‘Ayurveda in peril of injurious imitation’

Inaugurating the conference, Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wodeyar, former maharaja of Mysore, said it was high time effective steps were taken to stop unqualified practitioners from cashing in on the popularity of ayurveda.

Speakers at the conference were unanimous in their views that Western governments, which create barriers for selling genuine ayurveda products, allow proliferation of ayurveda practitioners after only two weeks of training, when genuine qualification requires five to six years of training.

Stressing that the potential for growth of ayurveda world-wide was enormous, Dr Rama Prasad Raghavan, chairman of Agastya Education Foundation, Bangalore, said: ‘‘Information technology will pale into insignificance if ayurveda realises its full potential.’’

For that purpose, he said, there is an immediate need to create a ‘‘global ayurveda watch’’ which could among other things take legal action against charlatans who misuse the system for making a quick buck.

In a message to the conference, V.R. Krishna Iyer, former Supreme Court judge, said: ‘‘We are faced with the great menace of western dilution of ayurveda, our pristine indigenous system descended from the sages and over the ages.

The system is in peril of population dilution and injurious imitation.’’ Iyer said ‘‘the West robs from India, takes dubious patents, deviating from the original from the pharmacopiea, and gluts the market with inferior stuff highly publicised to hoodwink the consumer.’’

The message of the conference was — it does not matter who practices ayurveda whether it be American, English, French, Chinese and Arabian, they must be qualified to do so. (PTI)