The ‘science lab’ minds of our ancients

The cures that our ancients found in their long and committed scientific path spread over thousands of years from generation to generation, were tested to be 100% accurate by Western medical scientists

By Surya Vishwa 

Recently in a discussion amongst some academic friends on what is ‘scientific’ as per Western paradigm and what was scientific amongst other ancient societies, the topic that arose was how ancient Deshiya Chikitsa (Sinhala Wedakama) and Ayurveda were perfected as medical treatments. We were talking of medical treatments that had been 100% verified by curious 19th century Western medical researchers. 

The following were some of the questions and answers that came about in our discussion. Who were our ancient medical scientists? They were primarily Yogis, Rishis, Buddhist monks. Basically, they were those who had elevated and perfected their minds, merging their minds and the universal mind as one ‘extended science lab’ to the extent that they knew how in a tree, two diverging branches would have two different curative powers based on the varied universal energies. 

In the use of the term ‘science lab,’ one will need to cast away the vision that comes of our sterile modern science labs, far removed from the natural world. The science lab of the earliest medical scientists of our tradition who we are speaking of were connected to the magnetic field of the entirety; encompassing everything around them and connected to the sharpened insight within them. (Yes, this may sound like nonsense to some of us who are strongly conditioned to think of ourselves as isolated entities). But every single cure that our ancients found in their long and committed scientific path spread over thousands of years from generation to generation, were tested to be 100% accurate by Western medical scientists. 

Sri Lankan author, Dr. Seela Fernando in her book ‘Herbal Food and Medicines in Sri Lanka’ quotes Dr. George Clarke, M.D., M.A. of Philadelphia as stating as follows after reading the Charaka Samhita, the ancient text on the Ayurvedic medical tradition; “As I go through a part of Charaka, I come to the conclusion that if present day physicians drop all modern drugs and chemicals from their Pharmacopoeia and adopt the methods of Charaka in treating diseases, there will be less work for undertakers and fewer invalids in the world.” Dr. Clarke was referring to the overall medical system of both India and Sri Lanka. Dr. Clarke was just one among so many other Western medical experts who were stupefied by the ancient medical science of our region.

But have we spoken enough of the ‘lab’ that they were discovered in, and the time and rigor in contemplation and medical experiments that would have enabled such a perfection? Have we ever in our fickle pride of current knowledge systems tried to understand the finer and seemingly unexplainable details of our ancient ‘scientific method’? Even if we try to understand this phenomenon, would we actually be able to fully grasp it holistically? 

Brainwashed as we are by today’s cultural dominance that parades as the world’s most supreme and scoffs at anything that it cannot dissect, would we be able to understand the all-knowing nature and universal spiritual connection mastered by the ancient Yogis and the Rishis where all of the universe including the mind which comprehends it are finally one and not separate? As long as we are slavishly beholden to one scientific monopoly that we were first exposed to during colonisation, will we ever be able to understand our ancestors and use their knowledge for our current plights?

This discussion needs to be rekindled in this era of pandemics. This is because we are a country of over 25,000 traditional physicians spread over our villages; some who had inherited this medical system through their parents and grandparents and some lineages tracing to the time of our Kings and others who have learnt it as taught in the Ayurveda department facilitated courses in addition to their existing family based knowledge and others, maybe very few who have spent decades of their life in meditation and then discovered treatments that even they cannot explain.

What do we do with those that fall to this last segment? Do we shout out that they are charlatans and ruin forever the peace and purity of intention with which they set about their mission, even without giving them a chance to prove their treatments? 

Will we acknowledge that just because we have joined a majority trapped in the jaws of modernity’s greedy and cynical industrial machine that bestowed on us dismal endowments such as the black revolution euphemistically called ‘green’ and introduced poison into our eco system, biodiversity, our food and our bodies, that there is no other way to live this life? That there is no other way to gently and harmlessly help and coax the earth to give our medicine and our food the way we did when our pre-Colonial population growth was at its highest.

Paradoxically despite blatant evidence and the purported fortune of living in such a scientific age, we still manage to evade naming and shaming the fact that the post-green revolution phenomena of kidney diseases are caused by agro chemicals. Yet we will pounce, hound and ridicule any person who would dare to reveal that he has found certain cures using only the elevated state of his mind. 

This writer has met few recluse Sri Lankans who do not venture out, or boast about their ability but who have dedicated half or full lifetime to perfect their mind; many traditional physicians who follow the example of their forefathers also see meditation and the spiritual path as a parallel route towards healing another as a merit based Karmic act. This is the reason why accepting money for treatment was not a central point in the curative traditions of our heritage. Some of our physicians would outrightly refuse money for treatments. 

Our ancestors would have been appalled at the thought that curing someone of a disease would be an industrialised mercenary process that thrives on having a sick population at hand. They would have questioned where this so-called modern science and its adjacent development models have led us except to ruin everything in sight and threaten our very homes; our bodies and our planet to a point of no return. 

As a concluding point, let us keep in mind when we are overawed by those who espouse West discovered science as the one and only truth, to remember that the Gautama Buddha was the foremost scientist who first encouraged the impartial investigation of nature and thereby oneself (Dhamma-Vicaya in the Pali Canon). May this truth place in us a confidence to investigate everything in a similar manner so that our ancient medical heritage and the do no harm philosophy that goes with it, is not just ours for our wellbeing alone but for all of humanity whether in the East or the West.