Memoirs of Vaidyas The Lives and Practices of Traditional Medical Doctors in Kerala, India (8)* TSUTOMU YAMASHITA** Kyoto Gakuen University, Kyoto, Japan P. RAM MANOHAR AVT Institute for Advanced Research, Arya Vaidya Pharmacy, Coimbatore, India MADHU K. PARAMESWARAN Vaidyaratnam P. S. Varier Ayurveda College, Kottakal, India Abstract This article presents an English translation of an interview with a doctor of traditional Indian medicine (Āyurveda), R*** T*** (1920 ~ 2010) in Kerala, India. The contents of the interview: 1. History of the Family, 2. Primary Edu- cation, 3. Getting a Job, 4. Career Change to Āyurveda, 5. Texts of Āyurveda, 6. Commentary on the texts of Āyurveda, 7. Education of Āyurveda, 8. Modern Āyurveda, and Bibliography. Key words Ayurveda, Traditional Indian Medicine, Kerala * We would like to express our deepest gratitude to Vaidya R*** T*** for accepting our interview and to his family for allowing the translation to be published. We are very sorry we could not publish this article during Vaidya R*** T***ʼs lifetime. ** Author for correspondence. Address: 1-1 Nanjo Otani, Sogabe-chou, Kameoka-shi, Kyo- to-fu, 621-8555 Japan. E-mail:
[email protected] eJournal of Indian Medicine Volume 8 (2015), 33–60 34 TSUTOMU YAMASHITA, P. RAM MANOHAR & MADHU K. PARAMESWARAN Introduction We would like to introduce here an English translation of one of our interviews. The interviewee, R*** T*** (1920 ~ 2010) is a physician and scholar of tradi- tional Indian medicine (Āyurveda). We have made every attempt to prepare a literal translation of the interview. However, in order to promote understanding, we have organized the stories by topic and gave detailed explanations in the footnotes.