Prakash, Vaidya Balendu (Author)
Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity
Volume: 8, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 211-228
Edition Details: Part of a Series: Mercury in Ayurveda and Tibetan Medicine
Language: English
In this personal narrative, Vaidya Balendu Prakash tells the story of how he grew up in a north Indian family lineage specialising in rasashastra, a clinical specialty of Ayurveda that deals with the complex processing of mercury and metals converting toxic materials into therapeutic forms, largely known as bhasmas. As a college student, Prakash was confronted with his father's medical knowledge through a personal illness and accepted the challenge of continuing the family lineage. His training in both Western science and Ayurveda, his experiences and experiments with different ways of knowing about Ayurveda---through his father and through ayurvedic institutionalised learning---led him to document his research based on observation, combining `traditional' knowledge and `modern' research methodology in a unique way. In this contribution to `Field Notes', he shares his insight into developing the standards for the processing of mercury and metal-based formulations, with the aim of ascertaining reproducibility. He has also developed ayurvedic treatment protocols for certain forms of cancer and chronic diseases.
...MoreArticle Wujastyk, Dagmar (2013) Perfect Medicine: Mercury in Sanskrit Medical Literature. Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity (pp. 15-40).
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