Arya Vaida Sala might have been a bust, but I was optimistic about my plan to meet with a doctor I will call Dr. Rajah (Malalayam for “king”), a well known and highly regarded doctor of Ayurveda in northern Kerala. I had recently become acquainted with his wife, also a physician, who recommended his treatment protocol for hypertension after I turned to her for guidance when Arya Vaida Sala didn’t work out. Dr. Rajah held a PhD in Ayurvedic medicine, was on the faculty at a medical college of Ayurveda, and had just published a book on evidence-based approaches to curing diseases using modern medical practices coupled with Ayurvedic treatments.
That interweaving between modern medical science and the centuries-old science of Ayurveda composes the curriculum in Ayurvedic colleges in India, which is not something I fully understood before coming here. Unlike the schools of Ayurveda that have been established in the United States, Europe, and other countries that are catching on to (or cashing in on) the rising trend of Ayurveda worldwide, schools in India require a much more in-depth understanding of what is taught in Western medical schools.
Just to be admitted to the BAMS (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine & Surgery) undergraduate program, high school students must complete standard pre-med classes such as chemistry, physics, and biology, before leaving grade 12. Once admitted to a BAMS program, the course of study spans 4-½ years and is followed by a 1-year internship. During the academic years, students study anatomy, physiology, and the history of Ayurveda, but also toxicology, pharmacology, surgery, ENT, skin, obstetrics and gynecology.
Once graduated, the doctors can use the title Vaidyar (abbreviated Vr.), the classic term for physician, before their names and are able to do many of the things we see Western doctors do, like write prescriptions for allopathic medications and even perform minor surgery. Following the BAMS degrees, doctors can go on to earn a PhD, such as Dr. Rajah held, which certified specialization in one of many subject areas such as general medicine or pharmacology. Understanding Dr. Rajah’s qualifications, I knew I was going to an expert in the field whose personal philosophy to target diseases with the minimal amount of medicine was one I respected.
In the interim before I arrived in the small (by Indian standards, at least) coastal town a couple hours northwest of Kottakal where Dr. Rajah practiced, I had tapered off all my blood pressure medication, so I was anxious to be under a doctor’s care. When I arrived at my appointment the evening of my first day, Dr. Rajah was with another patient in the modest treatment room built on the porch of his rambling Keralan home on the outskirts of town, so I sat on the porch to wait and passed the time watching birds swooping down through palm trees to catch twilight dinner in the idyllic yard surrounding the house.
After his patient left, he greeted me warmly and showed me in to his office. He took my blood pressure, which showed a diastolic in the mid 90’s, asked me some preliminary questions, and then sent me to a nearby medical lab to get some standard blood work and liver function tests performed. I was happy that he had ordered tests before even talking about treatment; it showed me that he wanted to gain a full understanding of my physical condition before throwing a bunch of herbs at me and talking about panchakarma, which I’d come to understand he recommended for only a very small number of his patients. He also never asked me about any of my eating habits, looked at my tongue, or performed any of the standard intake questions I’d come to associate with an Ayurvedic intake.
Nor did he perform any of those examinations the next morning when I went back for my follow-up appointment. I came to understand during the course of our next few appointments that my disorder was indicative of the underlying imbalance, and it didn’t matter what my dosha makeup was or its role in predisposing me to having the blood pressure issue. It was enough that I had it, and the treatment was standard regardless of what my tongue looked like or how my body was structured.
But what gave me the most confidence that I was with a true healer instead of a salesman was that when I asked what I owed him the next morning, he seemed almost puzzled for a moment, but then answered, “Oh, nothing, this is just consultation. For the main treatment, it will be the standard cost of 5000 rs.” That’s about $75, or what a couple of days in a panchakarma center would have cost me. I skipped out of his office feeling like I was on the right path, or at least one that wouldn’t cost me thousands to travel down.
