Death and nurturance in Indian systems of healing

Abstract

Medically, as in many other ways, India is a pluralistic society. There are numerous different modes of healing in India, which are, as a group, not subject to any form of standardization or centralized control. While such a situation has demonstrable advantages, it may also be legitimate to ask, is medicine in India as fundamentally unordered as it seems? The present paper examines four different healing traditions practiced in Tamil Nadu in southern India. These traditions appear on the surface to be quite diverse, and not to be united into a single, internally consistent medical system. Yet a study of the mythical and philosophical bases of these traditions shows them to share some common premises, and to communicate to the patient or student who attends to all of them a common message concerning the nature of life.