THE SCIENTIFIC CULTURE FROM THE INDUS TO THE BANKS OF THE RIVER NILA IN KERALA

Speaker : Indudharan Menon



In the Indus Valley and adjacent regions, for over a thousand years since the time of the Buddha, major discoveries in various scientific fields were made and codified. At this doorway to the sub-continent that is at the crossroads of major ancient trade routes, seminal works on Ayurveda, astronomy and linguistics were composed and they gradually reached different regions of the sub-continent and Asia.

During the second millennium AD, the scientific knowledge codified in northern India found a fertile soil for further growth and perfection in the centres of learning along the river Nila in Kerala.

The talk is about the story of this riverain culture of Kerala and its importance in the history of science, with a special emphasis on Ayurveda and its principles.

The Ashtavaidya physicians who emerged from this stimulating cultural ethos revitalised Ayurveda and made Kerala the place for Ayurvedic treatments. The discoveries and works of mathematicians living around the banks of the river Nila are considered to have helped accelerate developments in mathematics and astronomy in the west.

Today the river Nila, now known as Bharatapuzha, is almost an ecological disaster due to the exploitation of its riverbed and environs. Traditionally trained Ashtavaidyas of Kerala today feel that Ayurveda could suffer a similar fate. With Ayurveda, a person-centred medicine, becoming standardised and overtly commercialized, they fear that its essential spirit and its ancestral practices are being compromised and on the verge of being lost. It will require a conscious and concerted effort from the coming generations of Ayurvedic practitioners to make amends.