Historicizing Ayurveda: Genealogies of the Biomoral

Abstract

Over the course of ancient and post-classical Indian history, ‘Ayurveda’ evolved from a textual term for the knowledge of life into a medical tradition with a literary canon, recognized health practices, and practitioners asserting their expertise and expecting elevated social status. The pre-colonial development of Ayurveda reflected a holistic approach to the natural world, uniting beliefs about the physical structure of matter with metaphysical and religious insights. In Ayurvedic texts, medicine is closely associated with philosophy and ethics; similarly, medical practice was located within a wider context of ritual and social behaviour. Ayurveda gained coherence and influence as a collection of medical practices that were in harmony with, and indeed reinforced, both Sanskritic learning and the structure of the Indic societies that sustained it.