Let us adopt Siddha Medicine before foreigners give it back
Dr Dipti S Tripathi, director of the National Mission for Manuscripts was speaking at the inaugural function of a three-day national seminar on Siddha manuscripts and their relevance in education, industry and research, organised by the Government Museum and the National Mission for Manuscripts, New Delhi. “Indians have taken to yoga only after the West endorsed the ancient Indian physical, mental and spiritual discipline as an effective one. Let us adopt Siddha medicine before the foreigners, again, give us what is our own,” said Dr Dipti S Tripathi. Calling Siddha a proven system of harmonising the physical and spiritual aspects of human beings, Dr Tripathi reiterated that a system of medicine without side-effects had been developed comprehensively by our forefathers.
“Unless it is ratified by the West, no ancient knowledge has been acceptable to the Indian psyche,’’ she added, even as she said there was a need to rediscover and harvest the wisdom of our forefathers to apply them with relevance today. TN Ramanathan, commissioner of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy, explained that the Siddha system of medicine was said to have originated from Lord Shiva, who taught his consort Parvathi. She, in turn, briefed her son Lord Muruga about it, who is later said to have blessed Sage Agasthiar with this knowledge. This school of medicine is at least over 5,000 years old, and a lot of knowledge has been inscribed in palm leaves.
In order to spread the knowledge of Siddha, efforts were on to decode the language that the palm leaf inscriptions are in and present them in English. “Commonly, Siddha medicine lessons are taught only in Tamil, and reach only those pockets of the world where Tamilians live,” he observed. In his address, SS Jawahar, commissioner of Museums, noted that several palm manuscripts on the Siddha system existed today, including a whopping 72,000 bundles of palm leaves at the Tamil Nadu Government Oriental Manuscripts Library in the city.
Siddha, Ayurveda to be promoted through NRHM
India government will promote Indian systems of medicine, including ayurveda, siddha and unani, and therapies like yoga and naturopathy through its National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). “The government will give impetus to yoga and naturopathy through the Indian system of medicine to prevent and cure various forms of ailments under the rural health mission, union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare S. Gandhiselvan said here late Thursday.
Unveiling `Arogya Expo 2012`, a five-day trade fair showcasing health products made from natural remedies, at Bangalore Palace grounds in the city centre, Gandhiselven said Indian yoga and naturopathy had become popular worldwide. ” As part of the NRHM, Indian medicines will be used at primary health and community centres to address health problems of the people in rural areas across the country. Similarly, use of yoga and naturopathy will be encouraged to benefit from their unique and holistic healing methods,” Gandhiselvan said. Admitting that for a population of 1.2 billion, the number of practitioners of Indian medicine and homeopathy at about 600,000 was inadequate, the minister said that the government would encourage setting up of more colleges to build capacity and attract youth to study the Indian systems of medicine as a professional course. Speaking on the occasion, Karnataka Medical Education Minister S.A. Ramadass lamented that yoga and naturopathy had still not reached the masses.
IGNOU to encourage traditional healers with 'Gram Vaidya' award
In a bid to preserve and document knowledge in traditional medicine, the Indira Gandhi National Open University has decided to honour healers with ‘gram vaidya’ award. In a recent study Traditional medicine practitioners with over 25 years of experience quizzed healers in rural areas of Vellore and recommended names to the university. The project is aimed at helping the department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) under the Union health ministry document the traditional systems being practised for years in villages. “These people aren’t registered or qualified practitioners.
They are essentially farmers, who are often approached by villagers for life-saving problems like snake bites,” said Chennai-based Centre for Traditional Medicines and Research secretary Dr T Thirunarayanan, the project co-ordinator for Tamil Nadu. The study also covered Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Orissa and Rajasthan. For Vellore, the university received 50 applications. The certification does not give the practitioners any licence. It is meant to document the traditional practices in the village and encourage people who have the knowledge.
Only the right Centella asiatica proves effective
At times ‘Medhya Rasayana’ used as brain tonic in Ayurveda or Dermaxime face creams or the ‘Vallari lehyam’ used in Siddha had little effect , while for others it was every effective? Well, it could all boil down to the variety of centella, a herb with a creeping stem used in the preparation, a team of scientists from the Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) at Palode, near here, has found. An ingredient of medications in traditional systems of medicine such as Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani, centella is used to treat an array of ailments such as ulcer, tumour, filariasis, leprosy, dysentery, cholera, diarrhoea, also for wound healing, scar management and as a constituent of brain tonics for the mentally retarded.
However, products using these plants showed a whole lot of difference in effectiveness. In a paper recently published in the Journal of Industrial Crops and Products, the TBGRI team of M T Thomas, Rajani Kurup, Anil John Johnson, Sreeja Purushothaman Chandrika, Paravanparampil Jacob Mathew, Mathew Dan and Sabulal Baby have said that different varieties of the same plant have different amounts of the key medicinal compounds. ”The medicinal properties of centella are mainly due to four compounds they contain, out of which one called asiaticoside has been identified with its wound-healing properties and another called madecacosside with burn wound-healing properties. Asiaticoside is also used in cosmaceutic applications,’’ said P J Mathew, scientist at TBGRI, who was part of the team that conducted the study. The TBGRI team has found that some plants have very low or nil concentrations of one or the other of the two active compounds, while some others may have very high content. ‘’We found the genotype from Ooty to have highest asiaticoside content, while those from Top Station in Munnar showed the highest madecosside content. The genotype from Nanora in Goa had neither of these compounds,’’ said P J Mathew. The team had collected plants from various places in South India and Andaman islands, including Kolhapur, Bison Valley, Alwaye, North Goa, Nepal and Ooty, among others. Most of the collectors of this plant, commonly known as Indian pennywort, assume that all plants have the same content of active compounds and collect these plants from wherever they find them.
This can lead to overexploitation and a probable wipe out of centella genotypes in future. Centella asiatica is seen throughout the tropics and it occurs all over India from plains to hill ranges, propagating through sexual and vegetative means. ‘’The varieties of Centella asiatica discovered in this study could be cultivated and utilised in traditional medicine. This could reduce the uncontrolled collection of Centella asiatica from the wild as well as prevent elimination of certain genotypes,’’ said Mathew. ‘’It also helps to understand the biochemical pathway by which these compounds can be produced artificially,’’ explained Mathew. So the next time, if a cosmetic product using centella does not work, don’t blame the manufacturers, blame the plant itself!
India to assist Sri Lanka in promoting Siddha Medicine
India government has handed over a host of equipment to the Siddha faculty of the Eastern University here as part of its efforts to assist Sri Lanka in promoting traditional medicine forms. Sri Lanka has a long history and tradition in practicing Ayurveda and Siddha medicine. The Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Ashok K. Kantha, who handed over the assistance here, said that the Eastern Province had been receiving support from India for many development projects.
Recently, 5 units of rail compartments were gifted to the Eastern Province to improve connectivity between two main cities in the east, Batticaloa and Trincomalee. As many as 20 buses were gifted between 2008 and 2010 too. India was also providing assistance to set up vocational training centres in Batticaloa. The centres, costing US $ 3 million, will be ready this year. An Indian NGO, SEWA, is training widows in the Eastern Province on means of livelihood. The US $ 2 million project involves sending selected widows to India and training them to various trades. They will function as master-trainers and train many more women here.
