certain practices but can result in significant transformations in
their form and essence. How does education try to assimilate/erase and integrate/
disintegrate other knowledge practices which have specific characteristics and dif-
ferent ethics in terms of their interaction with the world and with itself? How do
other knowledge practices negotiate within themselves and with the development-
oriented world? Does modern education reshape our understanding of other diverse
systems of practices? Does an awareness of knowledge in indigenous practices rede-
sign one’s relation with modern education? These are some questions that the book
attempts to address circuitously in the following chapters while elaborating on some
of the specific debates that happened between the institutions of the state and the
vaidyas. The attempt here is not to compare and contrast indigenous knowledge
practices with modern education or medicine. The emphasis is to understand their
different modes of operation as well as their approach to life and health. The work
moves away from a comparative study framework because such a framework tends
to posit certain practices or aspects within those practices as superior to certain oth-
ers. Instead, it tries to identify the changes that happened within a chain of events
we name ‘development’ or ‘industrial and scientific revolution’ that lead to changes
in the attitudes towards life and health. In other words, the transformations within
nattuvaidyam render visible the ways through which these practices negotiate with
new ideas of progress, health and disease.This book seeks to arrive at a closer under-
standing of these processes in relation to the transformations in indigenous practices
like kalari and vishavaidyam, their norms and ethics, the play of power within them
and their negotiation with other similar practices. These processes in turn unravel
the enhancement of Ayurveda as the classical tradition of a region.
This work does not deal with adivasi vaidyam (tribal medicine as it is known
popularly and in official documents) even though it is also one of the indigenous
healing traditions. Adivasi vaidyam and nattuvaidyam are distinct and similar in many
ways. The medicines used in both practices are different though both use herbs in
their treatment. Nattuvaidyam is practised all over Kerala and in many parts of India
(under different names) and is largely based on the tridosha principle or the principle
of bodily humours.15 Adivasi vaidyam is never called Ayurveda despite its herb-based
treatment. In other words, Ayurveda differentiates itself not only from nattuvaidyam
but also from Adivasi vaidyam, in its practice and theory. The practice is popular
 Dialogic epistemes 11

among the Adivasi community. People living in other locations utilise this treatment
by approaching the practitioners in their settlements. The distinction between the
practitioners is not merely geographical but also cultural.
What makes this book significant is that instead of reiterating the rhetoric of
diversity of indigenous medicine, it sketches the processes through which the
production of Ayurveda as the indigenous medical practice of a region had happened
at the cost of assorted healing traditions/ ayurvedas existing in the region. The
institutionalisation and systematisation of Ayurveda are shaped by the contribution
of heterogeneous healing traditions and are underscored by scholars. The process
delegitimised non-institutionalised assorted practices (to which Ayurveda owes)
as nattuvaidyam, folk medicine and popular medicine by categorising them as
unscientific, uncodified and non-textual. The work further states that the processes
also evoke an imagination of Kerala through the contours of vaidyam, even before the
formation of a geographically bounded united Kerala. While negotiating with the
notion of a new scientific rationality, the vaidyas united and formed an association,
the Ayurveda Samajam and published magazines on vaidyam, wrote continuously
to defend their knowledge and efficacy in vaidyam and conducted annual meetings
and exhibitions of medicines and herbs. Their idea of belonging to a region was
envisaged through the contours of their knowledge, nattuvaidyam, and by creating
camaraderie amongst the practitioners, patrons, proponents and beneficiaries. The
bounded nature of the region was determined through diverse indigenous healing
practices and not through a strictly defined geographical space.
The book utilises vernacular texts along with other materials as valid sources of
knowledge to locate the transition in the healing practices. When vernacular texts
are approached as heuristic devices, it enables us to see the limitations of the nar-
ratives and the analysis produced and entrenched around the officially recognised
languages. The study focuses on pinpointing the negotiations of the practitioners
in their survival strategies to cope with the demands of a new scientific conscious-
ness and an emerging market looking for alluring products. My endeavour is to
outline certain moments of rearrangement, re-figuration and transformation or,
rather, ‘productive self-formation’ of nattuvaidyam in the whole process of negotiat-
ing with the state, biomedicine and the newly produced, institutionalized and sys-
tematized Ayurveda.16 Many distinct healing practices that existed in certain parts of
India from the nineteenth century become part of Ayurveda by the mid-twentieth
century. These incorporated elements of knowledge have enhanced the author-
ity and authenticity of Ayurveda as the sole indigenous healing tradition of India.
Instantaneously, the processes erased or devalued many practices by terming them
as quackery and folk practice.
The formation of linguistic identities and subsequent materialisation of
state boundaries have also played their role in the reorganisation of indigenous
medicinal practices like Ayurveda and Siddha. The former acquired the status of
a distinctive indigenous medicine of India and the latter gained eminence as the
Dravidian practice of Tamil regions. The Ayurveda practised in Kerala, the far South
Indian state affirmed an additional distinctiveness with some unique practices like
12 Dialogic epistemes

panchakarma and vital spot massaging. The spatial location of the study is Kerala, a
region that has been studied for its cultural, political and developmental uniqueness.
Nevertheless, it addresses larger concerns – the politics of knowledge formation and
the crevices in the hegemonic theories used to study the Ayurveda of India and the
folk practices in different regions. From a closer, in-depth analysis of local practices
and histories, the study productively engages with global theories and perspectives,
critiquing some of their basic premises. In other words, the book engages with the
history of ideas and asks crucial questions to existing scholarship on the field. It also
presents a novel approach to studying indigenous knowledge by opening up the
subject of the liminal spaces of interaction amongst diverse healing practices, which
has not been explored much in the context of India. The work follows a non-linear
approach for locating certain vantage points from the early nineteenth century to
the contemporary. An investigation into the past will show how the contemporary
is produced, by making interconnections and dissociations with the historical and
the ‘non-historical’.

Organisation of flow
The opening chapter contextualises the research and maps the patterns that emerge
within existing scholarship on indigenous medicine and the significant questions
that are raised in them.Whether the pattern is sufficient enough to locate the inter-
nal nature of nattuvaidyam and the relentless interaction within it is a question that
the book is concerned with. Some of the key terms used in the work are discussed
along with the disciplinary and methodological questions within the project. The
second and third chapters present a genealogical understanding of the health prac-
tices and their transformations, continuities and ruptures. The interface between
print media and indigenous medicine has been analysed in Chapter 2. It elaborates
the way in which the literate practitioners tapped the potential of print media to
ascribe authenticity to their practice. The non-literate and neo-literate practitio-
ners enriched their knowledge in vaidyam through vaidya magazines and vernacular
texts, while also disseminating their knowledge. The function that print technol-
ogy played in the reordering of nattuvaidyas in their negotiation with the state and
with the modernising of Ayurveda is elaborated in which the disruption of existing
hierarchy and the production of new power relations can be seen.While interacting
with the discourse on health and hygiene, indigenous healing practitioners created
their own mechanisms and semi-autonomous, quasi-legal associations located in
between the state and the hegemonic health practices patronised by the state.
Chapter 3 explores the process of the production of the modernised and institu-
tionalised Ayurveda and the simultaneous estrangement of the multifarious healing
practices as nattuvaidyam through the functionalisation of knowledge. Various gov-
ernmental processes institutionalised the protocols while implementing programmes
and plans for an organised vaidyam. The analysis concludes with the elaboration of
the reconfiguration of the Ayurveda as the classical tradition of Kerala as well as
India. I argue that Ayurveda satisfied the conditions for becoming ‘knowledge’ from
 Dialogic epistemes 13

being a way of knowing. In other words, ways of knowing are reduced to one way
of knowing a particular practice that partially satisfies the norms set for modern
knowledge. Chapter 4 deals with the multiple ideas of the body, or the bodies in nat-
tuvaidyam.The terms used in describing the body in different contexts are indicators
of the intricate contextual meanings of the body. The body is seen as a site through
which technologies for ‘care of the self ’ are articulated. The chapter also analyses
the notion of classification, standardisation and health in nattuvaidyam, which fore-
ground the functionality of a body.
Chapter 5 has three sections. The first section analyses the role of modern
education in shaping our relationship with the self and with nattuvaidyam. The
idea of vidya (knowledge, skill, craft, art, ability, strategy) in nattuvaidyam has been
explored, looking at the works of a few thinkers and reformers who were born
in the late nineteenth century and lived through the early twentieth century in
Kerala.The thinkers referred to were selected from different castes and communities
and also from different parts of Kerala, to emphasise the distinction in aspirations
around education and the diversity in their approaches within the same aspirations.
The second section of this chapter lays out the anxieties and ambivalence in
classifying practices as purely vishavaidyam or Ayurveda. Vishavaidyam, a specialised
stream in Ayurveda, is doubly monitored through examinations. The third section
elaborates the significant moments in the debates on education in Ayurveda and
the corresponding changes that occurred in the field of Ayurvedic education.
The argument in this chapter is that the changes which took place in the realm
of Ayurvedic education, as well as vishavaidya certification, allude to the gradual
transformation of the existing notion of vidya into an emerging idea of vidyabhyasam
or modern education and the tensions that emerged out of the transition. The
concluding chapter revisits the critical premises and points of departure, and suggests
their relevance to scholarship on indigenous medical practices in South Asia.

Notes
1 The region was territorialised and named as the state of Kerala in 1956.Till 1947, the area
was largely known as Malayala Rajyam and included the two princely states of Travancore
and Cochin along with British Malabar.The first indigenous attempt to imagine Kerala as
a unified geographical and political space came from Chattambi Swamikal as discussed in
his book, Praacheena Malayalam (Ancient Malayalam) in 1914. Other attempts were based
on exogenous parameters such as an area with a significant presence of the Portuguese
merchants, or as a residual part of a macro unit called South India. (See Raju 1999, 1–62).
2 See TCMP Act, 1953, under Registration, Section I, (i) and (ii).
3 Devaswom Boards are trusts meant to supervise the activities and financial transactions
of temples in Kerala. This is a peculiar system in Kerala where there are five boards:
Travancore Devaswom Board, Cochin Devaswom Board, Malabar Devaswom Board,
Gurvayur Devaswom Board and Koodal Manikyam Devaswom Board. The first three
administer the temples of Travancore, Cochin and Malabar and the remaining two boards
supervise and administer two exclusive temples.
4 https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2020/sep/19/hastyayurveda-expert-
maheswaran-namboodiripad-passes-away-2198840.html accessed on 12.03.2021.
14 Dialogic epistemes

5 Interview with Avanaparambu Maheswaran Nampoothiri at Wadakkanchery on

16.01.2012. I use the actual names of only two practitioners in this introduction because
both of them were well-known vaidyas within Kerala. The state recognised them indi-
rectly by requesting their services and expertise whenever required. Avanaparambu
Nampoothiri died on 18 September 2020 and Nirmalanadagiri died on 17 February
2017. All other names used in the book are pseudonyms to protect the identity and safety
of the practitioners.
I have not used diacritical marks but spelt the vernacular terms in accordance with the
Malayalam pronunciation.
6 Interview with Nirmalanadagiri at Ottapalam on 22.05.2012.
7 ‘Allopathy’, western medicine and English medicine are terms widely used in India
in common parlance to refer to biomedicine. The Greek term ‘allo’ means ‘the other.’
Biomedicine refers to modern medicine which was introduced in India in the nineteenth
century and supported by the state and identified as the primary medical practice in India.
8 I attended two classes of Nirmalanadagiri on ‘Emergency Medicine and Critical Care
in Ayurveda’ meant for Ayurveda doctors at Changuvetty, Kottakkal on 05.05.2013. A
majority of the Ayurveda doctors were curious to know about the rare remedies that
were not available in the learnt/canonical texts for the treatment of diseases, especially
cancer and diabetes. In the month of December 2015, Swami took another class for
Ayurveda doctors in Coimbatore.
9 Ottamoolis are special medicines meant for particular diseases such as jaundice, kidney
stones, piles etc. The secret of these medical preparations are not available in any of the
publicly circulated texts. This is treated as the confidential knowledge of a vaidya or his/
her family who prepares the medicines and passes this knowledge from generation to
generation within the family. Ottamooli is also described as one-time medication or a
single ingredient medicine.
10 Siddha is one of the codified indigenous medical practices of South India. The textual
corpus of siddha is largely in Tamil. The siddha philosophy was initially critical of idol
worship and temple systems. Later some siddhars merged with the Saiva bhakti tradition.
Siddhars are a broad sect that includes devotees of Siva in the Deccan, alchemists in Tamil
Nadu, early Buddhist tantrikas from Bengal, the alchemists of medieval India and alche-
mists and yogis of north India. (White 1996, 1–14).
11 Classical symbolizes that which stands the test of time with a universal appeal. Its influ-
ence is spread across generations. It does not allow major changes since it has its own per-
fection and beauty which is tested by time. It is old but does not become archaic because
of its everlasting contemporaneity.These ideas on the formation of a classical tradition are
indebted to the Greco-Roman antiquity.
12 See Panikkar (1995) for the vertical model. Panikkar’s writings on indigenous medicine
is noted as the first significant work in the context of Kerala as well as South India. This
Marxian historian’s perspective is influenced by the System theory of Wallerstein and
shadowed by the Orientalist perspective.
13 Modernity is the rise of a number of key features in the social organisation of seven-
teenth century Europe that extended its influence throughout the world. This includes
the emergence of the discourse on reason and rationality with the concomitant growth
of science, the spread of literacy, industrial production with capital investments, the idea
of increasing social mobility, the consolidation of the nation-state, the secularisation
of society and the new texture of selfhood based on the liberal concepts of freedom,
autonomy and individuality (Calhoun 2002; Ashcroft et al. 1998). Kerala modernity is
further problematised by scholars arguing that the region is studied as “a pre-discursive,
 Dialogic epistemes 15

homogenous and ontologically coherent entity that appears as a monolithic linguistic-

cultural-administrative entity”. They further argue that regionalism is studied only as a
variant of nationalism. (Bose & Varughese 2015, 1–24).
14 GO No.475–476 dated 19.11.1917, Local and Municipality Department (Medical), The
Indigenous Medicine, Tamil Nadu State Archives (TSA). Here, a freedom from tradition
is essential to be modern and scientific.
15 There are three humours in the body, vata, pitha, kapha (which are often wrongly trans-
lated as wind, bile and phlegm.Valiathan translates these three humours as wind, fire and
water). They are aligned with opposite qualities such as hot-cold, wet-dry etc. and the
equilibrium of these humours maintains health. (Valiathan 2003). Wind, fire and water
do not indicate the very nature of these phenomena. Instead, the functions of these three
humours are on par with the nature of wind, fire and water. Wind helps all kinds of
internal and external movements, fire helps digestion (pajanam and deepanam), and water
nourishes the body and activates the mobility of wind (Murti 1948, 88–91). The basic
tenets of nattuvaidyam are more or less based on the same concept of humours which rely
on the fundamental macro and microcosmic connections between human beings and the
cosmos in which they live.Yet, they have different concepts to approach the body such as
the 96 principles in kalari vaidyam. But by the mid-twentieth century, kalari that did not
follow the humoural perspective till then, began introducing it as their principle.
16 Taking a cue from Foucault, Mukharji avers that western medicine’s role as a ‘repressive’
force has been studied widely, but its ‘productive’ role in constituting new subjects and
subject-position has not been explored. He further points out (through the works of
Vaughan 1991 and Anderson 2002) that both repressive control and productive self-for-
mation have been the consequences of colonial medical power whereas only the former
aspect has been projected in scholarly works (Mukharji 2011, 9–10).
1
THE INTERSECTING TRIAD
Kalari, Vishavaidyam and Ayurveda

The chapter delineates the transformations that took place in two indigenous heal-
ing practices or nattuvaidyam of Kerala, namely, kalari and vishavaidyam, in their co-
existence and interaction with Ayurveda. The idea of knowledge that evolved in
relation to these practices is analysed while contextualising the research and dis-
cussing a few key terms used in the book. The tenuousness of the popular and
scholarly perception of nattuvaidyam as folk medicine, which is considered a mar-
ginalised tradition among medical practices in India, in contrast to the institution-
alised and systematised modern Ayurveda has been given special attention. The
study expounds the limitation of using modern taxonomy with strict boundaries to
understand indigenous healing practices because each practice frequently intersects
with other practices and are interconnected with a common underlying philosophy.
The idea of taxonomy was not absent in indigenous medicine, but the philosophi-
cal underpinnings of taxonomy are different from the classificatory norms of a later
period. However, in the early twentieth century, practices acquired authenticity and
legitimisation through their association with linguistic and regional identities and
upheld the norms of a new classificatory system. A majority of the texts used in
Siddhavaidyam are in Sentamil (in the ancient Tamil language). The practice associ-
ated its origin and evolution with the Dravidian movement,Tamil language and the
State of Tamil Nadu although the geographical and linguistic boundaries of the state
were defined only in the twentieth century and the practice was spread across South
India. Similarly, Ayurveda is projected as the health practice of India by interlink-
ing its texts with the Sanskrit language and upper-caste practitioners. The umbrella
concept nattuvaidyam used to describe varied indigenous medicines or ayurvedas
were gradually transformed and divided into a systematised and codified Ayurveda
and a supposedly non-codified and non-scholarly nattuvaidyam.The major norms in
the theories in classifying some practices as scholarly and the other assorted practices
into the realm of non-scholarly folk medicines are deliberated in this chapter. The
DOI: 10.4324/9780429295966-2
 The intersecting triad 17

chapter concludes by detailing the construction of a specific kind of history for

Ayurveda in India, which resonates with the history of India, a particular reading of
history where the decaying of the golden age of any valuable practice commences
with the period of the Mughal emperors and is further accelerated during the
colonial period. The transformations within two unique practices of Kerala, kalari
and vishavaidyam, in particular, and nattuvaidyam vis-à-vis ayurvedas, in general, are
discussed.The changes within nattuvaidyam that had happened over a period of time
pinpoint to its earlier vital association with the ayurvedas and the contemporary
dissociation from an institutionalised and modernised Ayurveda.

Methodological musings
In order to write about the emerging dominance of the historical, Prathama
Banerjee argues, it is essential to understand the discursive and material processes
through which the non-historical is constituted. She states that in the process of
writing history, there are ways in which the primitive, the indigenous and the other
are situated (Banerjee 2006, 9). Taking a cue from Banerjee, it is suggested here
that to understand the privileging of certain knowledge systems such as modern
Ayurveda over other indigenous healing practices/ayurvedas, one has to look at this
process from the location of the latter, because assorted indigenous healing practices
have been positioned in a particular way as marginalised practices in the history of
the production of knowledge and in the making of modern Ayurveda. This makes
possible the viewing of the discursive field through which the latter is validated as
a significant site of knowledge. The processes not only involve the configuration of
certain norms that endorse authentic knowledge but also function as the necessary
conditions through which that knowledge can be accessed.
Methodological questions reflect the subject position of the researcher within
the data gathered, the people interviewed, and the theories put into use to interpret
these different registers. The success of the researcher lies in combining the three
registers which often move in divergent directions. Dissonances arise between the
theories and the field of research in the course of this work. But the conceptual
tools provide firm support to hold the materials together without erasing their
diversities and diverging character. This study has drawn from a variety of sources
in its writing. These include government reports, correspondence and proceedings
in continuation of the reports, government orders of the earlier princely states of
Travancore and Cochin as well as that of Malabar/Madras Presidency, “Proceedings
of the Committee on Indian System of Medicines”, the first “Committee Report
on Indigenous Systems of Medicine”, etc.1 Vernacular sources such as texts used
for learning vishavaidyam and nattuvaidyam were also utilised. A variety of maga-
zines on vaidyam such as Sukhashamsi (1922), Arogyavilasam (1926), Ayurvedic Gazette
(1932–33), Ayurvedachandrika (1947), Aroghyabandhu (1958–68), Vaidyabharatham
(1971–72), Physician Ayurveda Masika (1978), Ayurvedaratnam (1978), etc., published
in the twentieth century have been examined along with the newspapers of that
time. Dhanwantari, the first vaidya magazine published from British Malabar requires
18 The intersecting triad

special mention. It started publication in 1903 and went on for 23 years initiating
significant discussions on nattuvaidyam. Autobiographies and biographies of vaid-
yas, ballads used in kalari, etc., have also been used, apart from archival materials.
Interviews of practitioners of vishavaidyam, kalari, siddhavaidyam and Ayurveda were
utilised to supplement the textual materials.2 The fieldwork comprised of extensive
interviews, attending workshops and seminars conducted by the practitioners and
protagonists and the observation of practices.
In the attempt to understand the epistemological premise of nattuvaidyam, the
study raises a few questions. In vishavaidyam, the modes of classification (of snakes,
other animals, plants and their poison, medicines administered, etc.) are different
from the methods of modern scientific classification. Yet they follow a logic and
pattern of broad classification which needs to be located in the specificity of the
practice. Both kalari and vishavaidyam do not use written texts as everyday reference
books for practice. However, the practitioners memorise verses through reiteration
during the course of learning and use them as mnemonic devices at the time of
practice. In kalari, the memorisation and reiteration happen at the level of the body
and in bodily actions, through everyday practice. The vaythari or verbal codes have
only a secondary role in practice.3 No texts are used in kalari as a ready-reckoner
or as a reference book, either for doing kalarippayattu or for treating muscle injuries
and bone fractures to date. But after the mid-twentieth century, a proliferation of
texts can be seen, written by practitioners on marmavaidyam and published through
both well-known and less-known publishers.4 Kalarippayattu and related healing
traditions still do the learning through everyday practice and not by referring to any
texts, especially written texts.
In vishavaidyam, the reiterated and memorised verses act as a code for treating
the person affected by poison. The vaidya may refer to a text in case of doubt, but
generally s/he uses her/his memory to recall the series of medicines required for
treating each case. A variety of medicines are prescribed in the texts for specific
diseases and individual cases of poisoning. Forgetting one compound of medicine
is not a matter of great concern, as the vaidya can easily recall another group of
medicines. This was a common practice in indigenous medicine. In contrast, in the
modern Ayurvedic educational institutions, learning takes place based on texts and
thereafter in practical classes at hospitals. All this leads to the question of locating
the diverse outlook and the congruence among the text, content and author in the
different contexts of indigenous as well as modern Ayurveda practices. How does
one approach practices which have a set of norms and codes in an oral textual form?
This is a question that I encountered during this research and one which has not
yet been resolved completely. The challenge was to situate indigenous practices that
followed a unique set of techniques of learning and had a different approach to the
body and health, within their internal logic and strategies.
Kalari and vishavaidyam, the two distinct knowledge practices, have been juxta-
posed here to understand the specific and varied processes of transformation they
have undergone over the years. One is ‘successful and organised’ if we posit a linear
way of understanding progress, and the other is not ‘successful and organised’ but
 The intersecting triad 19

still has not become extinct. The transformation of the practices and their negotia-
tions with the state as well as other practices, amidst their survival history is stud-
ied in the light of the increasing influence of modern education. ‘Education’ here
refers to ‘modern’ educational practices that proliferated from the nineteenth cen-
tury through various formal and informal systems. These included formal schools,
colleges and universities that imparted education to students who enrolled in these
institutions, as well as civil society systems such as the film societies, the library
movement, the literacy movement and various programmes of non-governmental
organisations meant to conscientise the masses.

Can we think beyond taxonomy?

In the context of this research, the two indigenous practices that I look into can be
approached as healing traditions or medical practices. But they do not strictly follow
the framework of this classification and address a wide range of issues concerning
the body that cannot be classified as rational/irrational or scientific/non-scientific.
Prescribing any medicine for the cure of a disease is invariably a suggestion to regu-
late the dietary regimen, reinstate the equilibrium of the body and bring about a
change in lifestyle. Thus, these practices invoke a reordering of mental and bodily
activities, implied in a ‘care of the self.’5 Diagnosing disease and prescribing medi-
cine for it constitutes a procedure that takes into consideration not only the specific
bodily dispositions but also the conditions of the humours in the body in order to
give instructions for re-ordering the routines of the patient. Each practice could be
seen as a code of conduct that leads to another code of conduct or another set of
practices. The chikitsa or treatment considers other codes of practices like jyothisham
(astrology) or mantram (magical incantation), and seemingly enfold an entirely dif-
ferent realm of philosophical schools.6 The boundaries of different practices overlap
in such a way that a rational material practice leads to a non-rational one.
Kalari and vishavaidyam were distinct practices that prevailed in certain regions
of South India that came to be named Kerala and Tamil Nadu. These practices were
instrumental in the maintenance of health, vitality and well-being of the people.
Through a study of these two practices, I try to ascertain the general nature of nat-
tuvaidyam vis-à-vis Ayurveda and the transformations it has undergone from the
nineteenth century. The practices also lead to the production of many vernacular
texts that gave prescriptive and descriptive narratives about treatment. Vernacular
languages have always been considered lower in status in relation to ‘main’ languages
like English and Sanskrit. The very idea of the vernacular is produced within the
larger discourse of hegemonic languages.
Kalari consists of bodily exercises that were categorised and reduced as a mar-
tial art in the early twentieth century. Forms of healing such as bone-setting and
vital spot massaging were integral parts of kalari. In the medieval period, reading
and writing or rather education was also an activity the kalaris were involved in
(Ganesh 1997).7 Kalarippayattu functioned as a dispute redressal mechanism of the
kings as well as that of other people who could financially afford the practitioners
20 The intersecting triad

(Vijayakumar 2000). As mentioned above, kalari constitutes a series of practices and

overlaps with areas of indigenous education, sports and medicine, if we locate them
in the modern classificatory system of disciplines. In the contemporary context,
many of the kalari practitioners prefer to differentiate their skills in such a way
that they either train kalarippayattu or retain the healing part, i.e. bone-setting and
marmachikitsa. In Tamil Nadu, a similar kind of practice existed, known as adimurai/
adithadai or varmakalai. Adimurai is the Tamil term for kalarippayattu and varmakalai
literally means the art of marma or vital spots (Zarrilli 1998). Many practitioners of
these traditions in the southern part of Kerala are Siddha practitioners too. Kalari is
closely related to siddhavaidyam since both utilise the basic tenets of vital spot mas-
saging and pulse reading. The practice of kalari was not identified as a healing tra-
dition, even though its medicines and methods of treatment habitually overlapped
with that of Ayurveda. Kalari is often termed as sports medicine although people
largely depended on this healing system for general bone and muscle injuries.8
Indigenous toxicology or vishavaidyam is a unique practice of South India, and
the geographical area which was politically unified in 1956 as Aikya (united) Kerala.
Though vishavaidyam is seen as agadatantra, one of the eight specialised branches in
Ayurveda, it has its unique methods of treatment and medicines not found in the
classical texts of Ayurveda (Varier 1980).9 It had been an important specialisation
and the unique medical practice of a particular region for quite some time. Several
texts on vishavaidyam in Sanskrit, Tamil, Malayalam and Arabi-Malayalam also serve
as evidence for the prescriptive and descriptive textual knowledge in the practice.10
While Jyotsnika, Vishanarayaneeyam, etc., are texts that appear both in Sanskrit and
Malayalam (Menon 1986b), Vishachikitsa Ashtangahridayam is an Arabi-Malayalam
text interpreted or translated by Parappurath Illath BeerankuttyVaidyar and Shafashifa
is a text compiled by Konganam Veettil Ahammed alias Bava Musaliar (Salahudheen
2015, 406–411). The practice is closely related to siddhavaidyam because of two rea-
sons. Firstly, it uses certain metals such as mercury for the treatment of poison, espe-
cially in extreme cases like snake bites, when the patient is unconscious and on the
verge of death. Secondly, siddhavaidyam relies on the use of metals for chikitsa (treat-
ment) after removing the toxic content in them through continuous purification.
Thus, siddhavaidyam can also be seen as vishavaidyam, but every siddha practitioner
does not administer poison treatment. Marmavaidyam and bone-setting are common
among kalari and siddha practitioners, whereas the use of certain metals and pulse
reading is common among vishavaidyam and siddha practitioners.
Siddhavaidyam is mostly prevalent in Tamil Nadu and the southern parts of Kerala.
It should be noted that siddhavaidyam was known as Tamil medicine or Tamil Ayurveda
until the nineteenth century (Sebastia 2012, 165–185). The term siddhavaidyam was
used to denote the healing form that had a Dravidian identity, and it was known as
the Tamil variant of Ayurveda (Weiss 2009; Kumar & Basu 2013). In short, practices
such as kalari, vishavaidyam, siddhavaidyam or Ayurveda overlap with one another in
medicine and treatment and have spiritual and material dimensions. Ayurveda as we
know it today, the institutionalised and coherent system, had never represented these
practices despite the fact that it had assimilated many elements from them. The term
 The intersecting triad 21

Ayurveda did not emerge, as represented today, as a textual, erudite and systematic
tradition of Kerala until the mid-nineteenth century. It existed as a composite group
of heterogeneous elements, interchangeably called ayurvedas or nattuvaidyam.The het-
erogeneous group consisted of practitioners with different pedagogical backgrounds
and social status. The marginalised practices also negotiated with the changing order
of their status in interesting ways. For instance, healing practices such as kalari, which
usually did not follow the humoural base of bodily disposition began to appropriate
this idea from the late nineteenth century and empowered itself as part of the more
accepted Ayurveda.11 A mere taxonomical approach to understand any of the practices
as an exclusive one, including modern Ayurveda, reduces the possibility of locating the
complexities with which they function and their ceaseless overlapping and sharing.

Practice, language and region: A conjoining of distinctiveness

Until the mid-nineteenth century the need to name medical practices distinctively
as Siddha or Ayurveda, Dravidian or Aryan, by connecting practices with the unique
identity of regions and clans, was not present. Nadu and nattuvaidyam itself rep-
resented the indigenous/native and regional nature of the healing practice. The
preoccupation with setting regional boundaries, in the late nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries, invited unique identities and titles for cultural practices – as kalari,
siddha and Ayurveda. By the twentieth century, siddhavaidyam began to be identified
as the special indigenous medical practice of Tamil Nadu with a Dravidian past
(Trautmann 2009).12 Kalarippayattu was not only designated as the unique martial
art of Kerala. It was also associated with the traditional occupation of one particular
caste, the Nairs (See Vijayakumar 2000; Zarrilli 1998). Ayurveda was projected as
the unique practice of India, which could be traced back to an Aryan origin. The
Orientalist perspective inaugurated by William Jones and Thomas Colebrooke pos-
ited a Vedic Golden Age (Ganesan 2010, 108–131) constituted by the Aryan Hindu
and their Sanskrit texts as the base of Indian civilisation (Kopf 1969). The scholars
and practitioners of Ayurveda in the early twentieth century also subscribed to this
idea (For these ideas see Muthu 1913;Varier 1906).
The practices were not only tied to regions, castes and clans, but also to languages
that spilt over the strict corresponding associations. To explicate, immediately after
the colonial rule came to an end, the assertion of a nation-state culminated in sub-
national aspirations. Further, the linguistic state formation in the twentieth century
galvanised the assertion of geographical boundaries with particular languages. This
devalued the lingua franca of multi-lingual communities and forced them to choose
one of the languages as their mother tongue in official documents. Heterogenous
health practices also started asserting a linguistic identity. And so, Siddhavaidyam was
associated with the Tamil language, Ayurveda with Sanskrit (Weiss 2009), north-
ern kalari with Malayalam and southern kalari with Tamil.13 When Ayurveda was
elevated as the traditional knowledge of India, it acquired the responsibility of rep-
resenting the indigenous healing tradition or medical practice of India. Ayurveda
was crowned the most prestigious practice among all the existing practices when it
22 The intersecting triad

started to be represented as the unique practice of a nation-state, whereas the identi-

ties of the other practices were tied to their smaller geographical regions, castes and
languages. When Ayurveda acquired a national identity, it became a secular practice
by the gradual eradication of the irrational elements in the practice such as mantra
(incantations, magical spells) and tantra (strategy, technique). However, in the nine-
teenth century, while certain practices acquired a distinctive indigeneity associated
with the newly bounded regions, other practices lost their indigenous nature with
some of their elements being assimilated into the already re-constituted Ayurveda.
Thus, some of the unique practices such as uzhichil (medicinal oil massage), pizhichil
(oil bath), kizhi (medicinal pouch) and talam (clogging oil on the pate or around the
eyes) that had been practised in Kerala were incorporated into Ayurveda, even when
these particular treatments were not seen in the Ayurveda practised in other parts
of India (Varier 1980, Unnikrishnan 2011). These practices were part of kalari and
adimurai and even within the two streams, there were differences in terms of medi-
cines used and the nature of the massage given. Pizhichil and talam were not integral
to the adimurai of southern Kerala where the use of oil is not a necessary part of the
training.14 In northern Kerala, oil massage is an integral part of kalarippayattu and so
is pizhichil as a treatment in the northern kalari (Vijayakumar 2000). The wooden
table – dhaarapathi – specially designed for the above treatments is another contribu-
tion of nattuvaidyam (Asan 2010). Another aspect of interest is that when Ayurveda
and siddha began to represent two separate regions, the meaning of nattuvaidyam
– which had been used to represent all the diverse healing practices inclusive of
Ayurveda and siddha – also shifted. Nattuvaidyam came to be seen as representing
diverse indigenous medical practices, excluding the institutionalised and formalised
Ayurveda and, later on also excluding siddha since the latter took much more time
to get institutionalised as a separate practice in Tamil Nadu.15 This identification and
representation also positioned Unani as a medical practice of a particular commu-
nity, although all these practices shared and borrowed the knowledge of medicine,
treatment and herbs from each other (Ali 1990).16 Unani failed to get recognition
as Indian or any other region’s medicine; instead, it was associated with the Muslim
community (Weiss 2009, 6), despite its overlapping with other indigenous healing
practices (Quaiser 2001; Attewell 2007). Maarten Bode explains this process suc-
cinctly, stating that at the level of practice, there are similarities and interactions,
but on the socio-cultural and political level, relationships are built around enmity
and tension (Bode 2013, 21–22). What constitutes a pure Ayurveda and an equally
uncontaminated nattuvaidyam is disputable because of the consistent sharing and
simultaneous differentiation process.
These practices are selected as examples for tracing the transformations and sur-
vival strategies in the larger realm of nattuvaidyam. They generally follow the concept
of bodily humour in diagnosis and treatment. However, a few other criteria have
also been considered for selecting them. Kalari has been studied by many scholars in
detail (Vijayakumar 2000; Zarrilli 1998) but the healing aspects of kalari have been
reviewed only by a few (for instance, See Sasidharan 2006). The existing studies
largely focus on the performative element in kalari, the kalarippayattu of the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries (Vijayakumar 2000; Zarrilli 1998). Kalarippayattu
 The intersecting triad 23

was generally considered as a martial art and the healing tradition inherent in it was
subsumed and described in the late nineteenth century as a common feature that
existed in other martial arts like wrestling. The bone-setting aspects in kalari which
require precision have not been analysed seriously as a treatment method because
it is frequently counterpoised against the surgical part of modern medicine.17 The
healing element in kalari follows not merely the humoural theory of nattuvaidyam
vis-à-vis Ayurveda (Zarrilli 1998, 163); it is based on the 96 principles of the body,
an entirely different approach from the humoural perspective (Asan 2010).18 The
idea of the body varies across practices even though they follow the larger humoural
principle. Later, the attributes of this principle were integrated into many practices
that did not follow the humoural idea of the body (Langford 2002). This study
focuses on the healing tradition in kalari without reducing it to kalarippayattu, the
physical exercise, which is inclusive of the idea of ‘the care of the self ’ through
bodily manifestation.
Similarly, vishavaidyam remains less studied and is seen as an area that is
deficient in sources for historical or sociological research. The irresistible reli-
ance of history on textual sources (Mukharji 2011) also places the tradition of
vishavaidyam outside the corpus of the history of indigenous medicine. Available
studies approach the subject from the perspective of modern science.19 It was
seen as a branch of Ayurveda and a chapter in AH. However, there are diverse
methods and medicines used in vishavaidyam for the treatment of poison, which
are not part of Ayurveda (Varier 1980). The texts for study (both oral and writ-
ten) of vishavaidyam are in verse form. They consist of an array of descriptions
of the variety of snakes, animals and plants; food that causes poisoning; symp-
toms in each case of poisoning; different kinds of medicines to be used in each
case; dietary regimen, the signs to be elicited from the messengers who come
to inform about cases of poisoning (especially for snake poisoning), etc. These
texts are a repository of descriptive and prescriptive aphorisms and often differ
from the classical text, AH. At the level of practice, the practitioner is entrusted
with the responsibility of deciphering their meaning through experience and
expertise. Texts function as a handbook for the practitioners as well as a reposi-
tory of information for laypersons who are interested in the subject. These
texts were not meant for people outside the realm of the particular knowl-
edge and practice that the texts represented. One needs to acquire certain
a priori knowledge and capacities not only to read a text but also to understand
its intricacies and nuances. Knowledge of the contextually differing meanings
of the terms used in the texts becomes decisive in their application.
Until the early decades of the twentieth century, vishavaidyam was well-established
all over Kerala with the patronage of kings and landlords and there were plenty of
grant-in-aid vishavaidyasalas.20 In the contemporary era, however, the practice has
lost its mooring and has become scattered and isolated across Kerala as it had/has
no support from the state or society for its sustenance. Being an area that has not
been studied in detail so far, vishavaidyam invites our special attention in delineating
its internal logic and the transformations it has undergone over time.21 The pres-
ent study attempts to stretch the internal descriptive and prescriptive nature of the
24 The intersecting triad

practices to some extent and allows them to speak for themselves rather than analys-
ing the meaning and scientific validity of every aspect of this research object. This
study thus challenges the application of hegemonic reasoning to locate and under-
stand practices that function within a different mode of reasoning. The outcome of
this strategy would be to lay out the specificity of the practices to some extent and
the nature of yukthi (rationale) and a different ‘reason’ applied at different levels.

Nattuvaidyam to Ayurveda
Until the late nineteenth century, all vaidyas were known as nattuvaidyas. But they
became demarcated as nattuvaidyas and Ayurveda vaidyas after this period. Until the
early twentieth century, the documents pertaining to nattuvaidyam in the Madras
Presidency were classified under the category of Indian System of Medicine. By
the second decade of the twentieth century, the Department of Ayurveda was con-
stituted in the Travancore state and all files on nattuvaidyam began to be managed
by this department. Inspection Reports of the Superintendent of Nattuvaidyasalas
(indigenous pharmacies) in the 1920s and different government documents show
this shift. By the mid-twentieth century, the practitioners who graduated from the
Ayurveda educational institutions were designated as Ayurveda doctors by elimi-
nating the diverse titles awarded for vaidyas from different educational institutions
(Mohanlal 2014). This change in designation and its subsequent standardisation
reflects not merely a disparity in formally and informally qualified practitioners
but also indicates a corresponding change in their social status. It implies a process
of separation of the qualified from the seemingly unqualified practitioner which
was premised upon tangible elements such as literacy, proficiency in specific lan-
guages like Sanskrit and English, knowledge in modern science like physiology
and anatomy. It was also based on the norms of the titles awarded after gradu-
ation and specialisation acquired from modern educational institutions. This dif-
ferentiation added a new layer of meaning to the term ‘quack’ by branding many
of the non-institutionally trained practitioners as quacks.22 In the late nineteenth
century, the term quack was used generally to label biomedical practitioners and
indigenous practitioners who lacked formal training, or students who had dropped
out of medical institutions but had resorted to practising medicine (Carter 1993,
89–97). By the early twentieth century, biomedical practitioners viewed nattuvaidyas
as quacks and by the mid-twentieth century, both biomedical and modern Ayurveda
practitioners started regarding nattuvaidyas as quacks. Cleetus succinctly points out,
“In a caste-ridden society with a distinct and different socio-cultural hierarchy,
any one in a low social position was likely to be called a quack and discarded”
(Cleetus 2007b, 147–172). This differentiation portrayed practitioners who were
trained through non-institutional modes as non-qualified practitioners. What does
this notion of formal qualification mean to the practice? This important question
is yet to be thought through, as many Ayurvedic graduates of non-vaidya families
often approach nattuvaidyas to learn ‘more’, not only in the twentieth century but
even in the contemporary.23
 The intersecting triad 25

Archetypes and departures

Ever since the advent of biomedicine in the nineteenth century, scholars have
observed that social sciences have paid little attention to studying indigenous medi-
cine (Sujatha 2014, xi). While there have been scant studies within the discipline of
social sciences on indigenous healing knowledge and practices, within anthropol-
ogy and later on in history, there have been some attempts to probe these prac-
tices.24 Being a study that also intends to map the external tension of nattuvaidyam
with modern institutions, the modernised Ayurveda and biomedicine, the present
research faces a range of challenges. The models set for studying the historiography
of indigenous medicine of South Asia, which is spread across the disciplines of his-
tory, sociology and anthropology, exhibit some common trends that spill over their
strict disciplinary boundaries.This study proposes a few departures from the general
trends seen in existent literature.

Erudite and non-scholarly

A major propensity in the scholarship on indigenous healing practices is to divide
them neatly into the erudite tradition and the marginalised oral tradition (See
Leslie 1976; Panikkar 1995; Wujastyk 1998; Mukharji 2011). The implied perspec-
tive in this taxonomy is that the erudite practice belongs to a singular conception
of Ayurveda which follows a textual tradition, whereas the marginalised traditions
hail from mostly non-textual/oral spaces and are heterogeneous in nature. Wujastyk
simply states:

………out of all this medical pluralism, only one set of medical ideas and
practices clearly emerged as a unified body of doctrine, embodied in learned
treatises written in Sanskrit language, and adopted as the basic curriculum for
the organized teaching of medicine in scholarly families and schools. This
system was called Ayurveda, and by the time Fa Hsien reached Pataliputra, it
was already almost a thousand years old.
(1998, 2)

The idea of this separation is flawed since many practices such as siddhavaidyam,
marmavaidyam and vishavaidyam also have a textual basis. If we categorise them as
separate realms of erudite or non-erudite practices as in the above-mentioned stud-
ies, both do not necessarily follow texts in the realm of practice. The texts may
function as reference material at crucial times during practice. Hence, this study
departs from the neat division between a scholarly textual tradition and a non-
scholarly, non-textual tradition by prioritising shared elements in the practices and
highlighting their continuous, overlapping nature. The challenge here is to avoid
duality and to situate the relentless sharing and negotiating nature of the ‘erudite’
and ‘marginalised’ heterogeneous practices. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to
differentiate them neatly as erudite or non-erudite; the propensity to view them so
26 The intersecting triad

stems from the writings of colonial administrator-scholars and Indologists like Wise
T.A, Muthu, etc., which had functioned as a base model for further theorisation and
scholarship produced in the area.

North India as the model

The second protocol that was prevalent in academia was to view and study the
healing practices of South India in the context of the information and knowledge
generated in North India (Trautmann 2009, 1–25). This is not to claim that the
whole of South India has a uniform identity with regard to practices or languages
that represented these practices. They are diverse and it is difficult to bring them
under one school of thought. It is also not implied that South India and its prac-
tices can lay claim to exceptionally unique features that differ completely from the
practices prevalent in North India. The earlier Orientalist perspective invented an
Aryanised and divine past of a classical tradition with Sanskrit texts and named it
‘the Hindu medicine’ (Mukharji 2016, 75–76). What is being emphasised is that
this perspective evolved in the context of studies on North India gets reflected in a
sophisticated manner in some of the major scholarship on South India. The studies
did not conceive an Aryanised classical Ayurveda but invented a Sanskritic, textual
and elite tradition as that of classical Ayurveda.25 This erudite tradition was pre-
sented as a model for the scattered and marginalised vernacular practices to imitate
and assimilate.26 What is implied in this perspective is a vertical flow of knowledge
that always trickles down from top to bottom. Leslie states, “Folk cures throughout
the world practice humoural medicine, but in Asia alone educated physicians con-
tinue its learned tradition” (Leslie 1976, 1). He views the combination of education
and literacy as a non-separable element of the ‘learned tradition’. Panikkar clubs
literacy with an elite class, thus imbuing the idea of an elite, literate practitioner
as one who practices Ayurveda against the marginalised, non-literate practitioner
(Panikkar 1995, 317–355).
In contrast to the views on an Aryanised divine past that emerged in the con-
text of North India, the Madras school of Orientalism initiated a discussion on a
Dravidian origin based on language and culture (Trautmann 2009). This obser-
vation was reproduced in studying certain indigenous healing practices like sid-
dhavaidyam and asserting its Tamil textual tradition (Weiss 2009). The conception of
a Dravidian past was also an attempt to defy the notion of a homogenised Aryan past
that dominated the social realm (Trautmann 2009).

Science sets the stage

The third challenge faced in the present study arises from the disciplinary suprem-
acy of Science. Its rigorous protocols and methods have frequently overshadowed
the study of indigenous healing practices. Traditional healing practices were studied
as opposed to the scientifically proven modern medicine, i.e. by applying the norms
of the latter in situating the former (Sujatha & Abraham 2009, 35–43). They were
 The intersecting triad 27

studied as practices inevitably associated with religion.Thus by definition, they were

dissociated from the scientifically designed and defined modern arena of knowl-
edge. Anything that deviates from addressing a ‘public’ or ‘social’ body directly or
departs from norms with which modern knowledge intends to intervene in these
fields are considered incompetent and irrelevant. The ‘public’ and the ‘social’ bodies
in their modern form could imply an emptying out of ‘culture’, replacing it with
seemingly neutral concepts like ‘secular’ or ‘universal’. The historiography of South
Asian medicine originated from the state-centric discourses of public health and
one can see them in the work of Arnold (1989, 1993, 2000) and Pati & Harrison
(2001, 2009). Biomedicine and science set the stage for debates on public health,
hygiene and social sanitary measures. While being conscious of these formulations,
the study will temporarily suspend these propositions whenever necessary, in order
to bring out the nuanced relationship among practices, along with the continuities
and the ruptures that emerged out of the refashioning of these practices.
Scholars emphasise the cultural project of western medicine in ‘colonising the
body’ of the natives in its ‘civilising mission’ (Arnold 1993, 1–11). However, the
role and contribution of indigenous medicine in intervening and curing certain
diseases defined as contagious and hazardous to the public (body), has not been
studied with due seriousness. Moreover, the new notion of public health seems to
have initiated a chain of exclusions, by presuming that indigenous medical practices
have little idea of public health as they supposedly deal with individual bodies and
body-specific humoural treatments. Public health presumes the presence of abstract
bodies in public display as being vulnerable to epidemics and infections which need
to be controlled through large-scale intervention by the nation-state in the form of
preventive and sanitary measures. In fact, state-centric medicine, i.e. biomedicine,
and the state itself cannot fully function without the inter-related imagination of a
public (body), to be governed and normalised through a series of interventions.The
notion of a public body as individual as well as social differs from the hitherto exist-
ing ideas of the individual body where the responsibility of taking care of the body
(and self) rested with the person alone and not with the nation-state. In other words,
social bodies and their interactions are presumed to have an a priori existence, prone
to contagious diseases and awaiting intervention through public health measures.
The discourse on health vis-à-vis public health has not considered the wide pop-
ularity and role of indigenous medicine in inculcating and disseminating the prac-
tices and knowledge of health. Arnold’s seminal work on the public health of India
does not take into consideration the contribution of indigenous medicine in this
area (Arnold 1989, 1993, 2000). His latest book Toxic Histories: Poison and Pollution
in Modern India (2017) also neglects the contribution of vishavaidyam and the pres-
ence of widespread vishavaidyas in the area of toxin treatment in South India. In the
late nineteenth century, indigenous healing traditions were considered religious or
cultural spaces and ceased to be counted as knowledge. A pre-condition for ‘knowl-
edge’ henceforth required a distancing from the realm of religion. In the initial years
of the advent of biomedicine in India and elsewhere, the colonial state sought the
support of and tapped into the knowledge of indigenous medical practitioners, to
28 The intersecting triad

reach out to the wider population with vaccination and other measures to control
contagious diseases (Pati & Harrison 2009).The British medical policy also encour-
aged Indian drugs and allocated funds for purchasing bazaar medicine (Ramanna
2006, 3221–3226). But by the late nineteenth century, this co-operation and utili-
sation of indigenous medical knowledge ceased due to the increasing profession-
alisation of biomedicine (Bala 1991). Subsequently, interventions by biomedicine
extended to the area of reproductive health through a simultaneous invalidation
of the indigenous epistemology of birthing and knowledge of the dais (traditional
midwives).27 In the contemporary context, the role of the dais in birthing aid has
been eliminated. Their role was later reintroduced as caretakers who provide post-
delivery care to the mother and the baby (Sujatha 2012, 9). In effect, modern dis-
course on public health almost completely erased the role of indigenous medicine,
despite it being widely utilised by people, either alone or along with biomedicine,
for preserving or regaining health. Especially in the case of childbirth, people use
their discretion in choosing a biomedical institution for birthing and indigenous
medicines for post-delivery recuperation. The contribution of indigenous medi-
cine in the fields of reproductive health and prevention of contagious diseases has
not been counted as significant since the second decade of the twentieth century.
Both these fields were identified as spaces needing the exclusive intervention of
state/missionary institutions and their ‘valid’ knowledge. Nevertheless, there were
instances of indigenous healing practices attempting to intervene in the area of
public health which was invariably met with massive protests.
In 1934, the Ayurveda Pathshala of the Travancore state conducted a Malaria
camp in Edakode, with the consent of the king, Sree Chithira Thirunal. The
Resident Surgeon General met the king to express his protest (Sarma 1977, 52–54;
Mohanlal 2014, 18–19). Their attempt was meant to prevent the functioning of the
camp through the raja’s intervention, as they could not intervene directly in the
matters of a princely state. However, the king refused to heed their request to close
the camp. They decided to show a documentary film at Kuzhithura, a place adja-
cent to Edakode. The documentary depicted the inadequacy of indigenous medi-
cal practitioners in treating diseases. With the timely intervention of the king, the
documentary show was banned twenty-four hours before the planned screening.
The Malaria camp lasted for six months and it was highly successful in curing the
people (Mohanlal 2014, 18–19).28 Despite such instances, the role of indigenous
medicine in treating malaria, plague, cholera, etc., has not been assessed seriously
to date. Many practitioners continue to advertise their medicines as being highly
effective for the treatment and/or prevention of such diseases (through newspa-
pers and health magazines). The contemporary health indices also fail to count the
contribution of ayurvedas/nattuvaidyam in maintaining the high health status of the
people in Kerala.
In the early twentieth century, the study on medical practices gave prominence
to western medicine and accelerated the subsequent progress of the drug industry
in both Europe and India. Medicine preparation by indigenous practitioners can
be classified under non-modern capitalistic production, as very few of them had
Another random document with
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depend on the proportion of the power to the resistance; in short,
they had no clear idea of accelerating force. This defect runs through
all their mechanical speculations, and renders them entirely
valueless.

We may exemplify the same confusion of thought on mechanical

subjects in writers of a less technical character. Thus, if men had any
distinct idea of mechanical action, they could not have accepted for a
moment the fable of the Echineis or Remora, a little fish which was
said to be able to stop a large ship merely by sticking to it. 1 Lucan
refers to this legend in a poetical manner, and notices this creature
only in bringing together a collection of monstrosities; but Pliny
relates the tale gravely, and moralizes upon it after his manner.
“What,” he cries, 2 “is more violent than the sea and the winds? what
a greater work of art than a ship? Yet one little fish (the Echineis) can
hold back all these when they all strain the same way. The winds
may 191 blow, the waves may rage; but this small creature controls
their fury, and stops a vessel, when chains and anchors would not
hold it: and this it does, not by hard labor, but merely by adhering to
it. Alas, for human vanity! when the turreted ships which man has
built, that he may fight from castle-walls, at sea as well as at land,
are held captive and motionless by a fish a foot and a half long! Such
a fish is said to have stopped the admiral’s ship at the battle of
Actium, and compelled Antony to go into another. And in our own
memory, one of these animals held fast the ship of Caius, the
emperor, when he was sailing from Astura to Antium. The stopping
of this ship, when all the rest of the fleet went on, caused surprise;
but this did not last long, for some of the men jumped into the water
to look for the fish, and found it sticking to the rudder; they showed it
to Caius, who was indignant that this animal should interpose its
prohibition to his progress, when impelled by four hundred rowers. It
was like a slug; and had no power, after it was taken into the ship.”
1Lucan is describing one of the poetical compounds produced in
incantations.
Huc quicquid fœtu genuit Natura sinistro
Miscetur: non spuma canum quibus unda timori est,
Viscera non lyncis, non duræ nodus hyænæ
Defuit, et cervi pasti serpente medullæ;
Non puppes retinens, Euro tendente rudentes
In mediis Echineis aquis, oculique draconum.
Etc. Pharsalia, vi. 670.

2 Plin. Hist. N. xxxii. 5.

A very little advance in the power of thinking clearly on the force

which it exerted in pulling, would have enabled the Romans to see
that the ship and its rowers must pull the adhering fish by the hold
the oars had upon the water; and that, except the fish had a hold
equally strong on some external body, it could not resist this force.

3. Indistinctness of Ideas shown in Architecture.—Perhaps it may

serve to illustrate still further the extent to which, under the Roman
empire, men’s notions of mechanical relations became faint,
wavered, and disappeared, if we observe the change which took
place in architecture. All architecture, to possess genuine beauty,
must be mechanically consistent. The decorative members must
represent a structure which has in it a principle of support and
stability. Thus the Grecian colonnade was a straight horizontal beam,
resting on vertical props; and the pediment imitated a frame like a
roof, where oppositely inclined beams support each other. These
forms of building were, therefore, proper models of art, because they
implied supporting forces. But to be content with colonnades and
pediments, which, though they imitated the forms of the Grecian
ones, were destitute of their mechanical truth, belonged to the
decline of art; and showed that men had lost the idea of force, and
retained only that of shape. Yet this was what the architects of the
Roman empire did. Under their hands, the pediment was severed at
its vertex, and divided into separate halves, so that it was no longer
a mechanical possibility. The entablature no longer lay straight from
pillar to pillar, but, projecting over each 192 column, turned back to
the wall, and adhered to it in the intervening space. The splendid
remains of Palmyra, Balbec, Petra, exhibit endless examples of this
kind of perverse inventiveness; and show us, very instructively, how
the decay of art and of science alike accompany this indistinctness
of ideas which we are now endeavoring to illustrate.

4. Indistinctness of Ideas in Astronomy.—Returning to the

sciences, it may be supposed, at first sight, that, with regard to
astronomy, we have not the same ground for charging the stationary
period with indistinctness of ideas on that subject, since they were
able to acquire and verify, and, in some measure, to apply, the
doctrines previously established. And, undoubtedly, it must be
confessed that men’s notions of the relations of space and number
are never very indistinct. It appears to be impossible for these chains
of elementary perception ever to be much entangled. The later
Greeks, the Arabians, and the earliest modern astronomers, must
have conceived the hypotheses of the Ptolemaic system with
tolerable completeness. And yet, we may assert, that during the
stationary period, men did not possess the notions, even of space
and number, in that vivid and vigorous manner which enables them
to discover new truths. If they had perceived distinctly that the
astronomical theorist had merely to do with relative motions, they
must have been led to see the possibility, at least, of the Copernican
system; as the Greeks, at an earlier period, had already perceived it.
We find no trace of this. Indeed, the mode in which the Arabian
mathematicians present the solutions of their problems, does not
indicate that clear apprehension of the relations of space, and that
delight in the contemplation of them, which the Greek geometrical
speculations imply. The Arabs are in the habit of giving conclusions
without demonstrations, precepts without the investigations by which
they are obtained; as if their main object were practical rather than
speculative,—the calculation of results rather than the exposition of
theory. Delambre 3 has been obliged to exercise great ingenuity, in
order to discover the method by which Ibn Iounis proved his solution
of certain difficult problems.
3 Delamb. M. A. p. 125–8.

5. Indistinctness of Ideas shown by Skeptics.—The same

unsteadiness of ideas which prevents men from obtaining clear
views, and steady and just convictions, on special subjects, may
lead them to despair of or deny the possibility of acquiring certainty
at all, and may thus make them skeptics with regard to all
knowledge. Such skeptics 193 are themselves men of indistinct
views, for they could not otherwise avoid assenting to the
demonstrated truths of science; and, so far as they may be taken as
specimens of their contemporaries, they prove that indistinct ideas
prevail in the age in which they appear. In the stationary period,
moreover, the indefinite speculations and unprofitable subtleties of
the schools might further impel a man of bold and acute mind to this
universal skepticism, because they offered nothing which could fix or
satisfy him. And thus the skeptical spirit may deserve our notice as
indicative of the defects of a system of doctrine too feeble in
demonstration to control such resistance.
 The most remarkable of these philosophical skeptics is Sextus
Empiricus; so called, from his belonging to that medical sect which
was termed the empirical, in contradistinction to the rational and
methodical sects. His works contain a series of treatises, directed
against all the divisions of the science of his time. He has chapters
against the Geometers, against the Arithmeticians, against the
Astrologers, against the Musicians, as well as against Grammarians,
Rhetoricians, and Logicians; and, in short, as a modern writer has
said, his skepticism is employed as a sort of frame-work which
embraces an encyclopedical view of human knowledge. It must be
stated, however, that his objections are rather to the metaphysical
grounds, than to the details of the sciences; he rather denies the
possibility of speculative truth in general, than the experimental
truths which had been then obtained. Thus his objections to
geometry and arithmetic are founded on abstract cavils concerning
the nature of points, letters, unities, &c. And when he comes to
speak against astrology, he says, “I am not going to consider that
perfect science which rests upon geometry and arithmetic; for I have
already shown the weakness of those sciences: nor that faculty of
prediction (of the motions of the heavens) which belongs to the
pupils of Eudoxus, and Hipparchus, and the rest, which some call
Astronomy; for that is an observation of phenomena, like agriculture
or navigation: but against the Art of Prediction from the time of birth,
which the Chaldeans exercise.” Sextus, therefore, though a skeptic
by profession, was not insensible to the difference between
experimental knowledge and mystical dogmas, though even the
former had nothing which excited his admiration.

The skepticism which denies the evidence of the truths of which

the best established physical sciences consist, must necessarily
involve a very indistinct apprehension of those truths; for such truths,
properly exhibited, contain their own evidence, and are the best
antidote 194 to this skepticism. But an incredulity or contempt
towards the asserted truths of physical science may arise also from
the attention being mainly directed to the certainty and importance of
religious truths. A veneration for revealed religion may thus assume
the aspect of a skepticism with regard to natural knowledge. Such
appears to be the case with Algazel or Algezeli, who is adduced by
Degerando 4 as an example of an Arabian skeptic. He was a
celebrated teacher at Bagdad in the eleventh century, and he
declared himself the enemy, not only of the mixed Peripatetic and
Platonic philosophy of the time, but of Aristotle himself. His work
entitled The Destructions of the Philosophers, is known to us by the
refutation of it which Averrhoes published, under the title of
Destruction of Algazel’s Destructions of the Philosophers. It appears
that he contested the fundamental principles both of the Platonic and
of the Aristotelian schools, and denied the possibility of a known
connection between cause and effect; thus making a prelude, says
Degerando, to the celebrated argumentation of Hume.
4 Degerando, Hist. Comp. de Systèmes, iv. 224.

[2d Ed.] Since the publication of my first edition, an account of

Algazel or Algazzali and his works has been published under the title
of Essai sur les Ecoles Philosophiques chez les Arabes, et
notamment sur la Doctrine d’Algazzali, par August Schmölders.
Paris. 1842. From this book it appears that Degerando’s account of
Algazzali is correct, when he says 5 that “his skepticism seems to
have essentially for its object to destroy all systems of merely
rational theology, in order to open an indefinite career, not only to
faith guided by revelation, but also to the free exaltation of a mystical
enthusiasm.” It is remarked by Dr. Schmölders, following M. de
Hammer-Purgstall, that the title of the work referred to in the text
ought rather to be Mutual Refutation of the Philosophers: and that its
object is to show that Philosophy consists of a mass of systems,
each of which overturns the others. The work of Algazzali which Dr.
Schmölders has published, On the Errors of Sects, &c., contains a
kind of autobiographical account of the way in which the author was
led to his views. He does not reject the truths of science, but he
condemns the mental habits which are caused by laying too much
stress upon science. Religious men, he says, are, by such a course,
led to reject all science, even what relates to eclipses of the moon
and sun; and men of science are led to hate religion. 6
5 Hist. Comp. iv. p. 227.

6 Essai, p. 33.

195 6. Neglect of Physical Reasoning in Christendom.—If the

Arabians, who, during the ages of which we are speaking, were the
most eminent cultivators of science, entertained only such
comparatively feeble and servile notions of its doctrines, it will easily
be supposed, that in the Christendom of that period, where physical
knowledge was comparatively neglected, there was still less
distinctness and vividness in the prevalent ideas on such subjects.
Indeed, during a considerable period of the history of the Christian
Church, and by many of its principal authorities, the study of natural
philosophy was not only disregarded but discommended. The great
practical doctrines which were presented to men’s minds, and the
serious tasks, of the regulation of the will and affections, which
religion impressed upon them, made inquiries of mere curiosity seem
to be a reprehensible misapplication of human powers; and many of
the fathers of the Church revived, in a still more peremptory form, the
opinion of Socrates, that the only valuable philosophy is that which
teaches us our moral duties and religious hopes. 7 Thus Eusebius
says, 8 “It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them, but
through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these
matters, turning our souls to the exercise of better things.” When the
thoughts were thus intentionally averted from those ideas which
natural philosophy involves, the ideas inevitably became very
indistinct in their minds; and they could not conceive that any other
persons could find, on such subjects, grounds of clear conviction and
certainty. They held the whole of their philosophy to be, as
Lactantius 9 asserts it to be, “empty and false.” “To search,” says he,
“for the causes of natural things; to inquire whether the sun be as
large as he seems, whether the moon is convex or concave, whether
the stars are fixed in the sky or float freely in the air; of what size and
of what material are the heavens; whether they be at rest or in
motion; what is the magnitude of the earth; on what foundations it is
suspended and balanced;—to dispute and conjecture on such
matters, is just as if we chose to discuss what we think of a city in a
remote country, of which we never heard but the name.” It is
impossible to express more forcibly that absence of any definite
notions on physical subjects which led to this tone of thought.
7 Brucker, iii. 317.

8 Præp. Ev. xv. 61.

9 Inst. 1. iii. init.

7. Question of Antipodes.—With such habits of thought, we are not

to be surprised if the relations resulting from the best established
theories were apprehended in an imperfect and incongruous
manner. 196 We have some remarkable examples of this; and a very
notable one is the celebrated question of the existence of Antipodes,
or persons inhabiting the opposite side of the globe of the earth, and
consequently having the soles of their feet directly opposed to ours.
The doctrine of the globular form of the earth results, as we have
seen, by a geometrical necessity, from a clear conception of the
various points of knowledge which we obtain, bearing upon that
subject. This doctrine was held distinctly by the Greeks; it was
adopted by all astronomers, Arabian and European, who followed
them; and was, in fact, an inevitable part of every system of
astronomy which gave a consistent and intelligible representation of
phenomena. But those who did not call before their minds any
distinct representation at all, and who referred the whole question to
other relations than those of space, might still deny this doctrine; and
they did so. The existence of inhabitants on the opposite side of the
terraqueous globe, was a fact of which experience alone could teach
the truth or falsehood; but the religious relations, which extend alike
to all mankind, were supposed to give the Christian philosopher
grounds for deciding against the possibility of such a race of men.
Lactantius, 10 in the fourth century, argues this matter in a way very
illustrative of that impatience of such speculations, and consequent
confusion of thought, which we have mentioned. “Is it possible,” he
says, “that men can be so absurd as to believe that the crops and
trees on the other side of the earth hang downwards, and that men
there have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask of them how
they defend these monstrosities—how things do not fall away from
the earth on that side—they reply, that the nature of things is such
that heavy bodies tend towards the centre, like the spokes of a
wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the centre
towards the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to
say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily
persevere in their folly, and defend one absurd opinion by another.” It
is obvious that so long as the writer refused to admit into his
thoughts the fundamental conception of their theory, he must needs
be at a loss what to say to their arguments without being on that
account in any degree convinced of their doctrines.
10 Inst. 1. iii. 23.

In the sixth century, indeed, in the reign of Justinian, we find a

writer (Cosmas Indicopleustes 11 ) who does not rest in this obscurity
of 197 representation; but in this case, the distinctness of the pictures
only serves to show his want of any clear conception as to what
suppositions would explain the phenomena. He describes the earth
as an oblong floor, surrounded by upright walls, and covered by a
vault, below which the heavenly bodies perform their revolutions,
going round a certain high mountain, which occupies the northern
parts of the earth, and makes night by intercepting the light of the
sun. In Augustin 12 (who flourished a. d. 400) the opinion is treated
on other grounds; and without denying the globular form of the earth,
it is asserted that there are no inhabitants on the opposite side,
because no such race is recorded by Scripture among the
descendants of Adam. 13 Considerations of the same kind operated
in the well-known instance of Virgil, Bishop of Salzburg, in the eighth
century. When he was reported to Boniface, Archbishop of Mentz, as
holding the existence of Antipodes, the prelate was shocked at the
assumption, as it seemed to him, of a world of human beings, out of
the reach of the conditions of salvation; and application was made to
Pope Zachary for a censure of the holder of this dangerous doctrine.
It does not, however, appear that this led to any severity; and the
story of the deposition of Virgil from his bishopric, which is circulated
by Kepler and by more modern writers, is undoubtedly altogether
false. The same scruples continued to prevail among Christian
writers to a later period; and Tostatus 14 notes the opinion of the
rotundity of the earth as an “unsafe” doctrine, only a few years
before Columbus visited the other hemisphere.
11 Montfaucon, Collectio Nova Patrum, t. ii. p. 113. Cosmas
Indicopleustes. Christianorum Opiniones de Mundo, sive
Topographia Christiana.

12 Civ. D. xvi. 9.

13 It appears, however, that scriptural arguments were found on

the other side. St. Jerome says (Comm. in Ezech. i. 6), speaking
of the two cherubims with four faces, seen by the prophet, and the
interpretation of the vision: “Alii vero qui philosophorum stultam
sequuntur sapientiam, duo hemispheria in duobus templi
cherubim, nos et antipodes, quasi supinos et cadentes homines
suspicantur.”

14 Montfauc. Patr. t. ii.

8. Intellectual Condition of the Religious Orders.—It must be

recollected, however, that though these were the views and tenets of
many religious writers, and though they may be taken as indications
of the prevalent and characteristic temper of the times of which we
speak, they never were universal. Such a confusion of thought
affects the minds of many persons, even in the most enlightened
times; and in what we call the Dark Ages, though clear views on
such subjects might be more rare, those who gave their minds to
science, entertained the true opinion of the figure of the earth. Thus
Boëthius 15 (in the sixth century) urges the smallness of the globe of
the earth, 198 compared with the heavens, as a reason to repress
our love of glory. This work, it will be recollected, was translated into
the Anglo-Saxon by our own Alfred. It was also commented on by
Bede, who, in what he says on this passage, assents to the doctrine,
and shows an acquaintance with Ptolemy and his commentators,
both Arabian and Greek. Gerbert, in the tenth century, went from
France to Spain to study astronomy with the Arabians, and soon
surpassed his masters. He is reported to have fabricated clocks, and
an astrolabe of peculiar construction. Gerbert afterwards (in the last
year of the first thousand from the birth of Christ) became pope, by
the name of Sylvester II. Among other cultivators of the sciences,
some of whom, from their proficiency, must have possessed with
considerable clearness and steadiness the elementary ideas on
which it depends, we may here mention, after Montucla, 16 Adelbold,
whose work On the Sphere was addressed to Pope Sylvester, and
whose geometrical reasonings are, according to Montucla, 17 vague
and chimerical; Hermann Contractus, a monk of St Gall, who, in
1050, published astronomical works; William of Hirsaugen, who
followed his example in 1080; Robert of Lorraine, who was made
Bishop of Hereford by William the Conqueror, in consequence of his
astronomical knowledge. In the next century, Adelhard Goth, an
Englishman, travelled among the Arabs for purposes of study, as
Gerbert had done in the preceding age; and on his return, translated
the Elements of Euclid, which he had brought from Spain or Egypt.
Robert Grostête, Bishop of Lincoln, was the author of an Epitome on
the Sphere; Roger Bacon, in his youth the contemporary of Robert,
and of his brother Adam Marsh, praises very highly their knowledge
in mathematics.
15 Boëthius, Cons. ii. pr. 7.

16 Mont. i. 502.

17 Ib. i. 503.
 “And here,” says the French historian of mathematics, whom I
have followed in the preceding relation, “it is impossible not to reflect
that all those men who, if they did not augment the treasure of the
sciences, at least served to transmit it, were monks, or had been
such originally. Convents were, during these stormy ages, the
asylum of sciences and letters. Without these religious men, who, in
the silence of their monasteries, occupied themselves in transcribing,
in studying, and in imitating the works of the ancients, well or ill,
those works would have perished; perhaps not one of them would
have come down to us. The thread which connects us with the
Greeks and Romans would have been snapt asunder; the precious
productions of 199 ancient literature would no more exist for us, than
the works, if any there were, published before the catastrophe that
annihilated that highly scientific nation, which, according to Bailly,
existed in remote ages in the centre of Tartary, or at the roots of
Caucasus. In the sciences we should have had all to create; and at
the moment when the human mind should have emerged from its
stupor and shaken off its slumbers, we should have been no more
advanced than the Greeks were after the taking of Troy.” He adds,
that this consideration inspires feelings towards the religious orders
very different from those which, when he wrote, were prevalent
among his countrymen.

Except so far as their religious opinions interfered, it was natural

that men who lived a life of quiet and study, and were necessarily in
a great measure removed from the absorbing and blinding interests
with which practical life occupies the thoughts, should cultivate
science more successfully than others, precisely because their ideas
on speculative subjects had time and opportunity to become clear
and steady. The studies which were cultivated under the name of the
Seven Liberal Arts, necessarily tended to favor this effect. The
Trivium, 18 indeed, which consisted of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric,
had no direct bearing upon those ideas with which physical science
is concerned; but the Quadrivium, Music, Arithmetic, Geometry,
Astronomy, could not be pursued with any attention, without a
corresponding improvement of the mind for the purposes of sound
knowledge. 19
18 Bruck. iii. 597.

19 Roger Bacon, in his Specula Mathematica, cap. i., says

“Harum scientiarum porta et clavis est mathematica, quam sancti
a principio mundi invenerunt, etc. Cujus negligentia jam per
triginta vel quadraginta annos destruxit totum studium Latinorum.”
I do not know on what occasion this neglect took place.

9. Popular Opinions.—That, even in the best intellects, something

was wanting to fit them for scientific progress and discovery, is
obvious from the fact that science was so long absolutely stationary.
And I have endeavored to show that one part of this deficiency was
the want of the requisite clearness and vigor of the fundamental
scientific ideas. If these were wanting, even in the most powerful and
most cultivated minds, we may easily conceive that still greater
confusion and obscurity prevailed in the common class of mankind.
They actually adopted the belief, however crude and inconsistent,
that the form of the earth and heavens really is what at any place it
appears to be; that the earth is flat, and the waters of the sky
sustained above a material floor, through which in showers they
descend. Yet the true doctrines of 200 astronomy appear to have had
some popular circulation. For instance, a French poem of the time of
Edward the Second, called Ymage du Monde, contains a metrical
account of the earth and heavens, according to the Ptolemaic views;
and in a manuscript of this poem, preserved in the library of the
University of Cambridge, there are representations, in accordance
with the text, of a spherical earth, with men standing upright upon it
on every side; and by way of illustrating the tendency of all things to
the centre, perforations of the earth, entirely through its mass, are
described and depicted; and figures are exhibited dropping balls
down each of these holes, so as to meet in the interior. And, as
bearing upon the perplexity which attends the motions of up and
down, when applied to the globular earth, and the change of the
direction of gravity which would occur in passing the centre, the
readers of Dante will recollect the extraordinary manner in which the
poet and his guide emerge from the bottom of the abyss; and the
explanation which Virgil imparts to him of what he there sees. After
they have crept through the aperture in which Lucifer is placed, the
poet says,

“Io levai gli occhi e credetti vedere

Lucifero com’ io l’ avea lasciato,
E vidile le gambe in su tenere.”
. . . . “Questi come è fitto
Si sottasopra!” . . . . .
“Quando mi volsi, tu passast’ il punto
Al qual si traggon d’ ogni parte i pesi.”
Inferno, xxxiv.

. . . . “I raised mine eyes,

Believing that I Lucifer should see
Where he was lately left, but saw him now
With legs held upward.” . . . .
“How standeth he in posture thus reversed?”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
“Thou wast on the other side so long as I
Descended; when I turned, thou didst o’erpass
That point to which from every part is dragged
All heavy substance.” Cary.
 This is more philosophical than Milton’s representation, in a more
scientific age, of Uriel sliding to the earth on a sunbeam, and sliding
back again, when the sun had sunk below the horizon.

. . . . . “Uriel to his charge

Returned on that bright beam whose point now raised,
Bore him slope downward to the sun, now fallen
Beneath the Azores.” Par. Lost, B. iv. 201

The philosophical notions of up and down are too much at

variance with the obvious suggestions of our senses, to be held
steadily and justly by minds undisciplined in science. Perhaps it was
some misunderstood statement of the curved surface of the ocean,
which gave rise to the tradition of there being a part of the sea
directly over the earth, from which at times an object has been
known to fall or an anchor to be let down. Even such whimsical
fancies are not without instruction, and may serve to show the reader
what that vagueness and obscurity of ideas is, of which I have been
endeavoring to trace the prevalence in the dark ages.

We now proceed to another of the features which appears to me

to mark, in a very prominent manner, the character of the stationary
period.
 CHAPTER II.

The Commentatorial Spirit of the Middle Ages.

W E have already noticed, that, after the first great achievements

of the founders of sound speculation, in the different
departments of human knowledge, had attracted the interest and
admiration which those who became acquainted with them could not
but give to them, there appeared a disposition among men to lean on
the authority of some of these teachers;—to study the opinions of
others as the only mode of forming their own;—to read nature
through books;—to attend to what had been already thought and
said, rather than to what really is and happens. This tendency of
men’s minds requires our particular consideration. Its manifestations
were very important, and highly characteristic of the stationary
period; it gave, in a great degree, a peculiar bias and direction to the
intellectual activity of many centuries; and the kind of labor with
which speculative men were occupied in consequence of this bias,
took the place of that examination of realities which must be their
employment, in order that real knowledge may make any decided
progress.

In some subjects, indeed, as, for instance, in the domains of

morals, poetry, and the arts, whose aim is the production of beauty,
this opposition between the study of former opinion and present
reality, may not be so distinct; inasmuch as it may be said by some,
that, in these subjects, opinions are realities; that the thoughts and
feelings which 202 prevail in men’s minds are the material upon
which we must work, the particulars from which we are to generalize,
the instruments which we are to use; and that, therefore, to reject the
study of antiquity, or even its authority, would be to show ourselves
ignorant of the extent and mutual bearing of the elements with which
we have to deal;—would be to cut asunder that which we ought to
unite into a vital whole. Yet even in the provinces of history and
poetry, the poverty and servility of men’s minds during the middle
ages, are shown by indications so strong as to be truly remarkable;
for instance, in the efforts of the antiquarians of almost every
European country to assimilate the early history of their own state to
the poet’s account of the foundation of Rome, by bringing from the
sack of Troy, Brutus to England, Bavo to Flanders, and so on. But
however this may be, our business at present is, to trace the varying
spirit of the physical philosophy of different ages; trusting that,
hereafter, this prefatory study will enable us to throw some light upon
the other parts of philosophy. And in physics the case undoubtedly
was, that the labor of observation, which is one of the two great
elements of the progress of knowledge, was in a great measure
superseded by the collection, the analysis, the explanation, of
previous authors and opinions; experimenters were replaced by
commentators; criticism took the place of induction; and instead of
great discoverers we had learned men.

1. Natural Bias to Authority.—It is very evident that, in such a bias

of men’s studies, there is something very natural; however strained
and technical this erudition may have been, the propensities on
which it depends are very general, and are easily seen. Deference to
the authority of thoughtful and sagacious men, a disposition which
men in general neither reject nor think they ought to reject in
practical matters, naturally clings to them, even in speculation. It is a
satisfaction to us to suppose that there are, or have been, minds of
transcendent powers, of wide and wise views, superior to the
common errors and blindness of our nature. The pleasure of
admiration, and the repose of confidence, are inducements to such a
belief. There are also other reasons why we willingly believe that
there are in philosophy great teachers, so profound and sagacious,
that, in order to arrive at truth, we have only to learn their thoughts,
to understand their writings. There is a peculiar interest which men
feel in dealing with the thoughts of their fellow-men, rather than with
brute matter. Matter feels and excites no sympathies: in seeking for
mere laws of nature, there is nothing of mental intercourse with the
great spirits of the past, as there is in 203 studying Aristotle or Plato.
Moreover, a large portion of this employment is of a kind the most
agreeable to most speculative minds; it consists in tracing the
consequences of assumed principles: it is deductive like geometry:
and the principles of the teachers being known, and being
undisputed, the deduction and application of their results is an
obvious, self-satisfying, and inexhaustible exercise of ingenuity.

These causes, and probably others, make criticism and

commentation flourish, when invention begins to fail, oppressed and
bewildered by the acquisitions it has already made; and when the
vigor and hope of men’s minds are enfeebled by civil and political
changes. Accordingly, 20 the Alexandrian school was eminently
characterized by a spirit of erudition, of literary criticism, of
interpretation, of imitation. These practices, which reigned first in
their full vigor in “the Museum,” are likely to be, at all times, the
leading propensities of similar academical institutions.
20 Degerando, Hist. des Syst. de Philos. iii. p. 134.

How natural it is to select a great writer as a paramount authority,

and to ascribe to him extraordinary profundity and sagacity, we may
see, in the manner in which the Greeks looked upon Homer; and the
fancy which detected in his poems traces of the origin of all arts and
sciences, has, as we know, found favor even in modern times. To
pass over earlier instances of this feeling, we may observe, that
Strabo begins his Geography by saying that he agrees with
Hipparchus, who had declared Homer to be the first author of our
geographical knowledge; and he does not confine the application of
this assertion to the various and curious topographical information
which the Iliad and Odyssey contain, concerning the countries
surrounding the Mediterranean; but in phrases which, to most
persons, might appear the mere play of a poetical fancy, or a casual
selection of circumstances, he finds unquestionable evidence of a
correct knowledge of general geographical truths. Thus, 21 when
Homer speaks of the sun “rising from the soft and deep-flowing
ocean,” of his “splendid blaze plunging in the ocean;” of the northern
constellation

“Alone unwashen by the ocean wave;”

and of Jupiter, “who goes to the ocean to feast with the blameless
Ethiopians;” Strabo is satisfied from these passages that Homer
knew the dry land to be surrounded with water: and he reasons in
like manner with respect to other points of geography.
21 Strabo, i. p. 5.

204 2. Character of Commentators.—The spirit of commentation,

as has already been suggested, turns to questions of taste, of
metaphysics, of morals, with far more avidity than to physics.
Accordingly, critics and grammarians were peculiarly the growth of
this school; and, though the commentators sometimes chose works
of mathematical or physical science for their subject (as Proclus,
who commented on Euclid’s Geometry, and Simplicius, on Aristotle’s