Last week I focused on the link between education and heritage, where our rational and practical connectedness with nation’s intangible cultural heritage, of ancient medical history was briefly analysed. Having attended several conferences discussing topics such as Sri Lanka’s leveraging potential in these times of pandemic and the country’s capacity for opportunity, impact and the creation of awareness, regrettably, none looked at how Sri Lanka’s ancient medical heritage, carried forward by some 30,000 traditional physicians with an additional number of Ayurveda doctors, could be used to create a niche for Sri Lanka and control this pandemic its own way.
In the forums looking at the Covid-19 challenges and Sri Lanka’s competitive advantage within the international sphere if Sri Lanka’s unused traditional medicine potential – the potential of Lankan Ayurveda or Deshiya Chikitsa (Sinhala Wedakama) was ever discussed, it was often through the Western lens and the scope is great here to include actual indigenous practitioners (our Wedamahattayas) in these conferences.
Post-colonial influence
What does this say about us? What is explicitly clear is that seven decades of post-colonial influenced education system has taught us to consider our ancient medical lineage as ‘primitive’ or ‘non scientific’, although it nurtured our nation and its people for thousands of years.
Until the very young western science took over as the new global master of health and created the billion dollar profit making medical industry formed by western business tycoons, Sri Lanka, the country that boasts the world’s first public hospital in ‘Mihinthale’ was well known for its unique medical expertise.
Even Robert Knox writing in his book An Historical Relation of Ceylon has praised the health system of the country, declaring that every Lankan was akin to a physician in the level of knowledge of the traditional medical expertise.
However, we have since digressed, plummeted from a self-sufficient backdrop to being a country clueless of protecting and transferring ancient knowledge to younger generations.
Our school system also seems killing whatever dregs of this knowledge that the villages may yet hold. We teach our children to condemn and be skeptical of our indigenous practices. We teach them that there is only once ‘science’ the dominant science of the modern world, the Western science.
It is here that we can compare and contrast our pre- colonial and post colonial divide and link it to the general ‘education system’ as we know it today. How different are the values and connectedness with our tradition that our education system displays today when compared with our past?
Fruit of research
It is today’s child that is tomorrow’s adult. It is necessary to understand that for ten months we failed to create a simple system through which a traditional physician who has researched into this strange Covid-19 virus and come up with a possible ‘wattoru’ (list of ingredients) made into curative and preventive treatments without hassle or trauma be accorded a chance to test his efforts on volunteer Covid-19 patients at quarantine centres or hospitals. If we had started this last March, we could have been where counties such as China and India are today, exporting the fruit of their research in the form of vaccines to the rest of the world.
Two weeks ago I wrote about a Sri Lankan traditional physician who is also a Systems Engineer who has created a fully herb based vaccine equivalent to be administered on the tongue. He is now being wooed by several countries which are negotiating to purchase his treatment. The difference between us and these countries that are currently seemingly above us in their medical expertise, is confidence, will power and hard work. We have strongly pitched into the idea that the Corona virus is not something that our traditional physicians can comprehend and that such an option is the prerogative of ‘other countries’ by ‘other scientists.’
As far as I am aware, by now at least 37 traditional physicians have submitted their samples of Covid-19 cures out of which the treatments of at least five physicians are in the process of being cleared by authorities to be used as immunity boosting food supplements.
These are treatments using diverse herb combinations, based on the Vatha, Pitha, Kapha theory and choosing ingredients given for the most suitable Corona like condition that first attacks the lungs and then the immune system. If we had a speedier process for clearing these as medications we could have by now authorised our own Lankan products for handling this pandemic and thereby created a pathway for our physicians to be widely recognised internationally.
Curative treatments
Hence we could authentically talk about mitigation, empowerment and opportunities through Covid-19. Some of these Lankan physicians coming up with curative treatments for Covid-19 are those who have successfully treated Dengue for which there is no western medicinal solution. In the current health challenge these physicians have already treated many patients, both Covid-19 infected and those exposed to infection (who have chosen these treatments in their independent capacity). Interestingly, some of the consumers requesting these treatments include Lankan western medical professionals, as was very reliably learnt.
The vacuum faced in Sri Lanka is an institutionalised system to give the same level of respect to the research skills of our traditional physicians as we would give our allopathic scientists of the western medical system in times of this national health challenge.
Although Covid-19 was a major monster to western scientists and a major boon to vaccine making companies, to our traditional physicians, it was only a chance to re-enact solutions to modern health problems using ancient methods and mostly combinations of commonly available herbs.
Many people comparing Sri Lanka’s and India’s system of Ayurveda agree, that there are many ways Sri Lanka’s traditional medicine stand out as unique. Hence we have generally failed to make it a success story in a wide scale in Sri Lanka to justify the showcasing of it to the world.
The view that traditional medicine or indigenous medical system is not scientific, originates from the colonists, the British in particular, who went on a rampage destroying diverse forms of our indigenous knowledge. Last week I argued that what is urgently required is incorporating into our education system the simplicity and pragmatism of our heritage skills and values many of which colonisation, neo-liberalisation and globalisation have almost fully annihilated. This should have been our priority 73 years ago when we obtained freedom from the British.
Cultural heritage
If we had done this, we could have avoided the danger of creating adults who will value and cherish the knowledge and views alien to our heritage. It is learnt that Sri Lanka is currently looking at initiating far reaching education reforms to deviate from an exam centric system and to formulate a meaningful education system that will complement the concept of a healthy and happy family. If this is indeed the case, one of the foremost things is to allow children as much time to bond with their cultural heritage and make teachers emotionally linked with their indigenous knowledge so that they could teach it inspiringly.
One cannot continue with an education system that merely sends youth in their droves to other countries, this is exactly what is happening today, euphemistically called the ‘brain drain.’
English is a universal language. It should be taught through the route of Lanka’s traditional knowledge. This means that English could be used as a vehicle to transport young minds the very useful intangible cultural heritage knowledge of our nation, tracing back to the ancient Sinhala civilisation. For example, the entire traditional knowledge of Ath Beheth could be taught in English to primary and secondary school students.The inclusion of a separate subject themed heritage into the education system is worth looking into as a cure for many ills of the country.
Last week speaking to a 24 year old who was about to leave for UK for higher studies (getting into immense debt to do so) I asked her how she found her international school education, she replied that most of what was taught revolved around European history. I asked her if she knew about Sri Lankan Kings and she responded ‘not really’. It was her manner more that her response that was striking.
Poverty
It could be argued that Sri Lanka faced no poverty until the concept of private property was introduced by the Colonisers and food was made a commodity. We today have land as a luxury that few could afford and how we traditionally looked at the model of self sufficiency has been dug out of our minds and along with the tradition of cultivating what we need to consume.
Clay, a wonderful sustainable alternative to construction has not been seriously considered and is dismissed as a symbol of poverty.
Yet while we talk of sustainable development we merely ape western nations in doing so, without admitting that our entire heritage knowledge was a tapestry of the sustainable. How much of ‘poverty’ as we know it could be eliminated if we practically used our traditional values, lifestyle and knowledge?
NCDs
Our post colonial penchant to trust without question any knowledge by the West, in this example namely chemical agriculture of Green Revolution fame is the root of the Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) pandemic that we cannot ward off with masks (although most of the current Covid-19 deaths are the actual result of NCDs although the media has not pondered on it).
As a result of embracing the weedicide and pesticide industry, we have wiped out our resilient traditional seed varieties and worse still, we are taught to see some of them as invasive species. Lamentably agriculture in Sri Lanka is synonymous with chemical agriculture that is killing us, our soil and our bio diversity. Our ancient methods of dealing with the many creatures of this planet who also are nurtured by our crops, without killing them, the soil and us are now forgotten.
The soil of our nation has been made sicker than us. Large percentages of our indigenous, medicinal and vegetative plants are now extinct. The next generations will never learn about these plants. Our youth or young adults are least bit concerned about the need to conserve our indigenous plant species and salvage the last of our traditional seed varieties.
Every ill that Sri Lanka faces begins and ends with the mechanical learning system that was initiated to suit the western industrial system and make us all pawns of that machine. We are not using education to integrate into our national identity and heritage to solve our problems. We cannot solve any problem as long as our rootless nature remains the biggest problem. This has to be understood when we are changing our education structure.
Man elephant conflict
We are far away from nature that we have forgotten that animals such as elephants which cohabited with us in large numbers when Sri Lanka was largely forested territory, need their own habitat, food and water just like us. We have encroached into their territory, cut the trees, sapped the water from the earth and when these creatures invade into our villages walking through areas which once were forests and nearly dying of thirst; we fail to see that we are the primary invaders.
We are so clueless about our traditional knowledge that we use electric fences and guns on these elephants, we do not know that our ancestors had a vast level of knowledge that ranged from the use of diverse mantras to cultivating specific plant species to control elephant invasion into villages. The many smaller water tanks of the villages gave ample sustenance to man and elephant alike.