Mukharji, Projit Bihari (Author)
Some recent authors have argued that “Indian Systems of Knowledge,” such as Ayurvedic medicine, cannot be historicized. They argue that Ayurvedic medicine must be understood as a “system” and with reference to its “metaphysical foundations.” Food has often played an important part in these antihistoricist arguments about traditional South Asian medicines. In this article, I first describe and historicize these antihistoricisms by delineating both their colonial origins and their recent nationalist appropriations. I also argue that history of science needs to distinguish between different types of antihistoricisms emerging from different academic and political contexts. I then move on to show how food history actually can be deployed to subvert these antihistoricist claims. I pursue three interrelated inquiries to support my case. First, I demonstrate that the category of “food” is inappropriate for the textual heritage of Ayurveda, and that we need to be more sensitive to specific technical categories, such as anupana, pathya, and dravya, within which foodstuffs were accommodated. Second, I demonstrate that new foods, especially exotic New World foods, were absorbed into each of these technical categories recognized in Ayurveda. Finally, I show that these new foods did not simply leave the categories themselves untouched. The embodied experiences of the scholar-physicians’ palates substantially transformed the allegedly disembodied, ahistorical categories they wrote about. I argue, then, that far from being an ahistorical fossil as the proponents of antihistorical arguments would have us believe, Ayurvedic medicine was a rich, heterogeneous, and historically dynamic tradition, and food history is singularly well placed to testify to that dynamism.
...More
Chapter
Bhushan Patwardhan;
Gururaj Mutalik;
Girish Tillu;
(2015)
Drug Discovery and Ayurveda
(/isis/citation/CBB639528782/)
Book
Fischer-Tiné, Harald;
(2013)
Pidgin-Knowledge: Wissen und Kolonialismus
(/isis/citation/CBB001551249/)
Article
Harilal Madhavan;
Jean-Paul Gaudillière;
(2020)
Reformulation and Appropriation of Traditional Knowledge in Industrial Ayurveda: The Trajectory of Jeevani
(/isis/citation/CBB986310829/)
Article
Tiwari, Lalit;
Pande, P. C.;
(2005)
Traditional Himalayan System of Medicine and Its Plants in Ayurvedic Texts: With Reference to Suśruta Saṁhitā
(/isis/citation/CBB000741847/)
Book
Indudharan Menon;
(2019)
Hereditary Physicians of Kerala: Traditional Medicine and Ayurveda in Modern India
(/isis/citation/CBB244134964/)
Book
Stefan M. Ecks;
(2013)
Eating Drugs: Psychopharmaceutical Pluralism in India
(/isis/citation/CBB933805228/)
Book
Bhushan Patwardhan;
Gururaj Mutalik MD;
Girish Tillu;
(2015)
Integrative Approaches for Health: Biomedical Research, Ayurveda and Yoga
(/isis/citation/CBB058169100/)
Article
Hardiman, David;
(2009)
Indian Medical Indigeneity: From Nationalist Assertion to the Global Market
(/isis/citation/CBB001030535/)
Article
Harilal Madhavan;
(2014)
Innovation System and Increasing Reformulation Practices in the Ayurvedic Pharmaceutical Sector of South India
(/isis/citation/CBB917431240/)
Article
Projit Bihari Mukharji;
(2021)
Subaltern Surgeries: Colonial Law and the Regulation of Traditional Medicines in the British Raj and Beyond
(/isis/citation/CBB460348742/)
Book
Liao, Yuqun;
(2002)
Ayurveda, traditional Indian medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB000340114/)
Chapter
Bhushan Patwardhan;
Gururaj Mutalik;
Girish Tillu;
(2015)
Food and Diet
(/isis/citation/CBB375413513/)
Book
Sivaramakrishnan, Kavita;
(2006)
Old Potions, New Bottles: Recasting Indigenious Medicine in Colonial Punjab (1850--1945)
(/isis/citation/CBB000742122/)
Article
Federico Divino;
(2023)
Elements of the Buddhist Medical System
(/isis/citation/CBB717527968/)
Article
Y. Srinivasa Rao;
Sindhu Thomas;
(2023)
Indigenous poison healing traditions in Kerala
(/isis/citation/CBB926536478/)
Article
Rao, B. Rama;
(2015)
Classification of Substances in Vaidyanighantus--Medical Lexicons
(/isis/citation/CBB001551746/)
Chapter
Sivaramakrishman, Kavita;
(2011)
Recasting Disease and Its Environment: Indigenous Medical Practitioners, the Plague, and Politics in Colonial India, 1898--1910
(/isis/citation/CBB001221385/)
Book
Meulenbeld, G. Jan;
(2000)
A History of Indian Medical Literature
(/isis/citation/CBB000100270/)
Article
Warrier, Maya;
(2009)
Seekership, Spirituality and Self-Discovery: Ayurveda Trainees in Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001020983/)
Article
Manohar, P. Ram;
(2015)
Descriptions and Classification of Cancer in the Classical Ayurvedic Texts
(/isis/citation/CBB001551744/)
Be the first to comment!