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WORLD December 15, 1998 VNN2682 See Related VNN Stories Ayurveda As It Is BY MURARI CHAITANYA DASA USA, Dec 15 (VNN) — Reclaiming Lord Krishna's Medicine (from VNN Forums) sri-murari gupta shakhaÑÑpremera bhandara prabhura hridaya drave shuni' dainya yanra cikitsa karena yare ha-iya sadaya deha-roga bhava-roga,ÑÑdui tara kshaya (Cc Adi 10. 49,51) In these verses of Sri Chaitanya-caritamrita, Srila Krishnadasa Kaviraja has succinctly presented the spiritual and professional qualifications of Srila Murari Gupta Thakura, an intimate associate of Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and a prominent Ayurvedic doctor, whom Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has offered as the example to be followed by modern physicians. Srila Murari Gupta was born to a family of vaidyas (physicians) in Srihatta, and later became a resident of Sridhama Navadvipa. He was full of love of God, and his humility melted Lord Chaitanya's heart. He practiced the medical profession, and supported his family with his earnings. Most importantly, in treating his patients, both their physical and spiritual diseases were diminished. Srila Murari Gupta Thakura was formerly Hanuman, a devoted servant of Sri Ramacandra. On one occasion, Sri Rama requested that Hanuman bring Him a medicinal herb from a distant mountain. Not knowing which herb to collect, Hanuman brought the whole mountain to the Lord. In order to better serve his Lord, when Sri Krishna appeared as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Hanuman joined His eternal associates as Srila Murari Gupta, an accomplished devotee-physician, learned in the art of healing which was lacking in his previous incarnation. In His merciful and loving exchanges with His devotee, Mahaprabhu once exhibited a transcendental disease, and allowed Srila Murari Gupta to heal Him. On another occasion, Mahaprabhu extolled the unshakable attachment of Murari Gupta Thakura for Lord Ramacandra's lotus feet, exclaiming: "I accept this Murari Gupta as My life and soul. When I hear of his humility, it perturbs My very life." Srila Prabhupada has said: "Murari Gupta was an ideal grihastha, for he was a great devotee of Lord Ramacandra and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. By practicing as a physician he maintained his family and at the same time satisfied Lord Chaitanya to the best of his ability. This is the ideal of householder life." (Cc 10.50, purport) Srila Prabhupada further states (Cc 10.51, purport): "Murari Gupta could treat both bodily and spiritual disease because he was a physician by profession and a great devotee of the Lord in terms of spiritual advancement. This is an example of service to humanity. Everyone should know that there are two kinds of diseases in human society. One disease, which is called adhyatmika, or material disease, pertains to the body, but the main disease is spiritual. The living entity is eternal, but somehow or other, when in contact with the material energy, he is subjected to the repetition of birth, death, old age and disease. The physicians of the modern day should learn from Murari Gupta." Sacred Medicine Ayurveda is the oldest extant medical science in continuous use. It is the famed Mother of All Healing, giving birth to Tibetan, Chinese, Greek and Arabic medical systems; it is the time-tested, effective health care system preferentially utilized today by millions upon millions in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other Central and East Asian countries. Ayurveda has been endorsed as a viable and cost-effective alternative for the developing world by the World Health Organization, and it is also the fastest growing "new complementary practice" in America, popularized in best-selling books, countless magazine articles, and internet WebPages. Ayurveda is that, and much more than that. It is Lord Krishna's sacred medicine, revealed to Lord Brahma at the dawn of creation, and transmitted in disciplic succession for countless eons. In the Rig Veda (ii. 7, 16), the Lord is praised with these words: bhishak-tamam tva bhishaja (You are the best among physicians), and the Yajur speaks of Him as prathamo daivo bhishak (first divine physician). Lord Brahma received the knowledge of healing in his heart, and composed the Ayurveda, consisting of 100 adhyayas (sections) of 100 slokas each. Sri Brahma taught Ayurveda to Daksha Prajapati, who conveyed this sacred medical science to the Ashvini-kumaras, famed physicians to the devas, whose many wonderful ministrations to the demigods and munis earned them high praise in the Rig Veda. The Ashvinis taught Ayurveda to Indra, who instructed his disciple Atreya Rishi, who in turn wrote the Atreya-samhita in five adhyayas, consisting of 46,500 slokas. This samhita later became the basis of the works of Harita and Charaka, which still exist today, albeit in much corrupted versions. Atreya Rishi imparted the Ayurveda to his disciples, among the most noted are Agniveshya, Parashara, and, of course, Harita. However, the Lord Himself revealed Ayurveda to the souls of the material world in His Dhanvantari incarnation, as explained in the Srimad-Bhagavatam (2.7.22): The Lord in His incarnation of Dhanvantari very quickly cures the diseases of the ever-diseased living entities simply by his fame personified, and only because of him do the demigods achieve long lives. Thus the Personality of Godhead becomes ever glorified. He also exacted a share from the sacrifices, and it is he only who inaugurated the medical science or the knowledge of medicine in the universe. In his purport to this verse, Srila Prabhupada states: "everything emanates from the ultimate source of the Personality of Godhead; it is therefore understood in this verse that medical science or knowledge in medicine was also inaugurated by the Personality of Godhead in His incarnation Dhanvantari, and thus the knowledge is recorded in the Vedas. The Vedas are the source of all knowledge, and thus knowledge in medical science is also there for the perfect cure of the diseases of the living entity." In SB 9.3.11, Srila Prabhupada explains that Ayurveda is perfect because it is an intrinsic part of the Vedas: "In every department of material science, there is a perfection to be achieved, and to achieve it one must consult the Vedic literature." Ayurveda's importance in devotional service has been clearly accepted and established by the Vaishnava acharyas Ðnot because of its material benefits, but for its uncompromising dependence on Sri Krishna. In his purport to SB 10.6.27-29, Srila Prabhupada explains how Ayurveda reaffirms the constitutional position of the living entities. "The Ayurveda-shastra recommends, aushadhi cintayet vishnum: even while taking medicine, one should remember Vishnu, because the medicine is not all and all and Lord Vishnu is the real protector." However, Ayurveda's effectiveness as a potent medical science is not to be minimized on the basis of its recognition that "medicine is not all and all." To those who would question Ayurveda's primacy among medical systems, Srila Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada says: "Modern medical science has not yet discovered how to bring a dead body back to life or bring youthful energy to an old body, but É such treatment is possible if one is able to take knowledge from the Vedic information." (SB 9.3.11, purport) And in SB 9.17.5, we find the absolute statement that "One who remembers the name of Dhanvantari can be released from all disease." Mishra-Ayurveda Unfortunately, the influence of Kali Yuga, the Muslim domination of India, and modern compromises with allopathic (western conventional) medicine since India's British occupation, have led to the abandonment of the most basic Vedic principles in its teaching, and to the practice of Mishra-Ayurveda (mixed or corrupted), devoid of the sacred purpose to "treat both bodily and spiritual disease," as exemplified by Srila Murari Gupta. In the United States, it is precisely this corrupted form of Lord Krishna's medicine that is gaining wide acceptance, even among sincere but misguided devotees of the Lord, what to speak of the general population. Because of the limited scope of this article, we will refrain from a thorough discussion of Ayurvedic principles and practice, which will be presented in future contributions. We wish to address here a brief outline of the history of Ayurveda in the United States, and our appreciation of where Ayurveda stands as an "alternative medical practice" in this country. Although many Vedic disciplines have found a home in America since the turn of the century, and various schools of yoga have made reference to Ayurveda in their teaching, there are three major developments that account for the current popularity of Ayurveda in the United States: (1) the formation of a core base for Ayurvedic instruction and practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico, through the efforts of Dr. Vasant Lad and his students (Lenny Blank, Dr. Robert Svoboda, Dr. David Frawley, and others); (2) the formal introduction of Ayurveda to the body of knowledge and practice (including marketing savvy!) of the European and American followers of Transcendental Meditation (TM), and the subsequent popularity of its original promoter, Dr. Deepak Chopra; and, (3) the teaching efforts of independent Ayurvedic physicians, such as Drs. Subash Ranade, Krishna Bhatta, Keshava Bhatta, Virender Sodhi, Sunil Joshi, and Abbas Qutab, to name some of the most prominent. In 1981, when a small number of students gathered around Ayurvedacharya Vaidyaraja Vasant Dattatreya Lad, first at the Santa Fe College of Natural Medicine, then briefly under the auspices of the short-lived Charaka Association for Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM), and eventually at the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, Ayurveda was hardly a household word. By December, 1994, the National Institutes of Health Report on Alternative Medicine gave equal standing to Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine (established in America since the 1960s), and presented both as World Health Organization-endorsed, complete systems of health care. Today, less than 20 years after its introduction, Ayurveda has become a full-fledged fad. As with all popular trends in America, Ayurveda has attracted the usual band of unscrupulous merchants, weekend experts and charlatans, who constitute a potential danger, and certainly a blot, to the good name of this eternal science. The real risks, however, lie in two directions, which in our opinion would deprive Ayurveda of its independent status as a shastra-based, separate, distinct and complete health care system, and relegate it to the category of a therapeutic modality, a complementary practice, or even a sub-specialty of either allopathic or naturopathic medicine. One risk lies in Ayurveda becoming fully co-opted by allopathy, and thus inaccessible to the general population, elitist and --perhaps most dangerously, permanently affiliated (and immutably associated in the public's mind) with TM's multifarious businesses, universities, fringe political party, and meditational practices. Presented as ÔMaharishi Ayur Ved,' this effort has relied on briefly training licensed conventional allopathic practitioners, while concurrently mass-marketing an extensive line of "prescribe-for-yourself" Ayurvedic products and "luxury spa experiences" at highly inflated prices. Tied to a movement in which teachings and mantra-diksha are literally bought and sold like so many heads of lettuce (only much more dearly), ÔMaharishi Ayur Ved' eventually will be relegated to the status of an allopathic complementary therapy, to be used mostly for patient comfort, relaxation, or even luxury, administered after "proper" allopathic diagnosis, and "in concert" with allopathic treatment. In the worst case scenario, ÔMaharishi Ayur Ved' will tarnish Ayurveda in America as a superfluous, consumerist whim of aging Baby Boomers. The other risk lies in making Ayurveda a sub-specialty of western naturopathic medicine, such as is currently the case with homeopathy. In the eclectic voracity of American naturopathy, Ayurveda will be purged of its "unscientific" (read spiritual) principles; its most "verifiable" and "effective" interventions will be researched in "replicable" double-blinded studies; its diagnostic procedures will be "modernized" with an array of techno-medical gadgetry worthy of the most expensive, third-party-reimbursable, proto-allopathic practice; and its therapeutic modalities will be "standardized" for formulaic application by licensed graduates of naturopathic schools. This is indeed a dead-end street for Ayurveda. Vaishnava patients and practitioners of Shuddha (pure) Ayurveda are poised at the crossroads of these divergent paths. If we are to contribute to the preservation and promotion of the Dhanvantari-Murari Gupta Ayurveda parampara (disciplic succession), we must consider a strategy for the future of Shuddha Ayurveda in the United States. Reclaiming Shuddha Ayurveda If Ayurveda's independence vis-a-vis either of the competing Euro-American ethnomedical systems (allopathy and naturopathy) is to be preserved, and in particular, if Shuddha Ayurveda is to become a real option for devotees of Sri Sri Radha-Madhava as a profession and a health care system, we must find ways to uphold the careful transmission of the Vaishnava spiritual principles that should inform both its study and practice. It would be most arrogant on our part to ascribe much significance to the acts of a few persons in this regard, as Shuddha Ayurveda is in much more competent Hands than ours, and under a Protection that none may oppose (as the British learned in India). But even if we cannot determine by our limited efforts the ultimate course of Shuddha Ayurveda, we are certainly responsible for making those decisions that, at the very least, will not harm it unduly. Shuddha Ayurveda is a shastra-based, separate and distinct system of health (including the disciplines of public health, hygiene, psychology and medicine), requiring specific spiritual and professional competencies for instructors and practitioners. What are these required spiritual competencies or qualifications? Srila Prabhupada states clearly (in Cc Adi 17.103: "Brahmanas generally used to become astrologers, Ayurvedic physicians, teachers and priests. Although highly learned and respectable, such brahmanas went from door to door to distribute their knowledge. A brahmana would first go to a householder's home to give information about the functions to be performed on a particular tithi, or date, but if there were sickness in the family, the family members would consult the brahmana as a physician, and the brahmana would give instruction and some medicine." Thus, we know that Ayurvedic physicians should be brahmanas. And what are the specific activities that manifest the qualities of the brahmana? "[S]peaking the truth, controlling the senses, controlling the mind, remaining always clean, practicing tolerance, having full knowledge about one's self-identity, and understanding devotional service." (SB 4.21.33, purport) By mentioning devotional service among the brahminical activities, Srila Prabhupada has made an important distinction, which is further explained in the purport to SB 4.21.37: "A brahmana's qualifications are mentioned in Bhagavad-Gita as truthfulness, mental equanimity, control of the senses, the power of tolerance, simplicity, knowledge of the Absolute Truth, firm faith in the scriptures, and practical application of the brahminical qualities in life. In addition to all these qualifications, when one fully engages in the transcendental loving service of the Lord, he becomes a Vaishnava." Thus, a Shuddha Ayurveda practitioner should be a brahmana and a Vaishnava. Of course, this does not mean that only those persons born into traditional Vaishnava-brahmana families can aspire to learn and practice Ayurveda. In this regard, Srila Prabhupada (SP 4.8.36, purport) states: "since the Krishna consciousness movement is open for everyone, people in general can attain the brahminical qualifications. É It is necessary to reestablish the qualifications in order to raise the fallen human society to the highest standard of spiritual consciousness." In order to establish Shuddha Ayurveda on a sound footing, Vaishnavas should define its different levels of expertise, each with clearly delineated scopes of practice, and appropriate mechanisms to evaluate the competencies required to qualify for each level. For example, the full scope of Shuddha Ayurvedic practice would be reserved for Vaidyas (doctors/teachers of Ayurveda). A narrower scope, excluding the right to practice psychotherapy and accept apprentices, but including instructing patients in lifestyle modifications, nutritional interventions, purification, and herbal therapy, would be reserved for Bhishakas (physicians). Finally, a still narrower scope, perhaps limited to massage, manipulation, and administration of therapies under the supervision of Vaidyas and Bhishakas, would be reserved for Chikitsakas (therapists /nurses). For each such scope of practice, a clear set of minimum spiritual and professional competencies should be determined, and anyone who meets them should be allowed to practice at that level, but not above it. Through continued education and practical demonstration of competence in the required areas, practitioners at one level may attain superior levels with broader scopes of practice. Vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyah (By all the Vedas, I am to be known - Bg. 15.15); Such is the first and basic principle of education in Shuddha Ayurveda. Thus, the curriculum must include a basic understanding of Bhagavad-Gita and other devotional literatures. Without a proper understanding of shastra, no amount of professional instruction will lead to the firm understanding that "The ultimate sanction is in the hand of God. I am simply an instrument. If God does not want the patient to live, then all my medicines and all my scientific medical knowledge will fail." (TQK 10) The medical education should make use of available Ayurvedic texts, suitably cleansed of non-Vaishnava accretions. However, book-learning is not sufficient, nor does it lend itself for the transmission of this sacred science. The traditional tola system must be revived, with serious students acting as apprentices to a qualified Vaidya, and slowly acquiring the knowledge and skills of the three levels of practice. Affirming the scriptural origin of Shuddha Ayurveda and its role in promoting devotional service is not only truthful and proper, but also advantageous. Vaishnavas should explore the possibility of securing state recognition of Shuddha Ayurveda as a religious - and thus constitutionally protected - activity, independent of regulations for the practice of medicine. In the effort to reclaim Shuddha Ayurveda, Vaishnavas will not only secure access to Sri Krishna's sacred medicine "for the perfect cure of the diseases of the living entity," but will also open new avenues for leading "an ideal householder life," studying and practicing a Vedic science which is compatible with, and favorable to devotional service. May Bhagavan Sri Dhanvantari bless all who take refuge at His lotus feet! About the Author | Other VNN Stories by this Author See Related VNN Stories | Comment on this Story This story URL: http://vaishnava-news-network.org/world/WD9812/WD15-2682.html
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