Indian Folklife: Folk Medicine and Biodiversity

I
ndian
olklife
Folk Medicine and Biodiversity
A QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER FROM NATIONAL FOLKLORE SUPPORT CENTRE VOLUME 2 ISSUE 4 SERIAL NO. 13 APRIL - JUNE 2003
BHAISHAJYAGURU, THE BUDDHA OF MEDICINE
B O A R D
Komal Kothari
O F
T R U S T E E S
C H A I R P E R S O N
National Folklore Support Centre (NFSC) is a nongovernmental, non-profit organisation, registered in Chennai dedicated to the promotion of Indian folklore research, education, training, networking and publications. The aim of the centre is to integrate scholarship with activism, aesthetic appreciation with community development, comparative folklore studies with cultural diversities and identities, dissemination of information with multidisciplinary dialogues, folklore fieldwork with developmental issues and folklore advocacy with public programming events. Folklore is a tradition based on any expressive behaviour that brings a group together, creates a convention and commits it to cultural memory. NFSC aims to achieve its goals through cooperative and experimental activities at various levels. NFSC is supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation. CONTENTS Editorial.....................................................3 Dohada (Pregnancy Cravings)........................5 Hot / Cold ..................................................6 Dreams.......................................................7 Indigenous Knowledge Erosion .....................10 Medicinal Plants ..........................................12 An Introduction to the Tamil Siddhas...............14 Folk Medicinal Wisdom ................................19 Green Health Boom.......................................21 Book Review......................................23 Review Books ................................................24 C O V E R I L L U S T R AT I O N
Front: Medicine Buddha or Bhaishajyaguru is considered to be the physician of human passions, the unfailing healer of the ills of samsara. He is dark blue in colour and holding a myrobalan (arura) plant in his right hand and a bowl of amrita medicine in his left hand. Courtesy: A Hand Book of Tibetan Culture (1993, London, Sydney, Auckland and Johannesburg: Rider)
Director, Rupayan Sansthan, Folklore Institute of Rajasthan, Jodhpur, Rajasthan
T R U S T E E S
Ajay S. Mehta
Executive Director, National Foundation for India, India Habitat Centre, Zone 4-A, UG Floor, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Ashoke Chatterjee
B-1002, Rushin Tower, Behind Someshwar 2, Satellite Road, Ahmedabad
N. Bhakthavathsala Reddy Dadi D. Pudumjee
Dean, School of Folk and Tribal Lore, Warangal Managing Trustee, The Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust, B2/2211 Vasant Kunj, New Delhi
Deborah Thiagarajan Jyotindra Jain
President, Madras Craft Foundation, Chennai Professor and Dean, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Molly Kaushal
Associate Professor, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, C.V. Mess, Janpath, New Delhi
Munira Sen
Executive Director, Madhyam, Bangalore
K. Ramadas
Deputy Director, Regional Resources Centre for Folk Performing Arts, Udupi
P. Subramaniyam
Director, Centre for Development Research and Training, Chennai
Y. A. Sudhakar Reddy Veenapani Chawla
Reader, Centre for Folk Culture Studies, S. N. School, Hyderabad Director, Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Research, Pondicherry
EXECUTIVE TRUSTEE AND DIRECTOR

M.D. Muthukumaraswamy
S TA F F
Assistant Directors
T.R. Sivasubramaniam Administration Miriam Nelken Programmes (Volunteer) Eva Glanzer Programmes (Volunteer)
REGIONAL RESOURCE PERSONS

V. Jayarajan Kuldeep Kothari Moji Riba K.V.S.L. Narasamamba Nima S. Gadhia Parag M. Sarma Sanat Kumar Mitra Satyabrata Ghosh Shikha Jhingan Susmita Poddar M.N. Venkatesha
T H I S
I S S U E
The focus of April June 2003 issue is on Folk Medicine and Biodiversity. Visual motifs courtesy: Sangs-Rgyas Stong: An Introduction to Mahayana Iconography (1988, Gangtok (India): Sikkim Research Institute of Tibetology), and A Hand Book of Tibetan Culture (1993).
Programme Officers
M. Ramakrishnan Gita Jayaraj
(Publications)
N E X T
I S S U E
Programme Assistants
Primadonna Khongwir Rita Deka
The theme of the July - September issue of Indian Folklife is Folklore and Biopolitic. The forthcoming issue proposes to explore how folklore expresses the rich symbolism of the human body that exists as a way for social groups to express about their relationship to community, nature and state in a hierarchical society. Closing date for submission of articles is September 10, 2003. All communications should be addressed to: The Editor, Indian Folklife, National Folklore Support Centre, 7, 5th Cross Street, Rajalakshmi Nagar, Velachery, Chennai 600 042 (India), Tele/Fax: 91-44-22448589/ 22450553, email: info@indianfolklore.org/ muthu@md2.vsnl.net.in/ nfsc_india@yahoo.co.in
Librarian
R. Murugan
Archival Assistant
Ranga Ranjan Das
INDIAN FOLKLIFE EDITORIAL TEAM

M.D. Muthukumaraswamy Editor M. Ramakrishnan Associate Editor K. Kamal Ahamed Page Layout & Design
Volunteer (Research Project)

Rengin Aktar
Support Staff
Y. Pavitra P.T. Devan K. Kamal Ahamed V. Thennarasu C. Kannan
h t t p : / / w w w . i n d i a n f o l k l o r e . o r g
2
INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003
Editorial
LIGHTING A YERCUM FIBRE WICK

M.D.Muthukumaraswamy
veryday as I walk to the Centre for work I pass through two folk medicine shops in Velachery, one of the fast growing hi-tech suburbs of Chennai city. The shops themselves are semiotic delights as they assemble a wide range of sacred objects used in worship along with folk medicine. For the familiar eye the shops represent a mindset, a worldview and a luxury fast disappearing in the countryside. The citys economy and vastness have facilitated the business of these shops and their sheer presence anachronistic to those who belong to the popular realm - charts out an unstated vision of alternatives. Let me first of all name some of the herbs sold in these shops. Arugam grass, basil, climbing brinjal, Indian pennywort, bael, jamoon plum nut, turmeric, gallnut, Malabar nut, lotus stem wick, Yercum fibre wick, dry ginger and neem flower make up common list along with items that would ward off evil eye such as black twines, pumpkin pictures and yellow twines. If sacred things varying from basil bead garlands and holy ash pockets to lamps and wicks form yet another set available, then, traditional almanacs, astrological chapbooks and books of prayer songs complete the picture. Medicine, belief and worship shape the syntax of these shops and certain objects like turmeric, basil and Yercum traverse through all the three realms. Indicators of a larger paradigm basil and turmeric have found entries in the encyclopedia of South Asian Folklore (2003) edited by Margaret A. Mills, Peter J. Claus and Sarah Diamond. Yercum is yet to make its place in any encyclopedia including the Tamil one, Abithanachintamani. Yercum is a milky plant that grows even in a mound of trash all over the Tamil landscape. Yercum sports small white flowers with violet veins along the edges of the petals. Children are often advised not to play with the milk of Yercum plant, as it is feared to be poisonous. Although ruthlessly destroyed if it is
Yercum Plant
found in the backyard of any house, Yercum is believed to be the most favourite plant of Ganesh, the remover of all obstacles. During Ganesh Chadurthi festival there is sudden demand for Yercum flowers. Ganesh figurines made out of Yercum stems are considered to be of extraordinary significance and auspicious quality. Lighting a Yercum fibre wick in front of Ganesh is believed to bring boons unparalleled. Nonetheless no plausible explanation exists in the folklore of Ganesh that would connect him to Yercum. On the contrary there is quite a body of negative folklore surrounding Yercum. In the recently published ten-volume collection of Tamil folksongs (2001) edited by Aru. Ramanathan, one folksong refers to Yercum as one of the herbs that may be used to abort an unwanted child. (Volume 3, Page 76 Song number 412). In fact, Yercum is a Tamil cultural sign that subscribes to certain incompleteness and so to infinity of interpretations. Tying a Yercum fibre twine around the hip of a child is believed to cure diarrhoea and ward off any Lord Dhanvantari, the Original Teacher of Ayurveda possible stomach ailments. It is possible that Yercum kills shigella, a highly virulent microbe responsible for half of all episodes of bloody diarrhoea in young children. Nobody has ever proved it yet. Yercums transference from a sacred/feared plant to a medicinal herb is a path familiar to a hermeneutic that wraps itself in itself and enters the domain of languages. It is this hermeneutics that reveals the cultural processes at work because it shows how cultural signs never cease to implicate themselves. If culture were to be seen as a dynamic process we cannot believe that cultural signs exist primarily, originally, actually, as coherent, pertinent and systematic marks. The ambivalent position of Yercum in Tamil culture exposes this fundamental nature of cultural signs. Floating they are, they gain meaning, place and purpose in lifes moments. Lighting a Yercum fibre wick in front of Ganesh or tying a Yercum fibre twine around the hip of a child may emerge from someone moments of despair s facilitated by tradition. Often they cannot and do not stand the test of scientific testimony. Especially when it comes to the case of folk medicine the main argument revolves around its scientific verifiability. The domain shift results in several problems.
LIGHTING A YERCUM FIBRE WICK
Courtesy: http://www.avatara.org
One, when the curative properties of some of the folk medicine do stand the tests of verifiability they are immediately patented in todays context of global economy. The patenting severely restricts the free, unlimited and creative uses of the said medicines in any given culture. Two, often folk medicinal herbs are collected from particular surrounding only as the Agasthiyar, the patron saint of Siddha medicine surrounding consisting of certain soil condition and accompanying plants contribute towards their curative properties. Actually the prescriptions for the surroundings are the prescriptions for the preservation of biodiversity as well. When particular herbs are isolated for mass production their necessity of unique habitat is brutally ignored. Three, folk medicine is embedded in a system (say, Ayurveda, Siddha or Unani-Tibb) that links cosmos, body and nature. There has been such an erosion of knowledge that often the relation between the cosmic philosophy of these systems and the actual medical practices do not make sense. These are issues in addition to the conceptual divide between a single modern, rational, mechanistic and science based medical system and a plurality of context-dependent folk medicines. Thanks to the works of very fine scholars new respect for indigenous knowledge systems (Barsh 1997; Brush 1993; Dharampal 1983; Sen 1992; Shiva and Holla-Bhar 1993; Warren et al. 1995) and for the cultural value of alternative sciences (Nandy 1988; Visvanathan 1997) has diminished confidence in scientism. However, the job of the folklorist in decoding medicinal signs is yet to be done. At the moment only collections listing folk medicines exist in print.
Courtesy: The Hindu Folio, October 8, 2000
Let me light a Yercum fibre wick towards the accomplishment of this goal. Note I gratefully acknowledge my colleague Mr. Murugans help in collecting some of the data required for this essay. Bibliography
Barsh, Russel, 1997. The Epistemology of Traditional Healing Systems. Human Organization. 56 (Spring): 28-37. Brush, Stephen B., 1993. Indigenous Knowledge of Biological Resources and Intellectual Property Rights: The Role of Anthropology. American Anthropologist, 95(3): 653-71. Chaudhuri, B., and S. Chaudhuri, 1986. Tribal Health, Disease and Treatment: A Review Study. In B. Chaudhuri, ed., Tribal Health: Socio-Cultural Dimensions, New Delhi: Inter-India, pp. 37-52. Claus, Peter J., 1984. Medical Anthropology and the Ethnography of Spirit Possession. In E.V. Daniel and J.E. Pugh, eds., South Asian Systems of Healing, 60-72, Contributions to Asian Studies (Leiden) vol. 18. Dharampal, ed., 1983 (1971). Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century. Hyderabad: Academy of Gandhian Studies. Mills, Margaret A., Peter J. Claus and Sarah Diamond, eds., 2003. South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. Nandy, Ashis, ed., 1988. Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ramanathan, Aru., eds., 2001 Nattupurapadal kalanchiyam Volume 1-10. Chidambaram: Meyyappan Thamizhayvakam. Sen, Geeti, ed., 1992. Indigenous Vision: Peoples of India, Attitudes to Environment. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Shiva, Vandana and Radha Holla-Bhar, 1993. Intellectual Piracy and the Neem Tree. The Ecologist. 23(6): 223-7. Visvanathan, Shiv., 1997. A Carnival for Science: Essays on Science, Technology and Development. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Warren, D. Michael, L. Jan Slikkerveer and David Brokensha, eds., 1995. The Cultural Dimensions of Development: Indigenous Knowledge Systems. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
Vi s i t Our Renovated We b s i t e
www.indianfolkore.org
DOHADA (PREGNANCY CRAVINGS)*

Jerome H. Bauer
Jerome H. Bauer is Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Washington University, St.Louis. The author can be contacted at jeromebauer@sbcglobal.net
(This article was originally published in the encyclopedia of South Asian Folklore (2003), p. 163.)
South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia Edited by Margaret A. Mills, Peter J. Claus, and Sarah Diamond 2003, pages xxx + 710 New York, London: Routledge.
DOHADA
ohada (Sanskrit), dohala (Pali), dohala (Prakrit, Hindi), doladuk (Sinhalese), two-heartedness, is the pregnancy whim, when the will of the foetus influences the moods and desires of the mother. The word is probably derived from Sanskrit (dvi + hrd), literally having two hearts; from Sanskrit daurhrda, sickness of heart, nausea, or evil-hearted; or perhaps from Sanskrit doha + da, giving milk. Dohada is sometimes a euphemism for pregnancy. The condition of having a second heart, causing vicarious cravings in the mother, is discussed in Sanskrit treatises on medicine and love, and in religious literature, where it is often interpreted as transfer of karmic substance (especially by Hindus) or as coordination of two peoples karma (especially by Jains). In literature, the dohada motif is used as a stock embellishment. For example, many poetic descriptions of spring feature the pregnancy longings of blossoming trees. The asoka tree longs for the touch of a maidens foot in order to blossom, and the kadamba tree for the first thunder of the monsoon. Stories of pregnant humans and animals in dohada also abound, especially in the religious literature of the Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains, where they often have a formulaic character, serving, like dreams, to augur the birth of a hero. Dohada incidents often serve as a start motif, or are used ornamentally,
having no obvious influence on the main events of a story. Dohada stories usually involve some direct or indirect danger to the husband, who must perform heroic deeds to satisfy his wifes cravings, ensuring a safe and auspicious birth. Sometimes a dangerous dohada is satisfied by trickery, or dohada may be feigned to trick the husband. Dohada stories usually involve inauspicious, dangerous cravings, but, especially in a Jain context, may involve auspicious cravings for pious acts. Examples of auspicious or good dohada are the craving of a Jain woman to hear continuously the Jain teachings, and to spend money for religious purposes, or the craving of a Buddhist woman to entertain the monks. Cases of inauspicious or evil dohada are more numerous. For example, in the Thusa Jataka, Prince Ajatasatrus mother has a dohada to drink blood from her husband King Bimbisaras knee, which is satisfied; she gives birth, after an unsuccessful attempt at abortion, to a child who is destined to kill his father and seize his throne. The Vipaka Sutra (a Svetambara Jain canonical text) contains many especially sinister dohada stories. Dohada is often satisfied by deceit. In the Kathasaritsagara, Queen Mrgavati has a dohada to bathe in a lake of blood, which is satisfied by her husband, who makes for her a lake of red colored lac. In the Parisistaparvan, the Machiavellian political theorist Canakya (Kautilya), plotting to destroy the Nanda dynasty, searches for a suitable proxy to rule for him. A village chiefs daughter has a dohada to drink the moon, and Canakya promises
to fulfill it if the infant is given to him to raise. The dohada is fulfilled when the mother drinks a reflection of the moon, and her son, the future Mauryan emperor, is named Candragupta, Moon Protected. Many stories involve feigned dohada. In the Vidhurapandita Jataka, the queen, wishing to hear the sage Vidhura discourse on the Dharma, feigns dohada. In the Nigrodha Jataka, a woman feigns pregnancy and dohada in order to improve her status in the household. Similar tales are found in the world folk and popular literature. s (See MotifT571, unreasonable demands of pregnant women; Thompson 1957: 402-403). References
Bauer, Jerome H., 1998. Karma and Control: The Prodigious and the Auspicious in Ivetambara Jaina Canonical Mythology, ch.5. Ph.D.diss., University of Pennsylvania. Bloomfield, Maurice, 1920. The Dohada or Craving of Pregnant Women: A Motif in Hindu Fiction. Journal of the American Oriental Society 40 (1): 1-24. Tawney, C.H., tr., The Ocean of Story, Being C.H. Tawneys translation of Somadevas Kathasaritsagara (or Ocean of Streams of Story). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Thompson, Stith, 1957. Motif-Index of Folk Literature, vol. 5. Bloomington: Indian University Press.
HOT / COLD*
Mark Nichter
Mark Nichter is teaching at the Department of Anthropology, Princeton University. The author can be contacted at Mnichter@u.arizona.edu
(This article was originally published in the encyclopedia of South Asian Folklore (2003), pp. 289 - 290.)
ot/cold is a conceptual framework widely adhered to throughout South Asia. Within Asian medical systems, hot/cold descriptors are used to denote the qualities of people, plants, animals, minerals, places, times, seasons, celestial bodies, foods, medicines, stages of development, gender-based proclivities, and bodily sensations as well as symptoms and types of illness. Symptoms are recognised as signs of internal heat and cold manifest in myriad forms, related to various humoural imbalances. To the lay population, hot/cold reasoning guides behaviours ranging from folk dietetic practice to bathing habits, domestic health care to the interpretation of how medicines work, evaluations of the qualities of soil to deliberation about the use of various types of fertilisers. Significant intra- as well as interregional variation exists in the classification of specific items and phenomena as hot/cold; there is more of a pattern in the way the framework is employed than in the specific rules for its application. Consensus is greatest for items involved in rituals. For example, Hindu rituals follow a logic that demands particular types of offerings representing hot/cold qualities matching the characteristics of a deity or the intent of a particular sequence in the ritual. Hot/cold may refer to either selective qualities or the overall qualities of an item being described. A point of comparison may be implicit (rice is cool in relation to wheat) or explicit when an index object is noted in
conversation. For example, particular colours and tastes are widely associated with states of hot/cold (e.g., red: hot, white: cold), but these attributes may be eclipsed by others, such as body sensation, which are more immediate (e.g., burning sensation: hot) as well as subject to personal interpretation. Hot/cold reference is often relational, hot-cold constituting a continuum along which one item may be described in relation to others within a common domain (e.g., milled rice: hot, parboiled rice: cold; beer: cool, rum: hot). A point of comparison may be implicit (rice is cool in relation to wheat) or emerge as an anchor point in conversation. Items tend to be classified within domains (vegetables, meats, liquor, medicines), each domain analogous to an octave on a musical scale. Thus, a grain such as wheat may be classified as hot, as may a meat such as chicken and an oil such as mustard seed oil. Each may be thought of as hot in relation to other members of a class, but their qualities may not be seen as identical, although each may be described as causing a heating effect on the body if consumed in excess. The hot/cold conceptual framework constitutes an excellent example of an interpretive model of serving as a model for (Geertz 1973) practice. At issue is when the model is invoked. Research in South Asia suggests that predispositions toward hot/ cold reasoning are embodied through a complex of practices, especially those associated with pregnancy and delivery, child care, and illness. South Asians do not spend their lives strictly abiding by rules of healthy living underlain by hot/cold conceptualisation. They do, however, follow practices
influenced by hot/cold reasoning at times associated with states of vulnerability. Hot/cold reasoning is further employed to explain new phenomena (e.g., how birth control pills work), and it serves as a guide for experimentation. A flexible, user-friendly conceptual framework, hot/cold facilitates communication between expert domains of knowledge such as astrology, Ayurveda medicine, and exorcism wherein associations between the hot/cold properties of stars, spirits, and bodily states may be drawn. Hot/cold also provides specialists with a widely understood reference point enabling communication with laypersons unable to grasp the complex relationships underlying expert practice. References
Beck, Brenda, 1969. Colour and Heat in a South Indian Ritual. Man 4: 553-572. Babb, Lawrence, 1973. Heat and control in Chhattisgarhi ritual. Eastern Anthropologist, 26: 11-28. Geertz, Clifford, 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Nichter, Mark, 1986. Modes of Food Classification and the Diet-Health Contingency: A South Indian Case. In R.S. Khare and M.S. A. Rao, eds., Food, Society and Culture. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Wandel, Margareta, et al., 1984. Heating and cooling foods in relation to food habits in a southern Sri Lanka community. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 14: 93-140.
DREAMS*
Serinity Young
Serinity Young is Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at American Museum of Natural History, New York. The author can be contacted at sy108@earthlink.net
Courtesy: http://www.tibetshop.com
reams are pervasive in South Asian folk literature. Folk beliefs about dreams in South Asia are similar to those found in the classical traditions of South Asia as well as in other cultures from around the world. For example, most people distinguish meaningful from meaningless dreams, emphasizing the importance of dreams that occur around dawn and dreams sent by gods over those caused by bodily disorders, such as indigestion. Indeed, most of the dreams in Somadeva s Kathasaritsagara story collection take place at dawn and are sent by the gods. These basic ideas about dreams are also found in ancient texts such as the Caraka and Susruta Samhitas (medical texts) and in early Buddhist works such as the Samantapasadika (I.520-529), Manorathapuraii (V.xx.6), and Milindapanha (IV.75), while the Palija takas are particularly rich in the dreams of women. Overshadowing these theories in Hinduism, however, is the well-known idea that we are all participating in Gods dream of creation. One version of this idea is contained in the Kurma Purana, which describes the beginning of this kalpa (eon), when nothing existed but a vast ocean and Lord Narayana (Brahma; in other versions, Vishnu) sleeping on the coils of a great snake. As he sleeps, he dreams, and a wonderful lotus grows out of his navel from which arises all that exists; Gods dream is the basis of our reality. Shared Dreams One type of dream preserved in various stores is the shared dream, a dream that appears on the same night to more than one person. While examples of such dreams can be found in other cultures, South Asia is an especially rich source for them. Examples from the Kathasaritsagara include: two Brahman cousins who perform austerities to Karttikeya and then receive a shared prophetic dream telling them where to find a guru (I.12). three Brahman women, who remain virtuous wives even though they have been abandoned by their husbands, share a dream from Siva (I.19-20). a king and queen worship Siva in order to obtain a son, and he appears in both their dreams, predicting they will have a son. Later the queen dreams that Siva gives her a fruit, and this is taken as confirmation of the first dream (II.136). Shared dreams also occur in Buddhist stories such as the Mahavastu, in which the Buddha father, s wife, and aunt all have dreams portending his
departure from home (II.129-131). Another type of shared dream is one that transcends time, as when the Buddha has five dreams said to be the same dreams had by Buddhas of earlier eons recorded in Lalitavistara (I.296-297). A second example of this type is the conception dream of the Buddhas mother that is said to have been dreamt by the mother of the preceding Buddha, Dipamkara, mentioned in Mahavastu (I.205). Additional examples of such transtemporal shared dreams are contained in the Lotus Sutra and the Arya svapna nirdesa nama mahayana sutra (bKa gyur, vol.25, text 48), which describe the dreams of Bodhisattvas. In these examples shared dreams are used to dramatize the essential sameness of all Buddhist heroes; their progress along the path leading to enlightenment is marked by dream signposts. Correspondingly, shared dreams also appear in stories about famous Buddhist religious figures in Tibet. One group of such dreams centres on Padmasambhava departure from home s when both his adopted father and his wife have frightening dreams. An especially rich text in terms of dreams and folk beliefs is the popular biography of the Tibetan yogi and poet Milarepa (eleventh through twelfth century). This text is actually structured by the dreams that begin and end it, as well as anchor its pivotal centre, when Milarepa passes from being a disciple to becoming a guru himself. It also contains the shared dreams that Milarepas guru, Marpa, and Marpa wife, Dakmema, have the night before s Milarepa arrives to ask Marpa to be his guru. Marpa dreams of a vajra (a tantric ritual implement), while Dakmema dreams of a stupa (Buddhist reliquary), religious symbols appropriate to announcing a Buddhist saint. Conception Dreams Some of the dreams presented thus far are also examples of the conception dream, a type of dream frequently encountered in the biographical literature of the Buddhists and Jains. Equally famous are the
Maya, the mother of Buddha, having a dream
DREAMS
dreams of Queen Maya, the state. One of the ways to get rid of Buddha mother, and Queen s dream pollution is to transfer it to Trisala, the mother of Mahavira, another object or to associate the founder of the Jains. In her dream, dream with something ephemeral. Queen Maya sees a magnificent Examples of this kind of thinking are white elephant, which, by striking found in the Taittiriya-Araiyaka, her right side with its trunk, is able which recommends a particular grass to enter her womb. This dream is for removing the effects of bad understood to be a prediction of the dreams (X.1.7), and in the Atharva birth of a son who will be a world Veda, which states, We transfer ruler either through kingship or every evil dream upon our enemy renunciation. Many versions of (VI.46). Maya dream are among the earliest s The medical texts of ancient images preserved in Buddhist India, the Caraka Samhita and Susruta iconography and texts, and Samhita (CS and SS), which are still Marpa, the founder of the Kagyu School representations of this dream kept in use today as part of the Ayurvedic of Tibetian Buddhism up an even pace with the spread of system of healing, use dreams as a Buddhism. The Buddhist belief in diagnostic tool. Sudhir Kakars recent work has conception dreams is also well documented in later shown the persistence of these ancient ideas and the Tibetan biographies, probably due in equal part to the Ayurvedic approach to the whole person, in which popularity of Maya dream and earlier indigenous s dreams are considered a meaningful part of the beliefs. person. This is not an idea unique to ancient IndiaIn the Jain case, on the night that Mahavira enters dreams were used as a diagnostic tool by such wellQueen Trishalas womb she has fourteen sequential known ancient Greek doctors as Galen and dreams of a white elephant, a white bull, a lion, the Hippocrates, as well as by ancient Mesopotamian goddess Sri, a garland, the moon, the sun, a large doctors. Significantly, the CS contains many flag, a vase, a lake, the milk ocean, a celestial abode, examples of premonitory dreams of disease and a heap of jewels, and a fire. When Queen Trishala death that are similar to those seen in the epics and tells her dreams to her husband and asks him to folktales. interpret them, he says they mean that the couple In the SS, dreams seem to be caused by illness as will have a son who will be a great king. The next well as being symptoms of it; certain dreams day, however, the king sends for the official dream appearing to a healthy person indicate the onset of interpreters who, citing dream interpretation books, illness. In other words, a dream may be the first say the dreams mean the child will be either a symptom. Fortunately, the text also has universal emperor or a jina (a Jain hero). Of particular recommendations to avert the influence of dreams, interest is Trishalas behaviour after her husband such as reciting the Gayatri, meditating on a holy interprets her dream. She says, These, my excellent subject, or sleeping in a temple for three consecutive and preeminent dreams, shall not be counteracted by nights. It also recommends that an evil dream other bad dreams. The narration continues, should not be related to another, although this is Accordingly she remained awake to save her dreams challenged by the evidence of Indian folk and literary by means of [hearing] good, auspicious, pious, texts, in which the detailed telling of dreams, agreeable stories about gods and religious men especially those thought to be inauspicious, is a stock (Jacobi, 1968: I.240). Her words and actions are device. This does not, however, preclude someone reminiscent of similar ritual activities from the Vedic from keeping silent about his or her dreams, and the period, though here they are in relation to auspicious recommendation itself would seem to be connected to dreams. the idea that saying the dream out loud will Propitiation and Diagnosis contribute to or hasten its dreaded effect. The main Some of the earliest references to dreams are point, though, is the notion that dreams have a contained in the Rg Veda, in which several hymns lingering effect that can be avoided by appealing to appeal to various deities to dispel the effects of evil divine power, an idea that persists from Vedic times dreams (II.28.10, V.82.4-5, VIII.47.14-18, X.36.4, and to the present. X.16.4). In the Arthava Veda other As we have seen, this appeals for protection from bad lingering effect may also be a dreams are directed toward source of pollution (such as healing plants and salves (VI.9, contact with the dead) or it may IV.17, and X.3), in part due to a be viewed as part of the effluvia related belief that dreams can of the night that must be purified reveal the onset of illness. or washed away during morning Ancient Indians also sometimes ablutions. The philosophical texts dreamt of the dead, but for treat dreams as effluvia when them, as in many other cultures, they assert a negative position, contact with the dead is polluting mainly referring to them as and such pollution can occur in useless illusions or as useful only dreams as well as in the waking Fourteen Dreams of Queen Trishala
8
Courtesy: http://www.panjokutch.com Courtesy: http://www.tibetshop.com
(This article was originally published in the encyclopedia of South Asian Folklore (2003), pp. 166 - 169.)
* We sincerely thank Professors Peter J. Claus, Margaret A. Mills and Sarah Diamond, the Editors of the South Asian Folklore An Encyclopedia (2003, New York and London: Routledge) and the authors, Jerome H. Bauer, Mark Nichter and Serinity Young for giving us permission to reprint these articles.
DREAMS
for signifying how real and powerful a force illusion (maya) is in waking life. In spite of the lively interest in dreams in the Vedas and related texts, few dreams actually occur in the epics, and then they play a very minor role. Two dreams that do occur in Valmikis Ramayana are of minor characters; however, both announce deaths, using the same images contained in the ancient Indian medical texts, for example, seeing a woman dressed in red, dragging someone toward the south. The few dreams in the Mahabharata also belong to secondary or even liminal characters such as Karna and Bhisma. Dreams are, however, ubiquitous in the Tibetan epic of Gesar (Kesar), in which the hero continually receives dream visitations from Buddhist deities who offer him advice which he follows. Divination Because they link the internal and subjective emotional life of an individual with what appears to be objective outer events and symbols, dreams are believed to be a particularly potent form of divination. The dreamer is totally engaged in the dream activity and, upon awakening, feels compelled to describe the experience and to seek an interpretation that resolves it. The objective quality of dreams is perhaps most clearly expressed when dreamers say they saw (drs) the dream rather than Milarepa, a twelth century poet-saint of Tibet had a dream. This use of language expresses the idea that dreams are experienced as given to individuals rather than created by them and emphasises the external rather than the internal origin of the dream, thereby lending them a possibly divine authority. This thinking is expressed in hymn 4.9 of the Atharva Veda that appeals to an eye ointment, anana, for protection from troubled dreams, and in the Tibetan Tangyur (vol.25, text 48) that recommends preparing and using a certain eye ointment when seeking an auspicious dream. At the same time, dreams are a useful narrative device, acting as a deus ex machina to shift the action, define character, and express the inevitability of what follows. Not infrequently, they are the vehicles for divine appearances that reassure the audience not only of the immanence of divinity, but of the gods enduring concern with the affairs of humanity. More research needs to be done on all these aspects of dream life, especially through interviewing living people about their dream beliefs and experiences.
References
Bays, Gwendolyn, tr., 1983. The Voice of the Buddha: The Beauty of Compassion. (Original: Lalitavistara) Berkeley, California: Dharma Publishing. Bhishagratna, Kaviraj Kunjalal, 1963. Sushruta Samhita. Varanasi, India: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series.(2nd edition). bKa gyur., 1980. Vol. 25, text 48. Oakland, Calif.: Dharma. Bloomfield, Maurice, tr., 1979 (1897). Atharva Veda. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Bolling, G.M., 1913. Dreams and Sleep (Vedic). In James Hastings, ed., The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol.5. New York: Charles Scribner. Esnoul, Anne-Marie, 1959. Les Songes et leur interpretation dans lInde. In Les Songes et leur interpretation (Dreams and Their Interpretation) Paris: Editions du Seuil. Griffith, Ralph T.H., tr., 1971 (1889). The Hymns of the Rg Veda. Varanasi (India): Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office. Jacobi, Hermann, 1968 (1884). Jaina Sutras. New York: Dover Publications. Jones, J.J., tr., 1949-1956. Mahavastu. London: Pali Text Society. Kern, H., tr., 1963 (1884). Lotus Sutra, or Saddharmapuidarika (The Lotus of the True Law), 278-279. New York: Dover Publications. Lhalungpa, Lobsang P., tr., 1984. The Life of Milarepa. Boulder, Colo., and London: Shambhala Publications. OFlaherty, Wendy Doniger, 1984. Dreams, Illusion and Other Realities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sharma, Jadish, and Lee Siegel, 1980. Dream-Symbolism in the Sramaiic Tradition: Two Psychoanalytical Studies in Jainist and Buddhist Dream Legends. Calcutta: Firma KLM. Sharma, R.K., and Bhagwan Das, tr., 1977. Caraka Samhita, II.545-550. Varanasi (India): Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series. Shastri, H.R., tr., 1953-1957. The Ramayana of Valmiki. London: Shantisadan. Tagore, Ganesh Vasudeo, tr. (n.d.) Kurma Purana. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Tawney, C.H., tr., 1924. Kathasaritsagara (The Ocean of Story). London: Chas. J. Sawyer. Tsogyal, Yeshe, 1978. The Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava, tr.[Kenneth Douglas and Gwendolyn Bays from the French of Gustave-Charles Toussaint.] Berkeley, Calif.: Dharma Publishing. Van Buitenen, J.A.B., tr., 1975-1978. The Mahabharata. Vols. 2 & 3. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Young, Serinity, 1999. Dreaming in the Lotus: Buddhist Dream Narrative, Imagery, and Practice. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Courtesy: http://www.tibetshop.com
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE EROSION

Jyoti Kumari
Jyoti Kumari is a freelance researcher and doctoral candidate researching Environmental History of Colonial Punjab at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in New Delhi. The author can be contacted at jyotikm202@rediffmail.com
he indigenous communities in India are the original inhabitants of the natural region and they have been maintaining a historical continuity with pre-industrial societies by following traditional patterns of life. Scattered all over the country, they constitute around 8.8 per cent of the total population and with a few exceptions, the majority of them are forest dwellers. Their sociocultural identity has remained unaffected by forces of colonisation, modernisation, and globalisation. They have preserved their culture through their indigenous knowledge systems, which authenticate the presence of their rich socio-cultural and medical heritage. The sacred rituals and healing practices are very much visible in their culture. Erosion of indigenous knowledge has been taking place in India for the past two hundred years and there is no effort by the government to promote and protect these anonymous but unique knowledge holders of the society. The contribution of indigenous knowledge in the modern systems of medicine has been underestimated and it is ironical that the scientific community has treated the foundation of scientific medicine as unscientific. This article emphasises on the revival of folk medicine tradition that is happening with the help of pharmaceutical companies, voluntary organisations. Folk knowledge about pharmaceutical diversity is as old as civilisation itself. The first historical evidence of traditional knowledge about medicinal plants has been found in Rg Veda. In fact, the Atharva Veda, a treatise on folk medicine traditions, explains various herbal formulations that are still in use. Even in the medieval period there was an exchange of traditional medical wisdom between Arabs, Chinese, and Indians. However, it was during the British rule that the exploitation of natural resources and unfriendly forest laws adversely affected the indigenous communities access to medicinal plants and heralded an era of gradual knowledge erosion. The colonisers ideological principle of scientific forestry was based on the conception that all traditional practices of conservation were wasteful and they would destroy the forest wealth. The conservators of the postcolonial period also promoted the same legacy further. In fact, the allopathic system of medicine was promoted and legitimised during the British rule,
10
whereas the traditional systems of medicine received a major setback. Deforestation during this period led to the disappearance and extinction of several medicinal plants and the reduced access to natural resources further aggravated the situation. Various development projects taken up in the postindependence period have displaced thousands of local and tribal communities. When indigenous people are forced to displacement, the unrecorded traditional knowledge they carry with them will become completely useless in view of new ecosystem. And, the forced resettlement of indigenous and tribal people in a different ecological zone poses a great threat to the existence of their indigenous knowledge system and intellectual property rights. In addition, the communities tend to lose vast amount of unrecorded traditional knowledge because of the ageing of the elders and maintenance of secrecy
Courtesy: http://tbgri.com
Kani people and TBGRI scientists after the first transfer of licence fees and royalties in 1999
about medicinal plants and forest products. There is an urgent need to collect, document and preserve this medicinal knowledge keeping in view of the future generations and this needs to be done immediately with the help of individuals, government agencies, and non-governmental organisations. The gradual erosion of traditional knowledge has serious repercussions on the subsistence patterns, that is, it reduces the self-sufficiency of indigenous people by making them depend on urban societies. In the absence of basic healthcare facilities in villages, the traditional medicine practices provide an alternative health security to millions of people. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that around 80 per cent of the world population depend on traditional medicine for some aspects of primary health care. However, there is a need for an objective evaluation to get maximum benefit of the traditional
medicine system. The indigenous and modern systems of medicine are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary, and a combination of them can render development more cost effective, equitable as well as more sustainable. The traditional literature and folklore of indigenous medicine and medicinal practices have positively contributed to the discoveries of many allopathic medicines, such as, Morphine, Digoxin, Ephedrine and Reserpine. The Raulfia, a pharmaceutical product for lowering blood pressure, is manufactured from the extract of snakeroot plant, which has been used by indigenous communities for centuries. The folk knowledge about cinchona bark led to the discovery of Quinine for curing malarial diseases. A number of research institutions and nongovernmental organisations working on herbal medicines and indigenous systems of curing have been exploring and promoting the value of traditional medicines. Jagran, a not-for-profit organisation in Rajasthan, is promoting indigenous healers; the use of Banjauri plant (Vivoa indica) as an oral contraceptive by the Bihar tribals has been confirmed by scientists of the Indian Institute of Science and the Georgetown University Medical Centre, Washington; the Catholic Health Association of India in Andhra Pradesh has successfully developed a medicine based on tribal formulations to cure kala-azar (the Central Drug Research Institute has confirmed its effectiveness). The Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions in Bangalore has been doing commendable work in documenting and encouraging the cultivation of medicinal plants. The revival of traditional medicine is extremely difficult under the current system of intellectual property rights. The developing countries are unable to institute their own laws on such rights since they are under the pressure of national and multinational companies which have been exploiting this knowledge for their own profit. As far as patent laws are concerned, it is mandatory for the patent holder to disclose the source or origin of information regarding the property. There is no provision for providing compensation or recognition to the original knowledge holders and it has resulted in disproportionate sharing of benefits. The nexus between pharmaceutical companies and policy makers highlights the implications of knowledge exploitation and they promote each other at the cost of traditional knowledge of the local population. The Arokyapaccha plant (Trichopus zeylanicus) controversy between the Onge tribe of Andaman and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) over the discovery of herb that cures cerebral malaria is a case in point. In Darjeeling, the pharmaceutical and
Courtesy: http://www.holistic-online.com
herbal companies are commercialising the cultivation of medicinal plants and in the process, many species have been lost even before their true value was recognised. The already explored knowledge of indigenous people must be protected through national or international laws and they must be recognised as unique Jeevani or the only possessors of this knowledge. There should be a fair arrangement of profit sharing between indigenous communities and pharmaceutical companies. But this would require recognition of intellectual property rights of tribal communities by the government and corporations, which disagree with the notion that indigenous people should be paid for their knowledge. However, one example of such profit sharing arrangement is that the local Kani tribe in Kerala is given recognition as discoverer and knowledge holders of the medicinal plant, Trichopus zeylanicus travancoricius, which gives the drug called Jeevani, by the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI). After giving license to a local drug manufacturer, the TBGRI shared fifty percent of the license fee and royalty on the drug with the Kani tribe. Though the whole arrangement is not free from controversy, it is still the first and only example of giving recognition to the intellectual property rights of an indigenous tribe. For meeting the future needs of rare medicinal herbs, the documentation of traditional medicinal knowledge has long been suggested by national and international organisations. The Indian government has set up a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library to facilitate wider access to this knowledge and to save it from bio-piracy. However, there are no provisions for any compensation for the communities whose knowledge has been stored in it and will now be freely available at global level without giving the local communities their rightful due. Access to this knowledge should have had enough safeguards to protect the interests of indigenous people. If new discoveries are made on the basis of this knowledge, then there should be a proportionate benefit sharing among the patent holders and knowledge holders. The whole process would become successful only when it is legally controlled. References
Gosling, David L., 2001. Religion and Ecology in India and Southeast Asia. Routledge, London. UNDP, 2001. Human Development Report 2001: Making New Technologies Work for Human Development. Oxford University Press, New York. Sharma, Devinder, 2002. Digital Library on Indian Medicine Systems: Another Tool for Biopiracy. Economic and Political Weekly, June 22. Shukla, R. S., 2000. Forestry for Tribal Development. New Delhi: Wheeler Publications.
Courtesy: http://avpayurveda.com
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE EROSION
11
12
MEDICINAL PLANTS
TAMIL NAMES Sl.NO. BOTANICAL NAMES ENGLISH NAMES TAMIL NAMES

Talispatri Gundumani Karuvelum Kasikatti Sheeyakay Avarampoo Anekatalai Nayuruvi Vashanavi Ativadayan Vasambu Adhatodai Hansraj Manja - Kadambe Vilvam Sirupulayur Naikoddai Priyangu Mattipal Musambaram Kattalai Chitharathai Perarathai Tukme Kitmee Thandukkirai Kuppaikkirai Periyayelaky Akkirakaram Nilavembu Vettiver Karpooravalli Babuna Ajmoda Paymoostey Samudra Pachai Adu-Tinna-Palai Neermulli Tannirvitan Kilangu Shatavari Peruidukol Adavi-Amudan Gukkulu Kumuda Moongilarisi Samutra Palam Pachalai Illupai Kalyan-Pooshini Mara Manjal Karuveppilai Bhuja Palva Jaffra Vedai Utanjan Mukkaratai Elevam Mani Kundrikam Vendadugu Kadugu Kadugu Ustukhudus Akashakarudan Musumusukkai Murkampoo Kadimumukan Gaozaban Kazhar-Shikkay Gajakay 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 Caesalpinia Sappan Canarium Cummune Canarium Strictum Canscora Decussata Capsicum Frutescens Carthamus Tinctorius Carum Carui Carum Capticum Carum Nigrum Cassia Tora Celastrus Chenopodium Album Cichorium Intybus Citrus Medica Cassia Absus Coccinia Indica Cocculus Cordifolius Cocculus Suberosus Coptis Teeta Corylus Avellan Coscinium Fenestratum Cotula Anthemoides Croton Tiglium Cryptocoryne Spiralis Cucumis Trigonus Curculigo Orchioides Curcuma Amada Curcuma Aromatica Curcuma Zedoaria Cynodon Dactylon Cyperus Pertenuis Cyperus Rotundus Datura Alba Delphinium Denudatum Dendrobium Macrael Dolichos Biflurus Eclipta Alba Elaeocarpus Ganitrus Elaeocarpus Tuberculatus Elettaria Cardamumum Embelia Ribes Euphorbia Lathyris Euphorbia Pilurifera Eurycoma Longifulia Exacumlawii Feronai Elephantum Ferula Assafuetida Foeniculum Vulgar Gardenin Gummifera Garlinia Mangostana Garlinia Morella Gelidium Cartilagineum Gentiana Kurroo Gloriosa Superba Glycine Suja Glycyrrhiza Glabra Gymnema Sylvestre Gynocrd Odorata Hedysarum Gangeticum Helianthus Helicteres Isora Hemidesmus Indicus Herpestis Monniera Hibiscuc Cannabinus Hibiscus Abelmonschua Hibiscus Rosa Sinensis Holarrhena Antidysenterica Hydnucarpus Wightiana Sappa Wood Java Almond Tree Black Damar Chillies Saf-flower Bishop Weed Staff Tree Goose Foot Endive, Wild Chicory Citron Chaksoo Heart-leaved Moonseed Indian Berry Gold Thread Hazel Nut Tree Turmeric Purgative Cotton East Indian Root Bitter Gourd Black Musale Mango Ginger Wild Turmeric Round Zedoary Bermuda Grass Indian Cyperus Nut Grass Thornapple Horse Gram Australian Asthma-Weed Elephant or Wood-Apple Indian Sweet Fennel Dikamali Mangosteen Indian Gamboge Agai Agai Superb Lely Soybean Sweet Wood - Liquorice Hind Sun Flower East Indian Screw-Tree Indian Sarsaparilla Thyme-Leaved Brown Indian Hemp Musk-Mallow Chineses Rose Kurchi Jangli Badam Pathimugam Jangli Badam Karuppu Gunguliam Shankhini Milagai Kusumphool Shimayi-shombu Omam Ajmud Ushittagarai Valuluwai Parupu Kire Kasini Virai Maphal Mulappalvidhai Kovai Sindilkodi Kakakulli Peetharohini Findak Mara Manjal Babuna Nervalam Nattu-Ativudayam Kattu-Tumatti Nial-Panai-Kizhangu Arukamlaka Kasturi Manjal Kichili Kilangu Arugu Mutta-Kachi Korai Kizanghu Umatham Jadwar Jivanti Kollu Karisalai Rutthraksham Elakkay Vayu-Vilamgam Burg-Sadab Amum-Patchaiaressi Usi Thagarai Marukozhunthu Vilvapazham Perungayam Shombu Dikamalai Mangostan Rival Chinipal Katukarohini Kanveli Vadai Ati-Maduram Siru-Kurunja Chaulmugera Sarivan Surya Kiranti Valumbirika Nannari Neer Brahmi Oulimanji Kasthuri Vidhai Sembaruthi Kasppu-Vetpalarishi Nirattimuthu
Sl.NO. BOTANICAL NAMES
ENGLISH NAMES
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67
Abies Weebbiana Abrus Percatorius Acacia Arabica Acacia Catechu Acacia Concinna Acacia Farnesiana Acave Americana Achyranthes Aspera Aconitum Ferox Aconitum Heterophyllum Acorus Calamus Adhatoda Vasika Adiantum Capillus-Veneris Adina Cordifulia Aegle Marmelos Aerua Lanata Agaricus Campestris Aglalia Roxburghiana Ailantus Malabarica Aloe Littoracis Aloe Vera Alpinia Chinensis Alpinia Galanga Althaea Officinalis Amarantus Gangeticus Amarantus Viridis Amomum Sublatum Anacylus Pyrethrum Andrographis Paniculata Andropogon Muricatus Anisochilus Carnosus Anthemis Nobicis Apium Graveolens Argyreia Malabarica Argyreia Speciosa Aristolochia Barcteata Artanema Sesamoides Asparagus Adscendens Asparagus Racemosus Atylosia Barabata Baliospermum Axillare Balsamodendron Mukul Balsamodendron Roxburghi Bambusa Arundinacea Barringtonia Racemosa Basella Alba Bassia Longifolia Benincasa Cerifera Berberis Aristata Bergera Koenigii Betula Bhojapattra Bixa Orrellana Blepharis Edulis Boerhaavia Diffusa Bombax Malabaricum Boswellia Glabra Brassica Alba Brassica Campestris Brassica Nigra Brunella Valgaris Bryonia Epigoes Bryonia Seabra Butea Frondosa Butea Superba Caccinia Glauca Caesalpinia Bonduc Caesalpinia Bunducella
Himalayan Silver Fir Jequirity Babul Tree Catechu, Black Catechu Cassia Flower American Aloe Rough Chafftree Indian Aconite Indian Atees Sweet Flag Malabar Nut Maiden-Hair Fern Bael Fruit Small Aloe Lesser Galangal Galangal Marsh Mallow Ceylon Cardomum Pellitory The Creat Cuscus Grass Thick-leaved Lavender Chamomile Celery Elephant Creeper Worm-Killer Mashaparni Salaitree, Gu-Gugul Bamboo Indian Spinach Mohua White Gourd Melon Indian Barberry Curry Leaf Anotta Seed Sperading Hog-Weed Silk Cotton Tree Indian Olibanum White Mustard Rape Seed Black Mustard Lavender Flower Bryoms Bastard Teak Molucca Bean -
Sl.NO. BOTANICAL NAMES Sl.NO. BOTANICAL NAMES ENGLISH NAMES TAMIL NAMES
ENGLISH NAMES
TAMIL NAMES
136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202
Hydrocotyle Asiatic Hygrophica Spinosa Hyoscyamus Niger Illicium Verum Hook Impatiens Balsamina Impomoea Hederaceae Indigofera Aspalathoides Indigofera Tincoturia Ipomoea Digitata Ipomoea Turpethum Jasminum Angustiflolium Juglans Regia Kaempferia Galanga Kyllinga Monocephala Lallemantia Royleana Lavandula Stoechas Lawsonia Alba Lepidium Sativum Lippia Nodiflora Litsea Sebifera Macrotomia Benthami Matricaria Chamumice Matthiolaincana Melia Azadirachta Melissa Paruiflora Mesua Ferrea Mimosa Pudica Mimusopa Elengi Mollugo Cerviana Mollugu Lerviano Momordica Charantia Morindia Citrifolia Moringa Oleifera Morus Nigra Mucuna Pruriens Murraya Koenigll Myrica Nagi Myristica Fragrans Myristica Malabarica Myrtus Caryophyllus Nardostachys Jatamansi Nereta Ciliaris Nigella Sativa Nymdhaea Lotus Ocimum Album Ocimum Basilicum Ocimum Sanctum Oldenlandia Corymbosa Onujma Bracteatum Origanum Majorana Osbeckia Cupularis Parmelia Perlata Pavonia Zeylanica Pedalium Murex Pedalium Murey Peganum Harmala Permina Integrifolia Petruselinum Satiucm Peucedanum Graveolens Phaseolus Royburghi Phoenix Dactylifera Phyllanthus Niruri Physalis Minima Picrorrhiza Kurrooa Pimpinella Anisum Piper Alum Piper Chaba
Indian Pennywort Henbena Star Aniseeds Pharbitis Trueindigo Bidarkand Turpeth Root / Indian Jalap Walnut Arabian or French Lavender Henna Cress Neem Cobras Saffron Senitive Plant Bitter Gourd Indian Mulberry Drumstick Seed Mulberry Cowhage or Cowitch Plant Bay Berry, Box Myetle Nutmeg Bombay Mace Cloves Musk Root Small Fennel or Black Cumin Sweet Basil Holy Basil Two-Flowered, Indian Madder Wild Marjoram Stone Flower Pau Syrian Rue Parsley Dill Black Gram Edible Date Cape Gooseberry Anise, Sweet Fennel, Aniseed White Pepper -
Nirmulli Kurarani Omam Anasipoo Terada Kodikakkatan Siva-Narvaymbu Neeliouri Vellai Kilangu Shivadai Kattu Malli Akrottu Kachhola Kilangu Nirbishi Tukme - Balunga Dharu, Alaphajana Dharu Maruthonri Alivirai Poduthuvalai Maida-Lakti Gaozaban Babuna Todri Safeed Vembu Badurangboya Sirunaga Poo Thotta Suringi Magudampoo Parpadgam Pavakka-Chedi Nuna Murangai Vidhai Shetuta Poonaikkali Karuveppallai Marudam Pattai Jathikay Rampatri Kirambu Jatamashi Zufa Karunjeeragam Lilly Ganjankorai Tiruniru Pachai Tulasi Parpadagam Gauzhban Maruvamu Chirkualathi Kalpasi Chitta Mutti Peru-Nerinjal Neurnji Shimai-Azha-Vanai-Virai Munnay Sadakuppi Ulundu Perichchangayi Kizhkay Nelli Siruthakkali Katukarogani Shombu Vella Milagu Chavyam
203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270
Piper Longum Piper Nigrum Pistacia Lentiscus Pistia Stranotes Plantago Ispagula Plumbago Rosea Pongamia Glabra Premna Herbacea Prunus Mahaleb Psidium Guyava Psoralea Coryifolia Ptychotis Ajowan Pueraria Tuberosa Punica Granatum Putranjiva Roxburghi Pyrus Cydonia Quercus Infectoria Randia Dumtorum Raphanus Sativus Rauwolfia Serpentina Rheum Emodi Rhus Succedanea Ricinus Communis Rosa Damascena Rubia Cordifolia Ruta Graveolens Salacia Reticulata Semecarpus Anacardium Smilax China Solanum Jacquinii Solanum Nigrum Solanum Trilobatum Spermacoce Hispida Sphaeranthus Hirtus Spilanthes Oleracea Sterculia Foetida Strax Benzoin Strychnos Nux-Vomica Strychnos Potatorum Sulanum Trilobtum Swertia Chirata Swertia Decussata Symplocos Racemosa Tabernaemontana Coronaris Taraktogenos Kurzii Taxus Baccata Terminalia Belerica Terminalia Chebula Tinospora Cordifulia Toddalia Aculeata Toddalia Bilocularis Trachydium Lehmanni Trichosanthes Cucumerina Trigonella Foenum Graeceum Valeriana Officinalis Vateria Indica Vernonia Anthelmintica Lochnera Rosea Viola Odorata Viola Serpens Vitiex Negundo Vitis Vinifera Withanis Somnifetra Woodfordia Floribunda Wrightia Tinctoria Zingiber Officinale Zizyphus Vulgaris Myristica Fragrans
Long-Pepper Black Pepper Mastiche Tree Tropical Duck Weed Ispaghula, Isapgol Seeds Rose Coloured Lead Wort Indian Beech Guava Babchi Seeds Bishops Weed Pomogranite Quince Oak Null, Magic Nut Emetic Nut Radish Sarpagandha Himalayan or Indian Rhubarb Galls Castor Oil Plant Damask or Persian Rose Indian Madder Garden Rue Marking Nut Tree China Root Wild Eggs Plant, Bitter Sweet Shaggy Putton Weed Eastindian Globe K Nux-Vomica, Poison Nut, Quaker Clearing Nut Tree Lodh Tree Himalayan Yew Beleric Myrobalans Myrobalan Fenugreek True Valerian White Dammer Tree Purple Fleabane Aharanthus Roseus Wild Violet Five Leaved Charti Tree Grapes Winter Cherry Sweet Indrajao Dry Ginger Jujub Berries Nutmace
Thipplee Milagu Rumi Mastaki Akasa Thamarai Ishappukolvirai Shivappu Chittramulam Pungamaram Siruthekku Priyangu Goyyapazham Karpokarishi Omam Bidarikand Madulam Karupali Shimai-Madalaivirai Machakai Marukkallan-Kai Mullangi Chivan Melpodi Variyattu Karkada Singi Amanakku Rojappu, Golappu Manditta, Manjitti Arvada Koranti Shenkottai Parnagichekkai Kandan Kattari Manathakkali Thuthulai, Tudavullay Nutti Choorie, Narrai-Churi Vishukrianthi Akalkem Penai Mavum Sambirani Yetti-Kottai Tetan-Kottai Thuthuvalai Nilavembu Shilajetu Lodhrapattai Nandhiavattan Niradimuthu Talispatri Tanrik-Kay Kadukay Shindilkodi Milagaranai Devadaru Shekakul Pudel, Kattup-Pepudal Vendayam Asaroon Vellai-Kungiliyam Kattu Shiragam Nithia Kalyani Vayilethe, Vayilettu Banafsha Nochi Draksha Amukkuram Dhathiripoo Veppal Arisi Sukku Unnab Jathipathri
MEDICINAL PLANTS
Courtesy: R.N. Rajan & Co., Exporter, Importer and Pharmaceutical Supplier of Herbs #1, Kumarappa Maistry Street, Chennai - 1
13
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TAMIL SIDDHAS: TANTRA, ALCHEMY, POETICS AND HERESY WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF WIDER TAMIL SHAIVA WORLD
Layne Little
Layne Little is a Fulbright scholar and doctoral candidate in the South Asian Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. The author can be contacted at anjaneya11@yahoo.com
rint culture and oral temple tales of the past century have largely been responsible for shifting the Siddhas from the most peripheral crevices of Tamil religious imagination into the limelight of a nationalistic religious awareness.1 Local television programming offers the convenience of a daily consultation with Tamil Siddha doctors in the comfort of one living room. A growing number s of temples now seem to have taken on their token Siddha tomb to celebrate the ever-imminent return of the deathless ones. In the modern imagination the Siddhas offer an ancient spiritual science for a modern secular world, a technology of the ancestors to surpass that offered on the neo-colonial global market. But is there some coherent theocratic integration beyond the vogue of pop-parlor speech and name-dropping the words Tamil Siddha as a kind of magic invocation of cultural authenticity? The Tamil Siddhas have no central authority or unifying doctrine. Though there are innumerable texts claiming to represent some nebulous Tamil Siddha tradition, there is no single philosophical orientation propounded in their works. Rather, innumerable philosophical threads are stretched, interwoven and unwoven again in a phantasmagoric tapestry of subjectivities, as all the while tantra looms large in the background as the loom on which the tapestry is woven. So while frustrating all attempts to attribute to them a cogent cosmological theory, there is a kind of buoyant, free-floating quality to their processes of relating to life and the greater universe. This takes the form of an unapologetic celebration of the immediacy of subjective experience and the fluid application of a variety of mutually exclusive philosophical viewpoints all simultaneously arrayed before the reader. This brief introduction presents, an albeit, simplistic survey of some of the major thematic elements that the Tamil Siddhas emphasise and invariably reinscribe with their own unique visionary exegesis. It is in this context that this paper touches upon the irreconcilable social conflict that has raged outside the Tamil Siddhas and the perpetual role their imaginative process takes in reconciling the conflict the rages within. The Tamil Siddhas remain an ill-defined, incongruous body of religious specialists found in the southern part of India whose origins can be only tenuously traced back to the seventh or eighth century. Here they form a distinctive part of a larger
14
movement that spread throughout South Asia, from Sri Lanka in the South to Tibet in the north, between the seventh and eleventh centuries. Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Siddhas everywhere share certain commonalties mostly in the realm of (subtle) body image, transmutational wonder tales, and physical and mental manipulations of yogic savvy. All of them are part of a pan-Indian tantric yoga movement which Eliade described as formulating over a five hundred year period (between seventh and eleventh centuries), but fully flowering only after twelfth century.2 Within the South Asian literary context the name Siddha originally denoted one of the eighteen categories of celestial beings. These beings of semidivine status were said to be of great purity and their dwelling was thought to be in the sky between the earth and the sun. Later they became associated with a class of more adept human being, often an accomplished yogi. The term had been derived from the Sanskrit root sidh meaning fulfilment or achievement, so the noun came to refer to one who had attained perfection. Because the Tamil
Courtesy: http://palani.org
Bhogar instructs Siddhars
language lacks the aspirated consonants of Sanskrit so the word has been written and pronounced by the Tamils as cittar. This has led the Tamils to associate the word more with the Sanskrit term cit, meaning consciousness.3 This appellation is evident even in the Shaivite devotionals known as the Tevaram hymns of the sixth and seventh centuries that would later become part of the Saiva Siddhanta canon. Here the term is applied not only to one of the 18 categories of divine beings but also to God Shiva himself, who is a cittar because the very nature of God is consciousness. Likewise, it describes the devotee as also being a cittar since his consciousness is always immersed in the divine presence. By the twelfth to thirteenth century the term has taken on new
meaning as we learn from the writings of Perumparrapuliyar Nambi who describes the God Shiva as the cittar alchemist who is working strange miracles in the city of Madurai.4 Essentially though, the term siddha or cittar has the same connotations as it does when referring to the 84 Siddhas of Vajrayana Buddhism, the Natha Siddhas of North India, or the medieval alchemists known as the Rasa Siddhas. It is a movement born of a synthesis of Vajrayana Buddhism, Shaivite Tantrism, Indian Alchemy, magic, and the Hatha Yoga and Pranayama disciplines expounded by the ascetic saint Goraknath. Although, in the present era, the term is often applied to any form of unorthodox mystic or saint. And certainly the term has a newfound currency amongst (usually nonBrahmin) Tamil religious organisations and temple institutions, as well as the pop-culture yoga institutions flourishing in the west. A perplexing aspect of the Tamil Siddha cult is that the text which is identified as the root text of its tradition had been also amended to the orthodox Saiva Siddhanta canon (Tirumurai) to give the Siddhantins a philosophical orientation that could hold up against the Sri Vaisnavas Vashishtadvaita doctrine of Ramanuja. Though difficult to measure the full extent of interpolation that the text has undergone to make it more form-fitting for the conservative sectarian context, the Tirumantiram (7 th 8 century AD) maintains a significant number of references that are unmistakably well rooted in this wider South Asian Tantra/Siddha complex. Both sectarian groups emphasized different aspects of the teaching and could spin a theological line that became more and more widely divergent. The Siddhas would be scoffing at temple worship, reliance upon Brahminical authority, and proclaiming the injustice of caste; while the Saiva Siddhantins would berate the Siddhas much as M. Srinivasa Iyangar did in 1914 when he wrote that the Siddhas are mostly plagiarists and impostors and in addition, Being eaters of opium & dwellers in the land of dreams, their conceit knew no bounds. At times the Siddhantins have even engaged in an organised effort to eliminate the Siddhar faction. For example, one movement, observed in the latter half of the nineteenth century, systematically sought out any copy of the writings of the heretical Siddha-poet Sivavakkiyar, and promptly destroyed them. The rift between the two orders may have been rooted in the Saiva/Shakta dichotomy that conflated gender conflict to cosmic proportions. Many of the Siddhas propitiate Shakti or the creative potency of the primordial essence while Shiva is elevated to a (no-where) position of absolute abstraction, as he is worshipped as vetta veli or vast space. The goddess alone is envisioned in her manifestations5 hidden both within the shifting tides of external forms as well as abiding within the body itself. Here she can be coaxed and subdued, manipulated and directed. As the serpent power Kundalini, flowing through the subtle body, she can propel the consciousness of the Siddhar into union with the Absolute. Though the orthodox Saiva Siddhantin may content himself with the worship of Shiva in the
temple through the rituals of the priest, the Siddha placates the goddess to intercede on his behalf and expand the consciousness of the Siddha beyond all limitation, where he may become Shiva himself. Notions, such as this, being fundamental to the Tamil Siddha, may have struck the Shaivite orthodoxy as heretical. But one should not overlook caste conflict and more terrestrial political dynamics. Many of the Tamil Siddha compositions whether defining philosophical viewpoints, yogic practices, or presenting alchemical recipes for herbal tinctures and base metal amalgams are riddled with tantric imagery, references to Kundalini, and clues to control the dangerous feminine power through breath manipulation or the recitation of the Goddesss secret names. Because of the enigmatic nature of the Siddha imagery, and their philosophy often being structured in direct defiance of human logic, few scholars have ventured to address the Tamil Siddhas and then only as Thirumular mere curiosities. But it seems that the stylistic inconsistencies of the Siddha authors may also have steered scholars away from these works. There are vibrant jewels shining in the rough but even the more popular siddha works are riddled with endless repetition, nonsense words that clumsily maintain the rhyme scheme, and jarring incongruities in the narrative portions of the texts. One of the most basic characteristics of Tamil composition, and one that is also relevant to Siddha poetry, is the tendency to layer the work so that each word or image builds upon the last. Because each component image is presented so as to be viewed autonomously and in relationship both sequentially and to the totality of the verse, the images of the poem may appear to some as being slightly disjointed and contradictory. Though this seems to undermine the aesthetic quality and overcomplicate the simple act of enjoying poetry, the Tamil Siddha compositions pattern this imagery to expound the subtle complexity of their shifting viewpoint or to map out the terrain of the inner landscape which is dominated by the dormant serpent energy. While much of the recent explosion of interest in the Siddhas centres around modern invented traditions offering tenuous ties to the older established Siddha orders, many of these groups did th not come into their own until the 12 century. And though the image of a unified succession of Tamil Siddha sages is particularly tenuous, Tirumular is pervasively revered in the diverse literary world of the Tamil Siddhas. The Saiva Siddhantins had included him as one of the 63 canonised saints or nayanmars, and his work, the Tirumantiram was posthumously represented by them as fully defining the Tamil Saiva tradition of the time. This text also
15
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TAMIL SIDDHAS
Courtesy: http://www.himalayanacademy.com
In Shaktis temple if you control the left and the right you can hear a lute in the centre of your face. And Shiva will come out dancing sweetly. I swear upon Sada Nandi we have spoken the truth.
became the 10 book of the Saiva Siddhanta canon, the Tirumurai. Though it was the one work outlining the philosophy of the Siddhantins, the sect has always had a difficult time fully integrating the many passages which discuss the worship of the Goddess and the Kundalini Yoga practices so characteristic of Tantrism. On the other hand, the Siddhas have viewed these same passages as the most critical in formulating their esoteric doctrines on the arousal of the serpent energy. As we can see in verse 730, the Siddhantins were confronted with the tantric orientation of their philosopher Tirumular, when he relates that it is the human body itself that is the temple of the Goddess Shakti...
th
Kalangi Nathar teaches Bhogar Siddhar
Here Tirumular discusses the basis of Kundalini Yoga whereby the breath, carrying one of the vital airs known as prana, flows into the solar and lunar currents which run from the right and left nostrils down to the base of the spine and are there brought into union. The point of this union is at the root chakra Muladhara, the first of six chakras or nerve plexuses through which the Kundalini energy will flow. This energy is moved by the union of these solar and lunar streams of vital breath that have entered the central current at Muladhara and will ascend upwards through the six chakras, each corresponding to a higher and more expansive state of consciousness. The individual awareness is sublimated into divine union at the crown of the head. It is a kind of inner journey towards the infinitude of the Divine, but begins only after the two streams flow into the central current as we learn from verse 801 of the Tirumantiram...
Left hand Right hand Both hands... Change! He who eats with the hand of worship need not be depleted. The conscious ones capable of abandoning sleep need not die...
Kundalini Yoga
they can live forever.
The term used to denote the hand of worship is Tutikkai. Tuti is a verb meaning to worship, kai is the noun meaning hand. Together, as Tutikkai, the expression also means the elephants trunk. This interpretation
is equally viable in that Ganesha, the elephantheaded god of gateways and new beginnings, is said to reside in the body at the base of the spine, at the root chakra Muladhara where the two currents flow together and enter central current Shashumna. Shashumna is sometimes envisioned as the trunk of Ganesha raised aloft and holding the full-blown lotus of enlightenment, Sahasrara, at the crown of the head. What is eaten is amrita, conceived of as both the nectar of spiritual ecstasy and the elixir of immortality. Tantra appears in its more seminal form around th the 4 century, but its real beginnings seem to reach back much earlier.6 Elements of tantric thought had already pervaded the south by the time of Tirumular, as they had seeped into yogic theory and practice at some antecedent time and even impacted temple ritual and the budding bhakti cults. Tantra was more deeply rooted in a fluid set of symbolic constructs than a static enunciation of doctrine. It represents a profound refinement of the symbol systems of Hindu-Buddhist South Asia. Its emphasis on the experiential aspects of the individuals religious experience collided with the Shaivite orthodoxy like the Gnostic heresy did with the early Christian Church as it sought to establish an internal selfpolicing system of sanctioning only those subjective experiences that towed the orthodox line. In an effort to demonstrate that the macrocosm is reflected within the microcosm, Tantra began to emphasise that the universe, in all its totality, is contained within the body of the individual. It superimposed universal symbols over the human body to help demonstrate this relationship. The spine, along which the shashumna or central channel ran, became the cosmic axis. All the Gods that oversaw the mechanism that is this universe were hidden in the lotus centres of the bodys chakras, like blossoms flowering on the vine of the spine. But it was the portly god Ganesha, who guarded the gate to the inner world. He became a patron of Kundalini yoga in the South and was invoked by the female Siddha mendicant Auvaiyar, th in this excerpt from her 14 century work Vinayagar Agaval. Here she relates how the elephant-headed god has reconciled the dualistic nature of the universe as the various manifestations of Shiva were
16
Courtesy: Victor M. Fics The Tantra (2003)
taught to be part of her inner savouring.

He has concentrated my mind, clarified my intellect, and said, Light and Darkness share a common place. He presses me down into the grace giving ecstasy. In my ear he renders limitless bliss. He has revealed Sada Shiva within the sound. He has revealed the Shiva Lingam within the mind. And he has revealed that... The smaller than the smallest, The larger that the largest, stands within... like ripe sugarcane.
In about 1661, as Aurangzeb set about to expand his kingdom throughout the subcontinent and free the land of heretics, he was at the same time extending his protection to an obscure Hindu monastery in the Punjab. At the time in question Anand Nath, the abbot of the monastery and a Natha Siddha alchemist, was providing the greatest Mogal persecutor of Hinduism in history a regular supply of treated mercury which promised to confer longevity.7 Simultaneously in the deep south the Tamil Siddha alchemist Bhogar, who had supposedly migrated from China8 along with his guru Kalangi Nathar, was purportedly establishing a shrine to the God Murugan on the top of Palani Hill.9 It was here that he is thought to have composed his 7000 verses on Kundalini Yoga, The Serpent Power Kundalini alchemy, and Siddha medicine. By medieval times Indian alchemy had come into vogue much like tantra had done almost a millennium earlier. And though the Indian alchemists also sought to develop the chemical processes of transforming base metals into gold as in Europe and the Middle East, they often emphasised the pursuit of bodily perfection and the preparation of the elixir of immortality as the Chinese alchemists had sought. They often viewed their experience of the inner processes of Kundalini Yoga as mirroring the chemical process of the alchemical work. Nearly a thousand years after Tirumular, Bhogar is still wrestling with the serpent energy, even in the midst of his alchemical operations. Though now, the Kundalini is personified as the consort of Ganesha, the Goddess Vallabai...
9 The green-hued Vallabai will become subservient and bow down. Shell tell you the appropriate time
for the appropriate chakra. If the basis of Muladhara is perfected... You can go anywhere, wandering freely throughout the three worlds. The dull-hued body will mellow and shine. All impurities will be removed and the six chakras will become visible to the eye. The gold-coloured alchemy will heed your every word. In the Sleepless Sleep all subtlety can be perceived. Look and see.
In a particularly odd verse of Bhogar, we find him describing a visionary experience involving the ingestion of an unidentified substance and the wearing of mercurial amalgams.
80 Bhogars Leap Into the Universe As the Principle of Intelligence itself I leapt into the cosmos. Shiva clearly elucidated the nature of this universe. For the sake of all beings there is a path that becomes a vehicle for the five senses. The universe that appeared before me was arranged in layers. Grandfather (Tirumular) said, Enter the tenth one. I took what was given me10 and put it in my mouth. And a bunch of mercurial amalgams I tied onto my wrist. Off I went. Entering the universe of fire and light.
Courtesy: Victor M. Fics The Tantra (2003, New Delhi: Abhinav Publications)
Consciousness was seen to ride the vehicle of breath into union with the absolute in the Sahasrara Chakra at the top of the head. The Siddha could, through the intercession of the Goddess, placated by manipulation of the breath, expand consciousness to the point where it becomes what is called the Maha Citta or Great Awareness which is the God Shiva himself. Here is one of the closing verses of Bhogars discussion of Kundalini Yoga
94 Invite the breath, the outer space, to come within your house. If you are unwavering, placing it there as though you were putting oil in a lamp,... They shall meet. Breath and God becoming one. Like wind becoming breath there is no individual intelligence. The Great Awareness becomes Siva. He and breath merge into one.
17
It is this light becoming breath that redeems the soul. Surely this is the truth of Siva Yoga!
In the last century the poet-saint Ramaligar had much to do with bridging the Siddha-Saiva gap and making the Siddhas more palatable to the mainstream Tamil religious world.11 Ramalingar was born in 1823 near Chidambaram, arguably the greatest of all Saivite temples. Naturally, the heretical nature of his teaching and the growing number of his disciples caused the protest of temple officials and a variety of Saiva Siddhanta institutions throughout the region. Eventually they were forced to call in Arumuga Navalar from Jaffna to put an end to Ramalingar. As a Tamil scholar and Saivite authority, the orthodox religious leaders throughout the area, were confident that he could expose the fallacy of Ramalingars teaching and defrock the heretical saint. Arumuga quickly set about organising public meetings to provide a platform on which to abuse Pambatti Siddhar Ramalingar and a horde of pamphlets were circulated issuing public warning about this dangerous little man. Eventually though, Arumuga was forced to take legal action and filed a suit against the saint. The gentle Ramalingar was dragged into court, but eloquently speaking in his own defense, easily won the case. The nature of Ramalingars heresy is found to be all the more insidious when we learn that he also cherished and called his own the devotional hymns of Saiva Siddhanta saints other than Tirumular. One of these, sometimes hailed as the 64th nayanmar, was Manikkavasagar, who had a profound influence on Ramalingar and Siddha devotionalism in general. Manikkavasagars name th means He whos utterances are rubies and in the 9 century he beautifully wrote this mini creation myth in flowing verse...
Becoming sky and earth, Wind and light Becoming flesh and spirit, All that truly is and all that which is not Becoming the Lord He makes those who say, I and mine Dance in the show. Becoming sky, and standing there... How can I praise Him?
Courtesy: http://members.tripod.com
In this poem Ramalingar praises Manikkavasagar and weaves his verse with a complex echoing of sound as he speaks again and again of the sweetness of his mystic absorption experienced when hearing the poetry of the saint. This fervent merging, savoured by the ecstatic Ramalingar is described with the adverbial participle kalantha, from the verb root kala meaning to flow together, to make as one, as it also denotes a sexual union.
One with sky Manikkavasagar, your words... One with me when I sing Nectar of sugarcane One with honey One with milk and one with the sweetness of the fertile fruit One with my flesh One with my soul Insatiable is that sweetness!
Although Ramalingar hymns were penned in s praise of the God Siva, they were often addressed to a feminine audience with unqualified personal designations such as Amma or Akka, Mother or Sister. Perhaps indicating that the hymn was meant for an internal, intimate and distinctly feminine force that could propel the invocation along the proper channels of the inner cosmos, towards Sivas secret abode. The fact that his songs began to be sung in the schools, villages and even the temples of 19th century Chennai, began to outrage the orthodox Saiva Siddhantins in the area. He, as with many outspoken Tamil Siddhas, was somewhat iconoclastic, not adequately deferential to temple or Brahminical tradition. He did not perpetuate the traditional modes of linga worship. Forgoing the objectified image by capturing the subjective gaze itself, he perpetrated the greatest of heresies by blatantly revealing the true face of God veiled within volumes of tantric lore. At the shrine he established at Vadalur, behind the curtain that housed the holy of holies, he established a single flames light to illuminate a mirror that would reflect the image of the worshipper as the secret face of god and final mystery of the Tamil Siddhas.
In this final work of Ramalingar, we see a different side of the heretical Siddhas. Not the enigmatic ramblings or harsh riddles of the ascetic, but a tender ode, that views the Siddhas experience of union as the distilled essence of lifes sweetness.
18
Bhogar Siddhar
Notes
1. This introduction to the Tamil Siddhas was written nearly ten years ago and reflects many of the misconceptions surrounding the siddhas that were popular at the time. Also its circulation on the internet surely added to over simplifying the subject with faults that are entirely my own. Ive tried to briefly rectify the overtly erroneous statements that I had made and have attempted to elaborate on some of the more reductionistic portions of this work. 2. Most of the Tamil Siddha works popular today were written only in the last two centuries. A significant percentage of works purported to be rediscovered are modern forgeries. 3. R. Venkataraman, 1990: 1, 2. 4. Ibid.: 3. See the Tiruvilaiyadal sections 13, 42 & 45. 5. As Manonmani, Valai, Vallabai, Parai, Parapparai, etc. 6. Some see the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad as containing enough of the key elements of tantric cosmology to represent the earliest strain of a definitive Tantric tradition complete with the hitta functioning as a proto- shashumna nadi, anticipating the more elaborate kundalini system to come. 7. David Gordon White, 1996: 1, 9. 8. Bhogars 7000 tells of his repeated visits to China but does not provide even a single cultural detail that demonstrates he has any first hand knowledge of the region, it customs, etc. Now in popular secondary s sources on the Tamil Siddhas the China origin of Bhogar is strongly refuted with the characteristic nationalistic fervour of the present day.
9. Bhogar makes no mention of Palani in his 7000 and has always been associated in the Tamil Siddha literature with Sathuragiri mountain. Further, the Palanitalapuranam (the Mythic History of Palani) makes no mention of its supposed founder (though it does make passing reference to Gorakhnath). 10. Presumably he is referring to one of his gulikais, a pill often made of treaded mercury in solid form. 11. Another notable entry into the modern literary sphere comes when freedom-fighting poet, Subramaniya Bharathi, called himself a cittar, invoking a religiousrevolutionary persona that was intrinsically Tamil.
References
Eliade, Mircea, 1969. Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. Princeton: Bollingen. Francis, T. Dayanandan, 1990. The Mission and Message of Ramalinga Swamy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Little, Layne, 1994. Shaking the Tree: Kundalini Yoga, Spiritual Alchemy, and the Mysteries of the Breath in Bhogars 7000. Available also at http://www.levity.com/ alchemy/... Venkataraman, R., 1990. A History of the Tamil Siddha Cult. Madurai: Ennes Publications. White, David Gordon, 1996.The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Zvelebil, Kamil V., 1973. The Poets of the Powers. London: Rider. 1975. Tamil Literature. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
FOLK MEDICINAL WISDOM OF CHITTOOR DISTRICT, ANDHRA PRADESH

S. Vedavathy
S.Vedavathy is President of Herbal Folklore Research Centre at Tirupati. The author can be contacted at vedavathy@hotmail.com the affected parts also. This therapy is called as mandhu noone and the Gesthampalli village is famous for it.
Medicine for Emukalu virigithe - Bone fracture

Every village in the Chittoor district has one medicine man who knows the treatment for dislocated and broken bones. The two centres in the district, one at Puttur and another at Kalluru, have become famous because of the devoted families. The people in these centres are service oriented and they do not accept money for their service.
ome of the folk medicinal treasures found in Chittoor district in Andhra Pradhesh are given here: Tagubothulaku Natu Mandu (Psidium gujava) Myrtaceae (Medicine for alcohol addicts)
Leaf juice is secretly added with alcohol and given to the person who is addicted to alcohol. The person starts vomiting and feels irritation. If the therapy is repeated two or three times, the person develops a sort of aversion towards alcohol.
(For willing patients who want to give up alcohol different therapy is administered )
Jatamansi - (Nardostachys jatamansi) Valerianaceae (Gundello nemmu Pneumonia)

Decoction of the root powder is given two or three times a day and it is continued until the fever subsides. Wheat powder mixed in Calotropis leaf juice is applied on the chest to prevent pleurisy
Vavili (Vitex negundo) and Allamu (Zingeber oficinale) (Onti Talanoppi - Migraine)
Juice extracted from the leaves of vavili and rhizome of allamu is mixed in equal proportions and few drops of the juice are instilled into the nostrils to cure migraine.
Kanuga (Pongamia pinnata) Fabaceae (Keella noppulu & Ollu noppulu - Arthritis and Body Pains)
The root bark boiled in gingely oil is stored in earthen pot and given to patients suffering from chronic body pain and arthritis. The oil is given both internally and applied on
Saraswathi aku (Centella asiatica) - Apiaceae (Teliviki - Brain Tonic)

Dried plant is powdered along with Piper nigrum seeds in 10:1 ratio and a mixture of 2 to 3
Photo by the Author
Saramma, an expert in curing dog bite & snake bite
19
Root bark of Kasinatha (Cassia occidentalis) Caesalpiniaceae Enugukalu (Filariosis)

Photo by the Author
A spoonful of paste made with ghee is given twice a day and Mimosa pudica leaf paste is applied on the affected feet until relief is achieved.
Fruit rind of Dhanimma (Punica granatum), Punicacease, Alum and Camphor

An Yanadi woman with Madana Kameswari plant
(Rommulu gattipadataniki - Large, Hard breast) The fruit rind is made into paste with alum and camphor in 8:2 proportion. The paste is applied over the breast late in the evening and bandaged. The bandage is removed in the morning. This is repeated for a period of two weeks.
spoons of the powder and a glass of cows milk is given in the early morning. The Somala village is famous for this therapy.
Seeds of Sompu (Foeniculum vulgare), leaves of Tamala paku (Piper betel) and Honey (Recheekati - Night blindness)
All the plant parts in equal proportions are added with honey to make paste. The paste is kept in a clean bottle and the paste is applied on the eyes daily.
Nelausiri (Phyllanthus amarus) - Euphorbiaceae

Pasiricalaku (Jaundice) A spoonful of paste is given early in the morning on an empty stomach along with buttermilk. This is repeated, depending upon the condition of the patient, for a week or a fortnight.
Photo by the Author
Cotyledons of Gacchakai (Caesalpinia crista), roots of Reppala (Wrightia tinctoria) and seeds of Pokalu (Areca catechu) (Moorcha - Epilepsy)
The plant parts in equal proportion are mixed with old jaggery and made into paste with water. A soap nut size paste is given daily for a fortnight.
Stem bark of Tellamadhi (Terminalia arjuna) - Combretaceae

(Rakthapotuku -Hypertension) Bark decoction with milk is given to the patient in the early morning.
Kalluru, bone setting
Leaves of Saraswathi aku (Centella asiatica), dried rhizome of Allamu (Zingeber officinale) and fruits of Pipallu (Piper longum) (Clear Voice)
Leaves of Veduru (Bambusa arundinacea) - Graminae (To remove a dead child from the womb)
Leaf paste mixed with water is given to women for whom delivery becomes difficult leading to the death of the child in the womb.
The plant parts mixed in equal proportions are dried in shade and powdered. Half a spoonful of powder with honey is given for forty days.
Leaves of Banyan (Ficus bhengalensis)

(Healing wounds and binding damaged tissues) The tender leaves are warmed in fire and wrapped around the wound or any deep cut and then the wound or deep cut is bandaged.
Adavimalathi (Aganosma dichotoma) - Apocynaceae (Mutrasayamlo rallu - Stones in the urinary tract and bladder)
Root powder is given with milk in the early morning for a period of two weeks.
Latex of Banyan (Ficus bhengalensis) and fruit decoction of Myrobalan (Terminalia chebula)
(Healing wounds)
Tulasi (Ocimum sanctum) - Lamiaceae (Chali jwaram - Malaria)

A glass of root decoction is given twice a day to subside the malarial fever in 4 or 5 days.
Gurivinda (Abrus precatorius) - Fabaceae (Pandu rogam - Leucoderma)

Leaf juice is applied on the white patches and exposed to the sun for an hour. Within two to three months the white patches will disappear and turn into the colour of the skin.
The wound is washed with the Myrobalan fruit decoction and the entire wound is drenched with the latex obtained by cutting the new branches of Banyan tree. The fresh latex is poured on the wound by holding the cut branches on the wound. For noothi or chronic ulcer, the latex is taken internally daily in a prescribed quantity.
Ravi (Ficus religiosa) - Moraceae (Nallamanduku virugudu - drug addicts (Bhang and Opium)
Decoction of stem bark is given for relief.
Photo by the Author
Vayuvidangalu (Embelia ribes), fruits of Terminalia chebula, Terminalia bellerica, Emblica officinalis and latex of Calotropis gigantea
(Sanna jeevalu rakunda - To drive away rats, scorpions and mosquitoes) The plant parts are dried and powdered when the powder is burned its fume drives away mosquitoes, rats and scorpions.
Yanadi people on the way to plant and animal collection
20
GREEN HEALTH BOOM

Darshan Shankar A. V. Balasubramanian
Darshan Shankar is Director, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions, Bangalore. The author can be contacted at darshan.shankar@frlht.org.in A.V. Balasubramanian is Director, Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems, Chennai. The author can be contacted at ciks@vsnl.com
he words of a tribal song say: I love the forests, they keep me, my animals and my fields healthy . . . Biodiversity and health are intrinsically linked. This link can be clearly seen, firstly, if we understand the basics of biodiversity itself. A variety of life forms exist and flourish across diverse ecosystems: mountains, coasts, seas, forests, lakes and rivers, and so on. Millions of species of plants, animals and micro-organisms exist in a healthy way in their own natural habitats. Health is therefore implied in the very existence of biodiversity. From this simple yet powerful principle, flows an understanding of the relationship of biodiversity to human health. Biodiversity-based health traditions From 1986 to 1996, an All India Coordinated Research Project on Ethnobiology was carried out by the Department of Environment of the Indian government. This project concluded that tribal communities alone (who constitute only a small percentage of our population) use over 9,000 species of wild plants, of which the single largest use category - medicinal plants - number over 7,500 species. Besides this, 3,900 are for edible use, 700 for material and cultural requirements, 525 for fibre and cordage, 400 as fodder, 300 as pesticides, 300 as gums and dyes, and 100 as incense and perfume. There is a verse in the Ayurveda classic Charaka Samhita that explains how local communities understood and explored natures gift of medicinal plants: Yasmin deshe tu yo jaatah tasmin tajjoshadham hitam. Nature is so (benevolently) organised that it has provided every micro-environment, the natural resources (in the form of plants, animals and minerals) necessary for the typical health needs of the people living in that environment. Another tale from ancient texts is even more powerful. Punarvasu Atreya, the distinguished Ayurvedic Aachaarya had six disciples, namely, Agnivesha, Bhela, Jatukarna, Parasara, Haritha and Ksarapani. It is said that on one occasion, the Aachaarya assembled all his disciples and bid them to set forth in various different directions. Their task was to return with all the plants they encountered, that had no medicinal use. While five disciples came back with several plants, Agnivesha returned empty handed. He said that every single plant that he examined had some medicinal use. Agnivesha was thus considered the foremost disciple of Atreya.
While each of the six disciples prepared a compendium of Ayurveda, Agniveshas work is the most outstanding. It has been redacted by Charaka and then by Drdhabala, and is known today as the Charaka Samhita. At the folk level, in every ecosystem from the trans-Himalayas to the coast, local communities have keenly studied the medicinal plants found in their locality. Every 100 km or so, throughout the country, one can observe variation in ethnic names and use of local species, indicating the intimate and independent appraisal that local communities have made of their local resources. Striking illustrations of ecosystem knowledge include the Thakur tribals of coastal Maharashtra, who use over 500 species of plants, including 168 trees, 207 shrubs and herbs, 105 climbers and creepers, 13 grasses and 16 lower plants. Even in this day of increasing spread of allopathic medicines, there are hundreds of millions
Graphics by the Authors
Note: The outer box represents the total folk (e.g. tribal) usage, which is not necessarily codified into formal systems; the inner circles are of the formal systems.
of people in India who are dependent on biodiversity for their health needs (see Table). Indeed, the World Health Organisation estimates that four-fifths of the worlds population uses nature for a substantial part of its medicinal and health requirements. The distinctive health traditions of diverse communities in India, are partly based on the distinct ecological niches that different medicinal plants occupy. So for instance, plants like Aconitum violaceum and Rheum spiciforme, are found in the transHimalayan areas; Acacia senegal and Capparis decidua in
Folk medicine: a continuing tradition
Traditional Carrier Housewives and elders Traditional birth attendants Herbal healers Bone-setters
Graphics by the Authors
Subject/Usage Home remedies Food and nutrition Normal deliveries Common ailments Orthopaedics Natural poisons Eyes, Skin, Respiratory, Dental, Arthritis, Liver, Mental Diseases, GIT, Wounds, Fistula, Piles
Number of users* Millions 7 lakhs 3 lakhs 60,000 60,000 1000 in each area
Visha Vaidyas (Snake, scorpion, dog) Specialists
G R E E N H E A LT H B O O M
21
This article was originally published in The Hindu Sunday Folio dated May 20, 2001. We sincerely thank the Editor of The Hindu for giving us permission to print this article.
22
the desert regions of Rajasthan; water plants like Ipomoea aquatica in the Konkan areas of Maharashtra; Cassia fistula and Anogeissus latifolia in the deciduous forests of the Deccan; Capparis aphylla and Balanites roxburgii in the scrub jungles of Karnataka; Myristica malabarica and Vateria indica in the swamps of the western coast; Pandanus tectorius and Thespesia populnea in the coasts of Kerala; and so on. Nature has also situated bio-resources almost as if knowing what humans needed. To illustrate, Neem (Azadarichta indica), occurring in dry, arid and hot habitats, has cooling properties, ideally suited to correct the health imbalances that could occur in such environments. The plant Epedera vulgaris, occurring only in high altitudes, has a broncho-dilatory property, very useful in rarefied atmospheres. Traditional communities have used biodiversity not only to deal with the health needs of humans, but also those of livestock and for needs of crop plants in agriculture. And if one were to take a less human-centred attitude, one would realise that the diversity of life itself is a major component of the health of natural ecosystems, and in turn healthy ecosystems provide the conditions for plant and animal species to flourish. Though not very systematically documented, there is a clear relationship between biologically diverse agriculture, and human/livestock health. The most obvious link is nutrition; ask elders in any village, and they will tell you how their traditional diversity of food was so much more nutritious than what is available from the markets now. Across large parts of India (though there were also traditional pockets of malnutrition and under-nutrition), traditional agriculture provided a range of crops, livestock-related products, semi-wild species (such as shrimps and frogs in paddy fields), and other inputs (see article on Agricultural Biodiversity, in this issue). Various nutritional inputs needed by the human body, were provided by such a diversity of produce. With the change in agricultural systems to monocultural plantations, this diversity and the related nutrition are lost, and the replacements from the market do not necessarily make up for this. On top of this loss, the use of chemicals creates other health problems! Biodiversity loss, health and culture When biodiversity is destroyed or eroded, as is happening with alarming rapidity across the world, the health of ecosystems as a whole and of their individual members is affected. Health and biodiversity links are a sub-set of the larger relationship between biodiversity and cultural diversity, so the loss of cultural diversity in the face of the increasing spread of modern monocultural systems, also leads to a direct loss of peoples knowledge that relates biodiversity with health. The spread of the lure of allopathic medicine is so strong, that even in remote areas, villagers are beginning to prefer the pill and the injection over plant-based medicine. A cheap and locally available input is being replaced by an expensive, externally controlled one. This is not to say that all health problems can be tackled by local traditional health systems, or that biodiversity has the answer for all diseases, but simply that haphazard replacement of such systems by allopathic ones creates serious imbalances and loss of control.
Unfortunately, whereas there are many studies on the specific bio-resources used by ecosystem people for health needs, there are hardly any studies that have shown the epidemological effects on humans and other species, due to loss or disturbance of natural habitats. The economic value of such functions, and of medicinal plants, to human health and welfare, have also not been estimated. Take the example of just one use of one plant, the neem. Half a billion people still use neem branchlets as a toothbrush. To replace this with a commercially available toothbrush and toothpaste, they would have to spend about Re.1 each, per day per person. This means that the value of neem datuns alone is a billion rupees per day. Add to this the hundreds of other uses of neem, and its value would be magnitudes more than the medicinal exports of India. It is to be hoped that the new-found enthusiasm of the Indian government, illustrated in the setting up of a National Medicinal Plants Board, would encompass such studies and related action, though this is not yet clear from the mandate of the Board. It is in this context, that the ongoing National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) process (see Introductory essay) is attempting to bring back focus on the above issues. A specialist Thematic Working Group is drafting a national level action plan on Biodiversity and Health. At many of the State and substate levels at which the NBSAP process is being carried out, medicinal plants and health traditions, are a key focus. At Vidarbha, Maharashtra, for instance, a peoples health organisation is doing a series of consultations with villagers, government officials and NGOs, to prepare a plan to conserve the biodiversity of the region and thereby secure the livelihoods, health, and security of lakhs of villagers. Biodiversity, nutrition and health The link between biodiversity-based nutrition and health in dramatically illustrated in two examples. In the mid 1990s, the area Melghat region in eastern Maharashtra was rocked by a few hundred deaths of tribal children, caused by malnutrition during drought seasons. It was soon found that children inside the forests of the Melghat Tiger Reserve had a much smaller incidence of this than those outside, and that this was because they still had access to a diversity of forest foods (tubers, fruits, etc.) even when agriculture had failed. In the lush Biligiri Hills of Karnataka, doctors have found that Soliga tribals inside the Billigiri Ranganaswamy Temple Sanctuary have a much better health profile than their counterparts in the adjacent villages and towns, despite having much less access to modern health facilities. for instance, there was no instance of appendicitis, colonic cancers, sexual diseases, and other stress-induced illnesses. The reason, again, was access to a diversity of wild and semi-wild foods, and the natural surrounds in which they lived. The Soligas also use over 300 herbs for medicinal purposes.
Book Review
Emergent Structure. In order to understand the moment of articulation between medical and musical domains exemplified by healing A view of Temiar settlement ceremonies, Roseman has integrated theories from interpretative anthropology and performance theory with ethnomedicine and ethnomusicology. The ethnomedical approach, which studies how particular groups of people conceptualise and deal with the concept of health and illness, facilitated Roseman to say that illness experiences, practicener-patient transaction and the healing process are sociocultural phenomena, constituting the health care system, a cultural system integrating interrelated with local patterns of meaning, power, and social interaction. For the Temiars, the relationship between the detachable souls among humans (head and heart souls), plants (leaf and root souls), animals (upper and lower souls), and landforms (such as summit and underground souls of mountains) enables dream and trance encounters, promoting song composition and precipitating illness. A major technique of healing involves singing/ trance-dancing ceremonies in which mediums sing tunes and texts given to them during dream by spiritguides. They conceptualise the concept of illness in terms of the path in the jungle, that is, a lost or waylaid detached head soul can cause illness is similar to getting lost or losing paths can be fatal for a person. During the ceremonial singing as a treatment, the lost soul should be shown the right path and led it back home. This symbolic power of the image of the path arises from their daily travel along land and river routes running through the jungle and settlement. It is believed that the souls of other entities can meet the detachable soul of the dreamer and can express their desire to become the dreamers spiritguide. This is confirmed through the bestowal of a song from the spiritguide to the dreamer. The ceremonial performance links the person and spiritguide, which transforms the dreamer into a medium for the spirits to diagnose and treat illness. The Temiar songs are considered paths that link mediums, female chorus members, trance-dancers, and patients with the spirits of the jungle and the settlement. Even the treatment of less serious cases, which occurs outside the ceremonial A Temiar man stands as medium context, involves singing by the medium.
MUSIC AND MEDICINE
THE OVERLAPPING DOMAINS OF MUSIC AND MEDICINE

Healing Sounds from the Malaysian Rainforest: Temiar Music and Medicine by Marina Roseman (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1993. pages xviii + 234) M. Ramakrishnan is Programme Officer for Publications at the National Folklore Support Centre.
his thought provoking ethnomusicological research of Marina Roseman, Professor of Music and of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, delineates the role of sound in the healing performances of Temiar, an ethnic community living in the Malaysian rainforest. This study is an outcome of Roseman twenty-month field research s among the Temiars of Ulu Kelantan between 1981 and 1982. During her stay in the field she has observed, recorded and participated in numerous singing and trance-dancing ceremonies. The Temiar community belongs to the Senoi ethnic division of the Aboriginal Orang Asli of peninsular Malaysia. The Temiars speak the Austroasiatic, Mon-Khmer language of Central Aslian stock. Living in small settlements of 25 to 150 inhabitants along the five major rivers, they are basically horticulturalists who cultivate tapioca, hill rice, maize, millet, and other crops. They also hunt, fish, gather jungle products for their own use and also for exchange. The relatively egalitarian Temiars live in the agamous type of villages, that is, the inhabitants are allowed to marry within or outside the village group. Marriage or kinship links the villages that consist of extended families with a core sibling group. Generally, the elders of the core sibling group play a major role as village leaders. Roseman points out that some of them even today receive additional sanction as headman from the Department of Orang Asli Affairs. The economic system practised by the Temiars allows for generalised reciprocity in which food, manufactured implements, and labour are given to others with the expectation that other members will be equally generous in the future. Through her research Roseman has explored not only the articulation between the Temiar concept of illness and their strategies of diagnosis and treatment but also the indigenous ideas about musical composition, performance. For her, the healing performances provided an entry point into the domain of Temiar illness and well-being, letting performance acts and native exegesis. It also helped her to understand the relations between humans and the rainforest environment, as well as the relationship of the self with society and cosmos. Roseman has analysed the ceremonial performances of Temiars in terms of Symbolic Structure, Value Structure, Role Structure, and
23
Indian Folklife Regd. No. R.N. TNENG / 2001 / 5251 ISSN 0972-6470
REVI EW BOOKS
The Kalevala and the Worlds Traditional Epics Edited by Lauri Honko Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society 2002, Pages 488 ISBN 951-746- 422-3
Tamil Nattuppuraviyal Ayvin Varalaru

(History of Tamil Folklore Research)
A. Pitchai Chennai: IITS 2003, Pages viii + 200
Ploughshares of Gods: Ladakh... (Vol. 1) Sanyukta Koshal New Delhi: Om Publications 2001, Pages xxiv +644 ISBN 81-86867-46-5
The Tantra: Its Origin, Theories, Art and Diffusion... Victor M. Fic New Delhi: Abhinav Publications 2003, Pages 144 ISBN 81-7017-424-4
The Performance of Healing Edited by Carol Laderman & Marina Roseman New York, London: Routledge 1996, Pages vi + 330 ISBN 0-415-91200-8
From Majapahit and Sukuh to Megawati Sukarnoputri Victor M. Fic New Delhi: Abhinav Publications 2003, Pages 360 ISBN 81-7017-404-X
Changing Tribal Life Edited by Padmaja Sen New Delhi: Concept Publishers 2003, Pages xiv + 142 ISBN 81-8069-023-7
Chanted Narratives: The Living Katha-Vachana Tradition Edited by Molly Kaushal New Delhi: IGNCA & D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd 2001, Pages 290 ISBN 81-246-0182-8
To review the above titles the potential reviewers may contact the Editor
Published by M.D. Muthukumaraswamy for National Folklore Support Centre, No.7, Fifth Cross Street, Rajalakshmi Nagar, Velachery, Chennai - 600 042 (India), and printed by M.S. Raju Seshadrinathan at Nagaraj and Company Pvt. Ltd., # 22 (153-A), Kalki Krishnamurthy Salai, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai 600 041, (For free private circulation only). Editor: M.D. Muthukumaraswamy
24

Indian Folklife: Folk Medicine and Biodiversity

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Исходное описание:

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Indian Folklife: Folk Medicine and Biodiversity

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

I

BHAISHAJYAGURU, THE BUDDHA OF MEDICINE

Director, Rupayan Sansthan, Folklore Institute of Rajasthan, Jodhpur, Rajasthan

B-1002, Rushin Tower, Behind Someshwar 2, Satellite Road, Ahmedabad

N. Bhakthavathsala Reddy Dadi D. Pudumjee

Deborah Thiagarajan Jyotindra Jain

Executive Director, Madhyam, Bangalore

Director, Centre for Development Research and Training, Chennai

Y. A. Sudhakar Reddy Veenapani Chawla

EXECUTIVE TRUSTEE AND DIRECTOR

REGIONAL RESOURCE PERSONS

INDIAN FOLKLIFE EDITORIAL TEAM

Volunteer (Research Project)

LIGHTING A YERCUM FIBRE WICK

Courtesy: The Hindu Folio, October 8, 2000

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003

DOHADA (PREGNANCY CRAVINGS)*

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE EROSION

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE EROSION

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003

Sl.NO. BOTANICAL NAMES

Bhogar instructs Siddhars

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TAMIL SIDDHAS

Kalangi Nathar teaches Bhogar Siddhar

they can live forever.

Courtesy: Victor M. Fics The Tantra (2003)

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003

taught to be part of her inner savouring.

FOLK MEDICINAL WISDOM OF CHITTOOR DISTRICT, ANDHRA PRADESH

Medicine for Emukalu virigithe - Bone fracture

Jatamansi - (Nardostachys jatamansi) Valerianaceae (Gundello nemmu Pneumonia)

Saraswathi aku (Centella asiatica) - Apiaceae (Teliviki - Brain Tonic)

Photo by the Author

Saramma, an expert in curing dog bite & snake bite

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TAMIL SIDDHAS

Root bark of Kasinatha (Cassia occidentalis) Caesalpiniaceae Enugukalu (Filariosis)

Fruit rind of Dhanimma (Punica granatum), Punicacease, Alum and Camphor

Nelausiri (Phyllanthus amarus) - Euphorbiaceae

Photo by the Author

Stem bark of Tellamadhi (Terminalia arjuna) - Combretaceae

Kalluru, bone setting

Leaves of Banyan (Ficus bhengalensis)

Tulasi (Ocimum sanctum) - Lamiaceae (Chali jwaram - Malaria)

Gurivinda (Abrus precatorius) - Fabaceae (Pandu rogam - Leucoderma)

Yanadi people on the way to plant and animal collection

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003

GREEN HEALTH BOOM

Graphics by the Authors

Visha Vaidyas (Snake, scorpion, dog) Specialists

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003

THE OVERLAPPING DOMAINS OF MUSIC AND MEDICINE

Tamil Nattuppuraviyal Ayvin Varalaru

A. Pitchai Chennai: IITS 2003, Pages viii + 200

INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 SERIAL NO. 13 ISSUE 4 APRIL-JUNE 2003

Вам также может понравиться