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.Perhaps the mostenduring element of siddha medical practice that highlights this pursuit of newknowledge is alchemy, which contemporary vaidyas continue to use in their searchfor rejuvenative medicines.Most scholarship on the introduction of biomedicine into India has rightlyfocused on the imperialist intentions of this introduction and on the institutions ofdiscipline and control in which biomedicine is embedded.I have likewise discussedat length here the challenges that biomedicine poses to ordinary vaidyas.Withoutmeaning to downplay the negative impact of colonial medicine on the authorityand vocations of traditional practitioners, I would also suggest that certain oppor-tunities emerged out of this encounter.Alasdair MacIntyre speaks of a vital tra-dition as one in which the contents of tradition are up for debate, and indeed, theintroduction of radically different notions of the body, health, and authority have17provided siddha practitioners with ample material for reworking their traditions.This reformulation of their knowledge must not be viewed as only a response 200 recipes for immortalityto the intrusion of colonialism or of biomedicine.The changes to Tamil traditionwrought by colonialism were not simply forced upon Tamils as passive actors, butwere to a degree chosen by them in response to changing circumstances.Siddhavaidyas have not only situated their medicine in objective, foreign, or other worldsbut they also situate the external world in relation to their tradition.Therefore, inpromoting siddha medicine, vaidyas both reject and appropriate features of theinstitutions and discourses of their primary competitors.This reformulation hasresulted in a medicine that is competitive in the modern world, in a medical mar-ket that is increasingly global and diverse.Vaidyas have incorporated a range ofrhetorical strategies, signs, and terms drawn from non-Tamil sources to speak toTamil audiences, and they increasingly seek to develop the rhetorical tools to effec-tively reach audiences outside of Tamil Nadu.For the most part, though, at present the outreach aspects of siddha medicineare not well developed.Here it differs from modern yoga, which has been moreglobal from its incipience in the early decades of the twentieth century.Alter notesthat much early writing on modern yoga is in English, and suggests that EugeneSandow, the father of modern body building, has had a greater influence on theform and practice of modern yoga and most modern Hatha Yoga than eitherAurobindo or Vivekananda. 18 Alter speaks of the shift of yoga from a nationalistto a transnationalist phenomenon, made possible by Kuvalayananda s attempts totake the culture out of Yoga, so to speak. 19 Kuvalayananda and other early lead-ers of modern yoga presented Yoga as a science of the human body, a focus that enabled a translation of a branch of Indian philosophy into a form of practicethat is, like Modern Science itself, putatively free of cultural baggage while clearlylinked to the history of a particular part of the world. 20 Siddha vaidyas, however,have not been quick to relinquish their emphasis on the Tamil nature of theirknowledge, which remains a cornerstone in their characterization of their medi-cine.This is partly due to the monolingual character of siddha medicine: althoughthere are some resources in English, nearly all literature on siddha is in Tamil,and vaidyas consistently told me that without knowledge of Tamil, one could notengage in a study of siddha medicine.The clients for siddha vaidyas, and the target audience of their histories anddiscourses about their medicine, are still overwhelmingly Tamil.Tamil societytoday, however, is not the Lemurian utopian society of unanimous compliance toa single pure tradition, and the majority of Tamils use Western medicine.Neitheris the Tamil medical landscape simply one of competing medical systems, becausethere is not a single siddha medicine [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Perhaps the mostenduring element of siddha medical practice that highlights this pursuit of newknowledge is alchemy, which contemporary vaidyas continue to use in their searchfor rejuvenative medicines.Most scholarship on the introduction of biomedicine into India has rightlyfocused on the imperialist intentions of this introduction and on the institutions ofdiscipline and control in which biomedicine is embedded.I have likewise discussedat length here the challenges that biomedicine poses to ordinary vaidyas.Withoutmeaning to downplay the negative impact of colonial medicine on the authorityand vocations of traditional practitioners, I would also suggest that certain oppor-tunities emerged out of this encounter.Alasdair MacIntyre speaks of a vital tra-dition as one in which the contents of tradition are up for debate, and indeed, theintroduction of radically different notions of the body, health, and authority have17provided siddha practitioners with ample material for reworking their traditions.This reformulation of their knowledge must not be viewed as only a response 200 recipes for immortalityto the intrusion of colonialism or of biomedicine.The changes to Tamil traditionwrought by colonialism were not simply forced upon Tamils as passive actors, butwere to a degree chosen by them in response to changing circumstances.Siddhavaidyas have not only situated their medicine in objective, foreign, or other worldsbut they also situate the external world in relation to their tradition.Therefore, inpromoting siddha medicine, vaidyas both reject and appropriate features of theinstitutions and discourses of their primary competitors.This reformulation hasresulted in a medicine that is competitive in the modern world, in a medical mar-ket that is increasingly global and diverse.Vaidyas have incorporated a range ofrhetorical strategies, signs, and terms drawn from non-Tamil sources to speak toTamil audiences, and they increasingly seek to develop the rhetorical tools to effec-tively reach audiences outside of Tamil Nadu.For the most part, though, at present the outreach aspects of siddha medicineare not well developed.Here it differs from modern yoga, which has been moreglobal from its incipience in the early decades of the twentieth century.Alter notesthat much early writing on modern yoga is in English, and suggests that EugeneSandow, the father of modern body building, has had a greater influence on theform and practice of modern yoga and most modern Hatha Yoga than eitherAurobindo or Vivekananda. 18 Alter speaks of the shift of yoga from a nationalistto a transnationalist phenomenon, made possible by Kuvalayananda s attempts totake the culture out of Yoga, so to speak. 19 Kuvalayananda and other early lead-ers of modern yoga presented Yoga as a science of the human body, a focus that enabled a translation of a branch of Indian philosophy into a form of practicethat is, like Modern Science itself, putatively free of cultural baggage while clearlylinked to the history of a particular part of the world. 20 Siddha vaidyas, however,have not been quick to relinquish their emphasis on the Tamil nature of theirknowledge, which remains a cornerstone in their characterization of their medi-cine.This is partly due to the monolingual character of siddha medicine: althoughthere are some resources in English, nearly all literature on siddha is in Tamil,and vaidyas consistently told me that without knowledge of Tamil, one could notengage in a study of siddha medicine.The clients for siddha vaidyas, and the target audience of their histories anddiscourses about their medicine, are still overwhelmingly Tamil.Tamil societytoday, however, is not the Lemurian utopian society of unanimous compliance toa single pure tradition, and the majority of Tamils use Western medicine.Neitheris the Tamil medical landscape simply one of competing medical systems, becausethere is not a single siddha medicine [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]