G L Krishna

Kewal Krishna Thakral, a senior ayurvedic doctor from Uttar Pradesh, was awarded the Padma Shri by the President of India last week. He was given the award for his contributions to Shalya Tantra (ayurvedic surgery). Official communications from the Ministry of Ayush and Rashtrapati Bhavan have highlighted his work on karna vyadhana (ear-piercing) in the management of bronchial asthma.

Ear-piercing as a treatment modality for bronchial asthma has no basis in the ayurveda classics. Sushruta-Samhita, on which ayurvedic surgery is based, devotes a full chapter to ear-piercing but does not link it to the treatment for bronchial asthma. Not a single trial that tested this treatment rigorously has been published in any peer-reviewed journal either. Dr. Thakral himself appears to have written a note on the subject in Sachitr Ayurved in 1991.

The central premise behind recognising ayurveda as a medical system in its own right is that the ayurvedic classics, when approached scientifically, can serve as a  repertoire of researchable, if not usable, information related to both health promotion and illness management. But here is a treatment – backed neither by the ayurvedic classics nor by current research – being implicitly endorsed by the government at the national level. Had the treatment appeared really promising, the Ayush Ministry should have instituted a proper study under the guidance of ayurvedic doctors, paediatricians, and surgeons. After all, the budgetary allocation for Ayush has been rising in recent years. The government has instead chosen to nationally tom-tom a treatment that is strange and utterly unproven. Dr. Thakral might well be deserving of the award for his broader contributions, but his ‘innovation’ needs pariksha (investigation) before getting endorsed as a siddha–upakrama (proven treatment).

Both Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita, the foundational texts of ayurveda that date back the first millennium BCE, stress that a conclusion can be deemed final (siddhanta) only if it rests on a rational analysis of verified experience. Sushruta explains that the treatments he recommends are reliable not merely because they have proven effective in his own observation (pratyaksha phala-darshana), but because they carry the endorsement of the collective wisdom and consensus of the learned community (aagama-siddhatva). This represents perhaps the earliest explicit recognition of peer review as an essential mechanism for generating and validating medical knowledge. Those who claim to work for the cause of traditional knowledge systems must pay heed to Sushruta’s wise approach.

G L Krishna is an ayurvedic physician and researcher. He is currently associated with the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru. Email: krishnagl@ncbs.res.in

Views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of Confluence, its editorial board or the Academy.