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Repackaging Ayurveda for global consumption

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

Kottakkal Aryavaidyasala, the leader in the field of the ancient Indian Ayurvedic system of treatment and rejuvenation therapy, has taken up the task of setting high standards for Ayurvedic drugs to popularise it throughout the world.

Though the export market for Ayurvedic drugs is promising, India has not been able to tap it in the light of the stringent quality standards stipulated by foreign countries for imported medicines.

The practitioners of modern medicine have been using the absence of systematic documentation and analysis essential for scientific verification of the traditional system to disparage it. Unlike modern medicine, Ayurveda does not have an accepted methodology for conducting research. Though Ayurveda does have high standards it is practised on the lines of the quality stipulated in the classical texts. In the modern world, global marketing has quality parameters that are very different.

It is with this aim that the Vaidyasala has started research for developing a "fingerprint" or a common standard for testing a particular medicine's quality. This project, in collaboration with the Centre for Industrial and Scientific Research, has been underway for the last year-and-a-half.

The research also explores the possibilities of enhancing agro-technology that would help solve the scarcity of some widely used herbs. Large quantities of herbs are brought every year to make medicines at Kottakkal from places as distant as the Himalayas. Some of these herbs are seasonal plants. The researchers aim at growing them locally and making it available throughout the year.

The research also seeks to evolve systematic documentation and comparison of results of treatment options in use for centuries. Dr Suresh Kumar, a specialist at the Pain and Palliative Care Clinic at the Kozhikode Medical College, is confident that Kottakkal has the potential to evolve a new methodology for research in traditional medicine -- research that will give Ayurvedic medicine contemporary relevance and increase its social acceptability and which is in keeping with the wishes of the founder of the institution, the late P S Varier.

Varier was well aware of the need for adapting traditional practices of physicians to suit the needs of the time. For example, he was quick to realise that kashayam (an aqueous extract) was fast becoming unpopular because it had to be prepared at home, a laborious task. But an aqueous extract is the main weapon of the Ayurvedic physician. To make kashayam more acceptable, Varier started making it in his clinic and distributing it in bottles. The novel experiment evoked a very encouraging public response.

Kashayam is now available in tablet form too. Cheriya Rasnadi Kashayam, prescribed for rheumatic ailments, is sold as tablets. Other kashayams, now being manufactured in tablet form, will soon be on sale after obtaining the nod from the Drugs Controller of India.

The Vaidysala has also been exploring the possibilities of using Ayurvedic drugs for symptom relief in advanced cancer. It has taken up a research project in collaboration with the Pain and Palliative Care Society in this regard. It has already made a breakthrough, attracting international attention.

Vaidyasala General Manager Professor S Sitaraman says he is confident that the task taken up for setting standards would revolutionise Ayurveda. He hopes that the research would help remove the obstacles to taking traditional medicines to the West just as the Chinese did with respect to the United States. "We must have a strong presence in the US to lobby for Ayurvedic medicines," he says.

The steady stream of patients from the Gulf and Europe have provided Kottakkal with crucial patronage. The Vaidyasala, like the down-to-earth branch of medicine it practices, maintains a simple, though strict, treatment regimen and lifestyle.

Th Vaidyasala, founded in 1902, is more than a mere treatment centre. It boasts of three modern manufacturing plants in Kottakkal and Kanjikkode in Palakkad district, an Ayurvedic hospital with four blocks of 150 rooms each and a 100-bed charitable hospital.

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