Between mortality and moksh

(This article is a part of the web-exclusive series from our latest issue 'At the cost of health'. More from the print quarterly here.)

In recent educational discourse in India, advancements in science and technology have been appropriated in an attempt to aggrandise the idea of India through its supposed achievements – few real and many imagined. The idea of ancients working with nuclear and genetic technologies is wishful thinking, but other claims seem more probable. Scholars have repeatedly lamented this re-imagination of the histories of Indian society and their progress, emerging from land that roughly falls within the borders of modern, independent India. They suggest that such fanciful endeavours gloss over actual Indian achievements, ideologies and knowledge streams.

It is through this lens that we must view 'Tabiyat: Medicine & Healing in India', at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) – an exhibition that seeks to explore the history of medicine and wellness-seeking behaviour in India. Produced by The Wellcome Trust, a biomedical research charity based in the UK, 'Tabiyat' is part of their three-city event called 'Medicine Corner', which explores medical practices and healing within the multiple cultures that make up India. According to curator, Ratan Vaswani, 'Tabiyat' looks at various cultural ideas of medicine over time. The exhibits are divided into quarters that go beyond specific schools or stream of medicine. Rather, it is based on segregations that suggest a larger societal mindset when it comes to dealing with illness and misfortune. For Vaswani, these quarters represent locations within which certain transactions of healing are carried out: 'The Home', 'The Shrine', 'The Clinic' and 'The Street'. But besides these broad categorisations, the exhibition lacks the curatorial initiative to contextualise each artefact within the larger narrative of medicine and healing in the Subcontinent. This lack of curatorial guidance was only partly mitigated by the exhibition walk-through lead by Vaswani, on request. Near the entrance are exhibits which suggest that Ayurveda, as Indian knowledge-system, was hugely affected by Buddhist traditions. On one side of this entrance area are the 'Home' and 'Shrine' sections, which seek to document health in the context of communities superstitions, and lifestyle improvements over the ages. While the 'Home' exhibits include a table of auxiliary hygiene implements, and action figures performing Yoga, the 'Shrine' displays items of belief including an elaborate taveez (charm to ward of the evil-eye), votive offerings for good fortune and so on. On the other side of the entry lies the more 'scientific' or commercially-oriented sections. The 'Clinic' examines scientific treatises, philosophies and methods, while the 'Street' section displays objects pertaining to traditional remedies and skills (ear cleaners!), which are bartered for a livelihood.