sign in sign up
<<
Home , Ayurveda, Baba Gurditta, Chaupai (Sikhism), Dasam Granth, Gurmat, Guru Arjan

Asian 4 (2008) 263–279 brill.nl/asme

The Sikh Foundations of

Neil Krishan Aggarwal

Abstract This paper explores how establish a unique claim to Ayurvedic knowledge. After considering Ayurvedic creation myths in the classical canon, passages from Sikh liturgi- cal texts are presented to show how Ayurveda is refashioned to meet the exigencies of Sikh theol- ogy. The Sikh texts are then analysed through their relationship with general Puranic literatures and the historical context of Hindu-Sikh relations. Finally, the Indian government’s current propagation of Ayurveda is scrutinised to demonstrate its affiliation with one particular to the possible exclusion of others. The Sikh example provides a glimpse into local cultures of Ayurveda before the professionalisation and standardisation of Ayurvedic practice in ’s post-independence period and may serve as a model for understanding other traditions.

Keywords Ayurveda, Hindu and Sikh identity, Sanskritisation, , ,

Scholars of South who study Ayurveda have overwhelmingly concen- trated on the classical Sanskrit canon of Suśruta, Caraka, and Vāgbhata.̣ This paper departs from that line of inquiry by examining the sources for a Sikh Ayurveda. Sikh religious texts such as the Granth and the Dasam Granth contest the very underpinnings of Ayurveda found in Sanskrit texts. Historical research suggests that the Udāsī Sikh incorporated these two scriptures within their religious curriculum and also spread Ayurveda throughout before the post-independence period. The rise of a government-regulated form of Ayurveda has led to the proliferation of pro- fessional degree colleges, but the fact that Udāsī monasteries still exist raises the possibility of a continuous medical heritage with its own of divergent practices.

Ayurveda in classical Sanskrit texts

Scholars have increasingly interrogated the traditional view regarding the Vedic origins of Ayurvedic texts. Passages in the collections of Suśruta and

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 DOI: DOI: 10.1163/157342009X12526658783457

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access 264 N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279

Caraka contradict each other around important social issues, suggesting tex- tual modifications for acceptance by the Brahminical . Despite such variations, Suśruta, Caraka and Vāgbhatạ have been canonised as a uni- fied corpus. A study of their differences, rather than similarities, might intro- duce new angles into the relationship between theological and medical practice. Each issue impacts our understanding of Sikh beliefs towards Ayurveda and is elaborated below. First, key doctrines differ between Ayurvedic and Vedic texts. Ayurvedic texts present pathology as a humoral imbalance, in contrast to Vedic hymns found in the and Rgvedạ that emphasise external beings entering the body to produce sickness.1 The collections of Suśruta and Caraka also contain contradictory about significant issues such as celibacy, the consumption of animal , and the use of alcohol such that they may have been codified to reconcile medical practice with orthodox Brahminical beliefs.2 were probably deemed ritually impure given their associa- tion with the Atharvaveda, not yet considered śruti scripture, and their contact with non- peoples in procuring treatments at the frontiers of .3 In addition, physicians associated with Buddhist circu- lating throughout north India around the fifth century BCE, who enhanced their reputations as physical and spiritual healers, institutionalised medicine in Buddhist monasteries, and produced ideas which would appear in later Sanskrit medical texts.4 Moreover, the circumstances around the canonisation of Suśruta, Car- aka and Vāgbhatạ remain unclear. Meulenbeld dates the Caraka Saṃ hitā to 50–150 A.D.5 and the Suśruta Saṃ hitā to 300–500 AD.6 He dates Vāgbhata’ṣ Aştāṇ gȧ Sangrahȧ to 650–750 AD,7 and the Aştāṇ gȧ Hrdayạ to before the middle of the ninth century AD.8 Major differences among the three authors were minimised by later commentators in order to present Ayurveda as a con- sistent, integrated whole.9 Competition against Western medicine eventually led to a single, coherent form of Ayurvedic thought in the nineteenth cen- tury divested of contrary beliefs and reinterpreted through rational, scientific

1 Zysk 1985, pp. 1–11. 2 Chattopadhyaya 1978, pp. 1–45. 3 Zysk 1991, p. 24. 4 Zysk 1991, pp. 21–49. 5 Meulenbeld 1999, pp. 113–14. 6 Meulenbeld 1999, p. 349. 7 Meulenbeld 1999, p. 621. 8 Meulenbeld 1999, pp. 631–3. 9 Scharfe 1999, p. 629.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 265 theories.10 Modern scholars such as Dash and Junius,11 Langford,12 Meulen- beld,13 Murthy14 and Wujastyk15 have accepted the central grouping of Suśruta, Caraka and Vāgbhatạ within the classical period of Ayurveda. In fact, the Suśruta Saṃ hitā,16 Caraka Saṃ hitā17 and Aştāṇ gȧ Hrdayạ 18 indi- cate how Ayurvedic medicine may have been brought within the fold of Brah- minical orthodoxy. The three collections share common literary themes, such as the transmission of knowledge from Hindu to , an incor- poration of Brahminical beliefs and practices, and inter-textual connections with Vedic and Pauranic literatures.19 In spite of these similarities, the pivotal interlocutor between deities and humans differs in each account. An alter- nate reading could contend that these texts compete rather than collaborate with each other as certain deities are glorified at the expense of others. Subtle reworkings of the - transmission chain could reveal new perspec- tives on the relationship between religion and medicine. Sikh religious texts exemplify how such medical authority was conferred in a dynamically chang- ing religious environment.

Ayurveda within Sikhism

Sikh tradition has contributed to the development of Ayurveda in two ways. First, Sikh such as the Nirmalas and the Udāsīs wrote commentaries on Ayurvedic texts and practised Ayurveda in their monasteries. Second, a Sikh known as the Dasam Granth which enjoyed wide historical cir- culation disputes the creation myth of Ayurveda in Sanskrit texts. This paper will restrict its focus to the Udāsīs given the availability of their primary texts, some of which appear below. Certain Sikh monastic sects such as the Udāsīs have been historically significant in the practice of Ayurveda, though their beliefs contrast with those espoused by the Tat who currently control most Sikh reli- gious, educational and social institutions in India. The Udāsīs emerged in the

10 Meulenbeld 1999, p. 2. 11 Dash and Junius 1983, p. 8. 12 Langford 2002, p. 4. 13 Meulenbeld 1999, p. 5. 14 Vagbhata 1996, p. ix. 15 Wujastyk 2003, p. xxvi. 16 Suśruta 2001, pp. 1–19. 17 Caraka 1989, pp. 1–8. 18 Vagbhata 2005, pp. 1–3. 19 Zysk 1999.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access 266 N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 seventeenth century to supervise Sikh shrines throughout north India and to found monasteries at places of , dressing as the ascetics of their day and favouring through the renunciation of society.20 The Udāsīs claim descent from the four sons of Brahmā and depict all ten Sikh as Udāsīs, citing Hindu scriptures and the Ādi Granth for support.21 They hold that bequeathed two lines of succession, one to the householder Angad and the other to Nanak’s renunciate son .22 All of the gurus apparently enjoyed good relations with Sri Chand. As evidence, the Udāsīs point out that he related the hymns of his father to the third guru Amardas, was praised by the fourth guru Ramdas, and regularly received the fifth .23 In another legend, Sri Chand asked to bestow his son as an Udāsī disciple, following which Baba Gurditta ordained four other followers to spread the Udāsī message to regions as dis- tant as , , Magadh, Odissa and Rameshwaram.24 In their religious commentaries and expositions, they interpreted Sikh scriptures through the hermeneutics of , practised hatha , and built hearths in the fash- ion of the Nāth .25 By the end of Sikh rule in in 1849, the Udāsīs oversaw over 250 land grants from Maharaja Ranjit and continued to receive support from the British, attesting to their importance.26 The Udāsīs were instrumental in the transmission of Ayurvedic knowledge throughout Punjab by educating disciples in monasteries and writing commentaries on Sanskrit Ayurvedic texts in local languages.27 Despite their prominence, little is known about how the Udāsīs practised Ayurveda. Headed by a mahant, they received instruction in yoga, , Ayurveda, and amassed a thorough knowledge of scriptures like the , the Purāṇas, the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyana and the Śastras.28 Although their orders learned from Sanskrit texts now associated with , they also read from Sikh scriptures such as the and the Dasam Granth. This broad religious curriculum raises questions as to how they rec- onciled theological differences around such issues as the importance of the Vedas, the centrality of in establishing an Ayurvedic lineage, and the nature of Ayurvedic knowledge.

20 Oberoi 1994, pp. 77–80. 21 Singh 1999, p. 5. 22 Singh 1999, p. 13. 23 Padam 2000, p. 20. 24 Singh Ji 1992, pp. 9–13. 25 Singh 1999, p. 15. 26 Singh 1999, pp. 44–5, 59. 27 Sivaramakrishnan 2006, pp. 14–26. 28 Oberoi 1994, pp. 124–9.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 267

One clue to their intellectual may lie in analysing sections from the Guru Granth Sahib and Dasam Granth. Completed in 1604 under the supervision of Guru Arjan, the fifth spiritual preceptor of the Sikhs, the Guru Granth Sahib assumed paramount authority as the ‘living Guru’ of the Sikhs in 1708 at the decree of the tenth and last guru, Gobind Singh.29 At a number of places, the Guru Granth Sahib discredits the Vedas in favour of the writings of :30 Having read the Vedas, they do not learn the secret of (Page 128). TheVedas speak explanations, but do not obtain the end (Page 148). The reads and explains the Vedas, but does not know the distinction of the substance within (Page 306). There were no Vedas, Purānas, or Śastras there; only the Lord, the Lord of men (Page 555). They read the Veda and expound debates, but lose honor without God (Page 638). Oh Pandit, your filth will not be erased if you read the Vedas throughout the four eras (Page 647). Having read the Vedas day and night, he starts disputes (Page 1066). The Guru Granth Sahib portrays the Vedas as devoid of enlightening knowl- edge and imperfect. As such, the Vedas would be an inadequate source of authority for Ayurveda. Ayurveda would have to be legitimised through another source of divinity. In addition, the Brahma and of Sanskrit Ayurvedic texts do not pos- sess the same power or majesty in the Guru Granth Sahib: The world of Śiva, the world of Brahma and Indra are astir, no place is permanent (Page 214). First, Death came to Brahma’s house (Page 227). In the world of Indra, death is certain (Page 237). Is Brahma greater or the One who created him (Page 331)? Millions of , many , mutter (Page 455). Reading the Vedas, Brahma lost his birth (Page 478). Indra, seated on his throne, will encounter the existence of (Page 1049). Brahma, Viśnu, and Śiva are diseased; the whole world is diseased (Page 1153). Brahma is tainted, Indra is tainted (Page 1158). Brahma is called great, but he does not fathom [Your] limits (Page 1279). fall to death and disease in the Guru Granth Sahib. Such fallibility would render them unsuitable for connection with Ayurveda, a

29 McLeod 1984, pp. 1–2. 30 All translations are mine. Page numbers are given according to the official recensions of both texts.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access 268 N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 rejuvenating and life-sustaining body of knowledge. An alternate, eternal and powerful deity would have to invest Ayurveda with divinity. Finally, , and especially , are illustrated as misguided throughout the Guru Granth Sahib. The Brahmins typically appear as ‘Pan- dits’ in the text: The read and debate, but stray without the Guru (Page 67). If I ask the Pandits, they are engrossed in (Page 385). The Pandit weeps when knowledge is lost (Page 954). invests the idol with the Name, but in both [Hindu and Turk] there is no Truth (Page 1349). At some times, the text imagines Brahmins as proud of a useless knowledge. At other times, Brahmins remain attached to worldly pleasures. Hindus seem generally misguided and in need of salvation. Less revered than the Guru Granth Sahib, the Dasam Granth is nonetheless considered part of the liturgical literature of the Sikhs, traditionally thought to be authored by Gobind Singh.31 In contrast to accounts in Sanskrit, the Dasam Granth proclaims its own creation myth of Ayurveda between pages 497 and 499 in the official recension. The Dhanavantari of Sanskrit texts appears as ‘Dhanantar’ throughout the passage:32 Now, the story of the incarnation [avatār] of Dhanantar Baid With the help of Sri Bhagauti Ji [a type of poetic verse] All of the people of the world became prosperous, not one remained whose body [experienced] grief. Eating different sorts of cooked foods, different diseases arose in their bodies. Indeed, all people became distressed at disease; grief arose excessively [adhīk] for humans. They praised the Supreme Being [param purukh] and He had mercy on them. He called for Visṇ ̣u: ‘Take the incarnation of Dhanantar.’ ‘Illuminate [karo prākāsa] Ayurveda, destroy disease for the people.’ Dohra [a type of meter] Then the gods were assembled to churn the ocean. To destroy disease for the people, they brought forth King Dhanantar. Chaupai He illuminated Ayurveda and destroyed all diseases of the world. He brought forth the science of Vaid and made different known. Dohra Indeed, he made for the diseases in the world.

31 McLeod 1984, pp. 6–7. 32 Jaggi and Jaggi 1999, pp. 490–3.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 269

He met with death when Takśak [the king of serpents] killed him and he departed for the city of gods. In the Sri Bachitra Natak, here ends the seventeenth incarnation of Dhanantar. The Truth is auspicious. In contrast to descriptions within the texts of Suśruta, Caraka and Vāgbhata,̣ Sikh scriptures attribute the birth of Ayurveda to disease stemming from dec- adence. Caraka similarly traces the origin of disease to sensual excess and moral failure,33 but in his account Ayurveda still remains within the realm of divine knowledge taught by demigods. TheDasam Granth eliminates this intervening stratum of deities altogether. Human supplications to the Sikh deity resulted in the dispatch of Visṇ ̣u as the incarnation of Dhanantar, pro- cured by the gods through their mythic churning of the ocean with the demons. Dhanantar propagated the science of Ayurveda and the knowledge of herbs in order to combat disease before dying from the king of serpents and subsequently ascending to the abode of the gods. The Sikh creation myth of Ayurveda varies markedly from its Sanskritic counterparts. Divested of any mention of the Vedas, Ayurveda no longer retains its relationship to Hindu scriptures. No chain of transmission is listed from Brahma to humans. Ayurveda arises at a time of decadence rather than from suffering. The Sikh deity deputes Visṇ ̣u to incarnate as Dhanantar, a form not present in modern Hindu conceptions of the ten incarnations. Visṇ ̣u’s divine status does not imply immortality and Dhanantar ironically cannot treat his own death. Thus, Sikh scriptures deliver an adversarial narrative of Ayurveda through a separate set of religious tenets without subscribing to Brahminical theological commitments.

The crystallisation of Hindu and Sikh identities

Two mechanisms explain distinctions in the Sikh creation myth of Ayurveda. First, the Sikh community has scripturally differentiated itself from Hindu- ism with the Guru Granth Sahib and the Dasam Granth. Next, most members of the Sikh community have socially differentiated themselves from Hindus throughout the past 150 years. Both acts of self-definition are observed in the Sikh account of Ayurveda. Most significantly, Sikh scriptures deny the sanctity of the Vedas, a radical act of textual regime change. In one proposed definition, Hinduism has been

33 Wujastyk 2003, pp. 43–4.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access 270 N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279

‘the religion of those humans who create, perpetuate, and transform traditions with legitimising reference to the authority of the Veda’ throughout time and irrespective of sub-caste.34 From approximately 600–200 BCE, Vedic schol- ars standardised Sanskrit grammar and the six Vedāṅgas in order to preserve social authority against political and economic transformations and the rise of religious movements such as that rejected the hierarchical values of the Brahminical order.35 Sanskrit texts from this period, such as Patañjali’s Mahābhāşya, the Manu Smŗti, the Rāmāyanạ and the Mahābhārata, make multiple references to the proper behaviour of Brahmins as well as to the sanctity of Sanskrit and the Vedas in order to mark clear social and religious boundaries.36 Within Sanskritic intellectual history, specialised discourses as diverse as politics, economics, architecture and medicine have affirmed their links to the eternal and infallible Vedas to promote their own influence and .37 TheVis ṇ ̣u Purāṇa enumerates those disciplines deemed indis- pensable for the cultivated classes: The four Vedas, the six Angas (or subsidiary portions of the Vedas, viz. Siksha, rules of reciting the prayers, the accents and tones to be observed; , ; , grammar; , glossarial comment; Chhandas, metre; and Jyo- tish, astronomy), with Mimansa (), (logic), (the insti- tutes of law), and the Purañas, constitute the fourteen principal branches of knowledge: or they are considered as eighteen, with the addition of these four; the Ayur-veda, medical science (as taught by Dhanwantari); Dhanur-veda, the science of archery or arms, taught by Bhrigu; Gandharba-veda or the drama, and the arts of music, dancing. $c., of which the Muni was the author; and the Śastram, or science of government, as laid down first by Vrishaspati.38 As observed before, the Guru Granth Sahib casts doubt upon the Vedas. Spe- cific discourses that assumed a divine nature through Vedic association would need to be remodelled with a Sikh basis. Ayurveda belongs to this category of knowledge recast in Sikh theological terms. Additionally, the relationship between has under- gone extensive transformation. Between 1873 and 1920, Sikh identity was contested as an emerging middle class of Sikh professionals and intellectuals known as Sikhs used modern print culture to promote a textually- derived, uniform, normative identity over locally-derived, pluralistic identities which integrated Sikh scripture with existing Indic traditions, sanctioned by

34 Smith 1987, p. 40. 35 Carpenter 1992, pp. 59–65. 36 Witzel 2006, pp. 475–86. 37 Pollock 1985, pp. 518–19. 38 Wilson 1840, p. 284.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 271 the religious elite and landed aristocracy known as the Sanatani Sikhs.39 In 1899, Bhai Kahan Singh, an intellectual of the Tat Khalsa movement, pub- lished Hum Hindu Nahin (‘We are not Hindus’), a pamphlet in which a Sikh refutes the arguments of a Hindu who claims that Sikhs belong to the Hindu community. Community identity experienced more homogenisation in the first decades of the twentieth century as petty commodity traders and local agrarians sided with the Tat Khalsa movement against the colonial British economy, integration into a failing world market, and British patronage to Sanatani Sikhs who controlled religious shrines.40 Throughout the 1920s, the Shiromani Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) assumed control of Sikh shrines, narrowed the definition of Sikh to those turbaned and baptised, authored legal documents, and recognised four traditional centres of Sikh reli- gious life in a sweeping act of consolidating Tat Khalsa religious authority.41 By 1950, the SGPC published the Sikh Rahit Maryādā (Sikh Code of Con- duct) to govern daily activities, defining a Sikh as one who ‘does not believe in any other system of religious doctrine’.42 Throughout the 1980s, Sikh nar- ratives denigrated the Indian state as Hindu, effeminate and weak as militants unsuccessfully attempted to secede from India and turn Punjab into a separate Sikh homeland.43 Tat Khalsa historiography has continued to label ‘Hindu’ any belief that it deems contrary to Sikh beliefs.44 Consequently, Sikhs have been able to appropriate many elements formerly associated with Hinduism by marking clear religious boundaries. Now that the Tat Khalsa movement has dominated Sikhism, Udāsīs lie uncomfortably between both given their use of to interpret Sikh scrip- ture. More research is needed to see how Udāsīs and other Sikh sects practised Ayurveda to determine whether theological differences influenced specific treatments.

The vernacularisation of Sanskrit literature into Punjabi

Another to examine the Dasam Granth’s account of Ayurveda is to observe which themes in Sanskrit literature are maintained through ver- nacularisation in Punjabi. A focus on the similarities between Punjabi and

39 Oberoi 1994, pp. 381–417. 40 Fox 1985, pp. 160–84. 41 Barrier 2004, pp. 200–5. 42 McLeod 1989, p. 95. 43 1992, pp. 248–50. 44 Oberoi 1992, pp. 364–6.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access 272 N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279

Sanskrit texts may yield valuable insights for content that is maintained rather than discarded. Content can then be traced to original sources to con- struct an intellectual genealogy. This technique can be most readily applied in ascertaining the relationship between Dhanavantari and Visṇ ̣u in the Dasam Granth. The Sikh scriptures cast as an incarnation of Visṇ ̣u, not found among the ten incar- nations standardised within modern Hindu thought. The accepted number of ten incarnations emerged onward from the eleventh century CE in texts such as Ksemendra’ṣ Dasāvatāracarita and ’s Gīta Govinda.45 Most Vaisṇ ̣ava schools accept this typology, with some sects such as the Bengali Vaisṇ ̣avas replacing Visṇ ̣u with Kṛsṇ ̣a as the source of all incarnations.46 However, when situated historically, Hindu texts evidence an upward trend in the number of incarnations of Visṇ ̣u from three in the Brāhmaṇa literature to ten in the Mahābhārata and twenty-two in the Bhāgavata Purānạ , with the Bhāgavata Purānạ also including a number of amśavatāra (‘partial incarnations’) who reveal divine truths more in the style of human gurus.47 TheBhāgavata Purānạ includes three verses that refer to Dhanvantari’s partial incarnation:48 Adorned with an armlet, carrying a vessel full of nectar. Indeed, he is clearly the partial incarnation of the blessed Viśnu (8:33). He is called Dhanvantari, the beneficiary of sacrifice, the visionary of Ayurveda. Having beheld the vessel filled with nectar, all of the Asuras. (8:34) Covetous of all things, have taken away the vessel with quickness. With respect to the conveyance and distribution of the nectar in that vessel (8:35). In the Visṇ ụ Purānạ , we find a different tale: The son of Kasa was Kasiraja, his son was Dirghatamas, his son was Dhanwan- tari, whose nature was exempt from human infirmities, and who in every exis- tence had been master of universal knowledge. In this past life (or when he was produced by the agitation of the milky sea), Narayana [Visṇ ̣u] had conferred upon him the boon, that he should subsequently be born in the family of Kasir- aja, should compose the eightfold system of medical science, and should be thereafter entitled to a share of offerings made to the gods.49 Similar to the Dasam Granth, the Bhāgavata Purānạ and Visṇ ụ Purānạ avow the bond between Visṇ ̣u and Dhanvantari, a phenomenon absent in the San- skrit Ayurvedic canon. Within the broader context of Sanskrit literature,

45 Syrkin 1988, p. 10. 46 Sheth 2002, pp. 99–100. 47 Jaini 1977, p. 321. 48 Shastri et al. 1998, p. 29. 49 Wilson 1840, pp. 406–7.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 273 however, Dhanvantari is generally considered a partial incarnation of Visṇ ̣u and occasionally a devotee of Śiva, with Buddhist and Jaina traditions rever- ing him as a medical expert.50 Although Sikh doctrines refute the Vedas, they draw on the same source of mythology as the Purāṇas. This may provide a minor glimpse into the intellectual genealogy of the Guru Granth Sahib and the Dasam Granth, a fascinating inquiry that cannot be explored further in this paper. In spite of the source, all Hindu and Sikh texts maintain that humans received Ayurveda from the gods, similar to how other disciplines of knowledge are claimed to have descended from divine sources. Indeed, Sikh adoption of Ayurveda could mark an instance of ‘Sanskritisa- tion’, a term introduced by Srinivas in his book Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India: Sanskritization means not only the adoption of new customs and habits, but also exposure to new ideas and values which have found frequent expression in the vast body of Sanskrit literature, sacred as well as secular. , dharma, papa, , maya, samsara, and moksa are all examples of some of the most common Sanskrit theological ideas, and when a people become Sanskritized these words occur frequently in their talk. These ideas reach the common people through Sanskritic myths and stories.51 Groups have opted for Sanskritisation to improve caste standing in a rigid hierarchical system of intense resource competition. From the millennium between 200/300 CE and 1300 CE, Sanskrit surfaced as the language of cul- tural and political discourse throughout South and Southeast Asia.52 Regional elites throughout this cultural continuum discontinued their use of Sanskrit at various times, but by the seventeenth century, Sanskrit slowly disappeared as the prestige language of north India due to the loss of court patronage, the rise of vernacular literatures, and the lack of educational institutions.53 At approximately this time, Awadhi, Braj, and other regional languages—such as those prevalent in Sikh literatures—were used for literary and religious purposes. The linguistic categories oftatsama and tadbhāva can also explain the socio- logical processes of Sanskritisation. Tatsama words are borrowed wholesale from Sanskrit without modification whereas tadbhāva words undergo phono- logical changes. To extend this analogy conceptually, Sanskritisation takes place either through the tatsama wholesale importation of Sanskrit vocabularies and

50 Meulenbeld 1999, pp. 358–61. 51 Srinivas 1956, p. 486. 52 Pollock 1998, pp. 10–12. 53 Pollock 2001, pp. 395–414.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access 274 N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 concepts or with tadbhāva modifications that suit the receiving culture.54 This trend occurs commonly in Sikh scriptures as Hindu gods and such as Dhanantar (Dhanavantari in Sanskrit) are utilised for new theological ends. Sikh thinkers had to modify extant cultural resources in order to reach their audience through familiar idioms. Lévi-Strauss has explained this operation through the concept of bricolage (French for ‘to cobble together, repair’): The characteristic feature of mythical thought is that it expresses itself by means of a heterogeneous repertoire which, even if extensive, is nevertheless limited. It has to use this repertoire, however, whatever the task in hand because it has nothing else at its disposal. Mythical thought is therefore a kind of intellectual ‘bricolage’—which explains the relation which can be perceived between the two.55 Bricolage characterises the creation myth of Ayurveda in the Dasam Granth. Drawing from a vast heterogeneous repertoire of Sanskrit culture, local folk- lore and the personal creativity of Sikh thinkers, the Dasam Granth is never- theless a bounded, finite text. Its composer must act with, and against, existing cultural machinery to assemble an intelligible intellectual apparatus for its audience. Obeyesekere has noticed bricolage in Sri Lanka among phy- sicians who immerse themselves in Ayurvedic culture, but experiment with diseases not found in Ayurvedic texts, formulate new herbal prescriptions, and challenge the Hindu theistic structure of Ayurveda to craft a Buddhist atheistic Ayurveda.56 Sikh bricolage of Ayurveda would therefore not be with- out precedent.

Conclusion: The implications of the Indian government’s policies for local forms of Ayurveda

This paper has reviewed the continuities and discontinuities of a Sikh Ayurveda with Sanskrit Ayurvedic texts. By rejecting the Vedas and making Hindu gods subservient to a single omnipotent god, Sikh tradition recasts the mythical beginnings of Ayurveda for its own theological ends. In Hindu and Sikh creation myths, Ayurveda represents an elite discourse as authors delib- erately embed their teachings within religious concepts and idioms. In societ- ies uninfluenced by the secularising tendencies of Western modernity,

54 Staal 1963, pp. 272–5. 55 Lévi-Strauss 1966, p. 17. 56 Obeyesekere 1992, p. 170–5.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 275 religious scripture comprises one component of Foucault’s concept of the episteme: [ T ]he total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and possibly formalized sys- tems; the way in which, in each of these discursive formations, the transitions to epistemologization, scientificity, and formalization are situated and operate; the distribution of these thresholds, which may coincide, be subordinated to one another, or be separated by shifts in time; the lateral relations that may exist between epistemological figures or sciences in so far as they belong to neighbour- ing, but distinct, discursive practices. The episteme is not a form of knowledge (connaissance) or type of rationality which, crossing the boundaries of the most varied sciences, manifests the sovereign unity of a subject, a spirit, or a period; it is the totality of relations that can be discovered, for a given period, between the sciences when one analyses them at the level of discursive regularities.57 The eminence of Ayurveda as a science depends on its claim to a relationship with religious scriptures. Practitioners of Vedic recitation and Ayurveda were drawn from the same class, albeit with different educational curri- cula.58 Contemporary research on the Udāsīs remains limited, but suggests that the Udāsīs learned Sikh theological texts and Ayurveda within the same curriculum.59 This raises a set of historical questions. At what point did the discursive practices and formalised systems of an Udāsī Ayurveda materialise? What sorts of lateral relations existed such that the Udāsīs composed their own texts in collaboration or competition with traditional Sanskrit authors? How did the Udāsīs evolve their own discursive practices and formalised sys- tems? Where were Udāsī epistemological boundaries drawn? Once we examine the professionalisation of Sanskritic Ayurvedic institu- tions, we can begin to discover its contact with the Sikh tradition. Mahant Singh and Pandit Nihal Singh Kashiwale, two influential Sikh scholars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, wrote a series of Ayurvedic texts which are still published and used among practition- ers of Ayurveda. The texts and practices of Ayurvedic knowledge translated into Punjabi remain an unexplored subject that could benefit from a multi- disciplinary approach. For example, historians of modern India, and can advance knowledge of the relationships among Sikh orders, Ayurveda and royal patronage. Philologists can read Ayurvedic texts within their broader literary cultures of Punjabi, , Sanskrit and Persian to see how Ayurveda is retained or modified in translation. Anthropologists can

57 Foucault 1972, p. 191. 58 Ingalls 1958, pp. 210–12. 59 Oberoi 1994, pp. 124–9.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access 276 N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 conduct fieldwork at the numerous Nirmala and Udāsī monasteries to study how patients choose among India’s myriad of systems. Sociologists can examine how these religious sites have resisted the professionalisation and secularisation of Ayurveda in post-colonial India. Unlike institutions estab- lished in modern times, Nirmala and Udāsī monasteries may offer a glimpse into alternate forms of Ayurveda. The Indian government’s current promotion of Ayurveda can also be bet- ter contextualised. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched the Department of Indian Systems of Medicines and Homoeopathy in March 1995 and renamed it as the Department of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and , Unani, Siddha and ) in November 2003.60 The Department of AYUSH provides an account of Ayurveda: In India, [the] development and growth of such a body of knowledge known as Ayurveda, meaning [the] science of life, was coeval with the growth and evolu- tion of Indian civilization and culture. [The] Vedas, which are considered to be the repositories of recorded Indian culture, have mention of this knowledge both in theoretical and practical form[s]. There is [a] discussion of theories about the composition of living and non-living matter, the physical, biochemical, biologi- cal, psychological and spiritual components of man[,] and the vital motive forces working both inside and outside the body. In other ancient works there is men- tion of such current medical subject[s] like anatomy, physiology, aetiology, pathology, treatment[,] and environmental factors. This medical knowledge has been the work of ages. It is the out-come of the great power of observation, gen- eralisation and analysis combined with [the] patient labour of hundred of inves- tigators spread over thousand[s] of years. This knowledge has played so important a part in the development of Indian culture that it has been documented in an integrated form in the Vedas—the ancient most documented Indian wisdom and knowledge. Most of the mythological and medico-religious genesis of Ayurveda is even today shrouded in the mist of antiquity. At the end of the webpage, under a section entitled ‘Some milestones in the development of Ayurveda’, the lineage of Ayurveda is pronounced more forcefully: Divine origin of Ayurveda from Lord Brahma—Dates back to origin of human race.61 The Department of AYUSH’s statements on Ayurveda must be seen within the context of colonial history. As a reaction to British technocratic infra- structure—for example, surveys, censuses, railways, telegraph lines—which

60 Department of AYUSH 2007, ‘Website of AYUSH’. 61 This is the original emphasis of the Department of AYUSH 2007, ‘Development and its Status’.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 277 conveyed a rational, scientific authority and subsequently signified power and modernity, colonial Hindu intellectuals as diverse as the Gujarati reformer Swami Dayananda , the Bengali chemist P. C. Ray, and the Tamil G. Srinivasa asserted the ancient origins of a Hindu science in a project of homogenising the nation through a past viewed as pure and united.62 Jawaharlal Nehru, the first (1947–64), periodised Indian history by religion in his book Discovery of India by attrib- uting a Hindu, Vedic origin to an Indian civilisation later disrupted by the invasion of and then colonised by the British, canonising a Hindu nationalist reading of history with a single trajectory.63 The post-independent Indian government has substantiated the views of those like Nehru who have articulated a single, Hindu, national history in a relationship of Ayurveda: Hindu: Indian. Scholars in the and social sciences can investigate how state sponsorship of Ayurveda and citizenship conferred on the basis of religion affect other cultures of Ayurveda in the future.

Bibliography

Ādi Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji 1765, Damdami recension, Amristar: Sri Press. Barrier, N. G. 2004, ‘Authority, Politics, and Contemporary Sikhism: The Takht, the SGPC, Rahit Maryada, and the Law’, in P. Singh and N. G. Barrier (eds), Sikhism and History, New : , 194–229. Caraka 1989, Carakasaṃ hitā/Carakapranītạ̄ , edited by Ramaprasadavaidyopādhyāya, Bombay: Śrīveṅkateśvarạ Press. Carpenter, D. 1992, ‘Language, Ritual, and Society: Reflections on the authority of the Veda in India’, Journal of the American of Religion, 60:57–77. Chattopadhyaya, D. 1978, Science and Society in Ancient India, Amsterdam: B. R. Grüner B. V. Das, V. 1992, ‘Time, Self, and Community: Features of the Sikh Militant Discourse’, Contribu- tions to Indian Sociology, 26:245–59. Dash, V. B. and A. M. M. Junius 1983, A Handbook of Ayurveda, : Concept Publish- ing Company. Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, . ‘Website of AYUSH’, http://indianmedicine.nic.in/ (Last accessed 14 August 2007). —— ‘Development and its Status’, http://indianmedicine.nic.in/ayu%20development.htm (Last accessed 14 August 2007). Foucault, M. 1972, The Archaeology of Knowledge, translated by A. M. S. Smith, New York: . Fox, R. 1985, Lions of the Punjab: Culture in the Making, Berkeley: University of California Press. Glazier, A. 2000, ‘A Landmark in the History of Ayurveda’, Lancet, 356:1119. Ingalls, D. 1958, ‘The Brahman Tradition’,The Journal of American Folklore, 71:209–15.

62 Prakash 1997. 63 Mufti 1995, pp. 80–8.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access 278 N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279

Jaggi, R. S. and G. K. Jaggi 1999, Sri Dasam-Granth Sahib: Path Sampādan ate Viākhia, vol. 1, New Delhi: Gobind Sadan. Jaini, P. S. 1977, ‘Jina Ṛsabhạ as an “Avatāra” of Visṇ ̣u’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of , 40:321–37. Langford, J. 2002, Fluent Bodies: Ayurvedic Remedies for Postcolonial Imbalance, Durham: Duke University Press. Lévi-Strauss, C. 1966, The Savage Mind, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. McLeod, W. H. 1984, Textual Sources for the Study of Sikhism, Manchester: Manchester Univer- sity Press. —— 1989, Who is a Sikh? The Problem of Sikh Identity, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Meulenbeld, G. J. 1999, A History of Indian : Volume 1A Text, Groningen: Egbert Forsten. Mufti, A. R. 1995, ‘ and Minority: Elements of a Critique’, Social Text, 45:75–96. Oberoi, H. S. 1992, ‘Popular , Goddesses, and Village Sacred Sites: Rereading Sikh Expe- rience in the Nineteenth Century’, History of Religions, 31:363–84. Oberoi, H. 1994, The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Obeyesekere, G. 1992, ‘Science, Experimentation, and Clinical Practice in Ayurveda’, in C. Leslie and A. Young (eds), Paths to Asian Medical Knowledge, Berkeley and Oxford: University of California Press, 160–76. Padam, P. S. 2000, Sikh Sampradāvali, Kalagīdhar Kalām Foundation:. Pettigrew, J. 1995, The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerilla Violence, New Jersey: Zed Books. Pollock, S. 1985, ‘The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual His- tory’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 105:499–519. —— 1998, ‘The Cosmopolitan Vernacular’,The Journal of Asian Studies, 57:6–37. —— 2001, ‘The Death of Sanskrit’,Comparative Studies in Society and History, 43:392–426. Prakash, G. 1997, ‘The Modern Nation’s Return in the Archaic,Critical Inquiry, 23:536–56. Scharfe, H. 1999, ‘The Doctrine of the Three Humors in Traditional Indian Medicine and the Alleged Antiquity of Tamil ’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 119:609–29. Shastri, H. G., B. K. Shelat and K. K. Shastree 1998, The Bhāgvata [Śrimad Bhāgvata Mahā- Puraña]: Volume III [Skandhās VII to IX], : B. J. Institute of Learning and Research. Sheth, N. 2002, ‘Hindu Avatāra and Christian Incarnation: A Comparison’, East and West, 52:98–125. Singh, S. 1999, in the Sikh Tradition, : ABS Publications. Singh Ji, Sri M. M. G. 1992, Bhārat Mat Darpan: Bhārat Varsh Vich Jinnay Vī Matt Prachalat Hoye Han, Unnān dī Badī Khoj Kar Ke Sāri Jānkārī Ditti Gai Hai, : Bhai Chatar Singh Jivan Singh. Sivaramakrishnan, K. 2006, Old Potions, New Bottles: Recasting Indigenous Medicine in Colonial Punjab (1850–1945), New Delhi: Orient Longman Private Limited. Smith, B. K. 1987, ‘Exorcising the Transcendent: Strategies for Defining Hinduism and Reli- gion’, History of Religions, 27:32–55. Srinivas, M. N. 1956, ‘A Note on Sanskritization and Westernization’, The Far Eastern Quarterly, 15:481–96. Staal, J. F. 1963, ‘Sanskrit and Sanskritization’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 22:261–75. Suśruta 2001, Suśrutasamhitā: Suśrutavimarśinī-Hindīvyākhyayā vimarśādibhiśca samanvitā, vol. 1, edited by A. Sharma and P. Sharma, Benares: Caukhambā Surabhāratī Prakāśana. Syrkin, A. 1988, ‘The Salutary Descent’,Numen , 35:1–23.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access N. K. Aggarwal / Asian Medicine 4 (2008) 263–279 279

Vāgbhatạ 1996, Vāgbhata’ṣ Asṭ āṇ gȧ hrdayam:̥ Text, English Translation, Notes, Appendix, and Indi- ces, edited by K. R. S. Murthy, : Krishnadas Academy. —— 2005, Śrīmadvāgbhataviracitaṃ Asṭ āṇ gahṙ dayḁ , edited by Kaviraja Atrideva Gupta, Vārāṇasī: Caukhambā Saṃ skr̥ta Saṃ sthāna. Wilson, H. H. 1840, The Viśnu Puraña: A System of and Traditions Translated from the Original Sanscrit and Illustrated by Notes Derived Chiefly from Other Purañas, London: John Murray. Witzel, M. 2006, ‘Brahmanical Reactions to Foreign Influences and to Social and Religious Change’, in P. Olivelle (ed.), Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE, New York: Oxford University Press, 457–99. Wujastyk, D. 2003, The Roots of Ayurveda, London: Penguin Books. Zysk, K. G. 1985, ‘Religious Healing in the Veda: With Translations and Annotations of Med- ical Hymns in the Rgveda and the Atharvaveda and Renderings from the Corresponding Ritual Texts’, American Philosophical Society, 75:1–311. —— 1991, and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— 1999, ‘Mythology and the Brahmanization of Indian Medicine: Transforming Heterodoxy into Orthodoxy,’ in F. Josephson (ed.), Categorisation and Interpretation: Indological and Com- parative Studies from an International Indological Meeting at the Department of Comparative Philology, Göteborg University: A Volume Dedicated to the Memory of Gösta Liebert. (Meijerbergs arkiv för svensk ordforskning, 24.), Göteborg: Styrelsen för Meijerbergs institut vid Göteborgs universitet, 125–45.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:55:14PM via free access