The Legendary Ashtavaidyas, healers of humanity | Dr. Narayanan Nambi

Hello and namaskaram.

I am Salila Sukumaran, the founder of AyurGamaya, an Ayurveda wellness concierge based in Mountain View, California.

You are listening to the AyurGamaya podcast.

Through these conversations with great karma yogis of Ayurveda, yoga, and other Vedic sciences, I wish to bring to you the treasures of India. If you are a beginner, my mission is to help you develop appreciation. If you are a practitioner, my goal is for you to become confident torchbearers of our immense legacy.

May the gods and the gurus bless you.

Today my guest is Dr. Nambi, who is one of the leading figures in Ayurveda. He is a teacher, clinician, and researcher He represents the rich ancestry of Ashtavadhyas, the greatest traditional medical family in India, having centuries-old lineage. Dr. Nambi is the director of the academic division of the SNA Aushadha Shala Private Limited, founded by Ashtavadhyin Trishur Tayyekartamoos in 1902. He is actively involved in Ayurveda higher education in Europe and Australia. Dr. Nambi is a faculty member of Ayurvedic Point Italy, European Academy of Ayurveda Germany, European Institute of Vedic Studies France, Equals Internationals Australia, etc., to name a few.

Dr. Nambi, it is such an honor and a pleasure to have you on the Ayurgameya podcast. We are excited to hear and learn more about the Ashtavaidyas of Kerala from you. You are from the illustrious Ashtavaidya lineage. Please explain to the listeners who Ashtavaidyas are.

So far Kerala is concerned, it is said to be mythologically, it is said to be the land of Parashurama, one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu. And it is said that when he killed lot of Kshatriyas as a part of some issues in the life, he decided to convert the whole land of Kerala to a domestic land rather than a forest. If you look at the Kerala, which is having nearly 60 kilometers of width and around 600 kilometers of length in the western part of the Western Ghats, this was completely forest for a period of maybe few thousand years before, we don't know, and The Lord Parashurama converted the whole land into a domestic land, brought the best people from other part of the country to keep a— maybe keeping an idea of having a close class clusters to grow a unique generation based on his vision. Anyhow, historically it is said that the whole land has been divided into 33 villages called in Kerala as grama. Like a gramam is like nowadays like a province, like a province. And out of which 18 provinces were being Malayalam speaking and another 18 was Tulu, which was the Karnataka side language speaking. And these 18 villages expected to be completely self-independent in all perspective, in terms of finance, in terms of health, in terms of education, in all the real society needs. Based on that, of course, maybe that time the population may be 5,000 to 10,000, but the fact is that he had that wonderful idea to keep the people self-independent in that area. So to keep that idea alive, he assigned a duty of each family to take as a stakeholder of a certain profession. So one of the profession was medical profession, that was the vaidya. One was the astrology, the Jyotisham. One was the Vastu Shastra, from the archaeological, architectural perspective. Like that, even archery, music, and many things was extended. So there are 18 villages. So 18 villages had at least one family to look after the health of that people, totally free, because it'd be funded by the small king who is ruling there. And that family is assigned to observe people, what their health problem is, and try to heal. So these 18 families, at least less than, not less than 5,000 years, these families are called Ashtadasha Vaidyas. There are 18 families, so in Sanskrit is called Ashtadasha, 18 families. They continued as a lineage from centuries and centuries. They looking at the nature, they evolved their tradition, they started writing books.

There are many things happened.

And at the beginning of 7th century, one of the important personality called Vagbhadra, who traveled from Kashmir, Sindhu Desham, as a propagation of Buddhism. He traveled towards the South India and arrived into Kerala, settled for some period near a place called Chertala near Alleppey. And he already had written, already written about an Ayurvedic book called Ashtanga Sangraham. But it was very surprising for him to see that Kerala was really a little bit isolated from the rest part of India, but they have a wonderful tradition of utilizing the herbal medical system in a very practical way. So he was very surprised. So he realizes to rewrite his book, which is called Ashtanga Hridayam, and all the 18 families' people try to follow this book because it was one of the updated version from— you have a Pragritic tradition and a Sanskritic tradition because he written a book based on the codified systems of knowledge and these people who are surviving here were having a Pragritic knowledge that means like a folk practitioner who for whom the nature itself is the teacher.

Right.

So there is a merging of both system, one is a codified system where it's a natural system happened and these 18 family people become the Ashtavaidyas because the name of the book Ashtanga Hridaya. So this family become Ashtavaidyas.

Amazing, amazing. I did not know that Vagbhata actually condensed his Sangraha into the Hridaya after meeting the 18 families. Yes, that is a key information. So I was studying some of the research by Dr. Indudharan Menon and Dr. Anamasa Puric. And based on their research about the Ayurveda lineage, they were saying that the Ayurvedas came from various cultural and social backgrounds. Some of them were Jain, Buddhist, Vedic, and other folk healing traditionalists. Is that true in your also understanding of this history?

Absolutely. As you know, when Buddhism started diffusing, there already had some other cultures. So Buddhism, Jainism, the specialty of Kerala was that they were very happy to receive any new ideas, new cultures, new opinions, always. So even today, if you look at the cross-section of Kerala, Kerala has the oldest church in India. Yes, Kerala Christians are the oldest Christianity surviving in India, even much older than the Roman Christians. Roman recognized Christianity only after the 400 years after Jesus Christ, where we had at the time of AD 50, Thomas Leha arrived and the whole history is different. So like that, Kerala is a very, what do you say, like an open frame for people to come inside with multiple reasons. They can exchange knowledge. And that, that is also the right time where the different philosophical thoughts were there— Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism. Of course, Hinduism not a religion, but as a framework of, framework of living. Even that was almost the same period where Shankaracharya was also there. The same Bhagavad Gita and Shankaracharya period was almost similar, same period. So what is the uniqueness of these people were there? They were very keen to look after the health as a component, very essentially needed, and through which they're trying to see people's culture, lifestyle, and how to make them to be tuned with nature. I should say that probably this is the oldest perception they had was that we should have an idea of one health than the just opposite of the Western bioscience model where we are, we have some health and rest everything controlled by us. But whereas in the whole traditional cultures, everything was that atma vat sadhadam basyed, kida liuda bibhili kam. So you take atma vat, You believe that they also having some atma. They also like us. Ita luta pipitikam. So it's a small insect. Everything you can take, consider as like that. So that was the great vision. Probably they imbibed from the nature and continuously survived.

Amazing. Yes, it is a unique Vedic way of thinking that all matter has consciousness and You know, even medicine has consciousness and it can heal us because of the connection between our consciousness. Would you please explain to us how the Ayurveda healers were traditionally prepared for their role as physicians?

You mean how in every family, how they bring up their children to the lineage? Okay. As you know, like a musician Children will be hearing the shruti from the childhood, as just like any musician will hear the shruti from the childhood, or a carpenter's son will be knowing how to— from very childhood they do. All this family, the children had a great opportunity to see patients, see medicine, pharmaceutical things, also look at the book. Maybe in the next session. By and large, the basic thing what they try to communicate is how to look at the patient. Let me give you a personal example. When I was 7 or 8 years, my father used to pull me to sit inside a clinical consultation room to write the prescription. It was a little bit actually irritating to me at that time because when I go out and I want to play with my friends But he pulled me inside in the consultation room, sit along with him to write the prescription what he says, which was in Malayalam way. But many times, you know, at the age of 6 or 7, you may have a lot of spelling mistakes. Like if you write Shadhaaranam, we don't know which da like that. But the purpose at that time was, which I realized when I joined in Ayurvedic college, that the purpose at that time was that when we are a small child, we have a strong inner way of observing things. You know, children can mimic parents, children can observe very minute things. So I was observing when I have been called inside a consultation room in presence of Father. Some patient may be crying with pain, some may be touching the feet of my Father, taking blessings that they had the child after 5 years, they had a baby. Some, sometimes they bring some sweets because they had a new baby. Sometimes they, they, they do a varieties of expression. Even sometimes some people may little bit irritated after hearing all the pathyas, the diet restrictions, recommendations from the Vaidya. So this was a very different experience to me at that time, and I was trying to understand what is happening, why these people are communicating to my father in this way. And I was observing what this prescription is. Of course, at the age of 7 and all, I don't know anything about this product, but he was unknowingly injecting things in such a way that I could able to connect what I've seen with the prescription. After many years when he started— this is the initial induction which I do to my children also now. Then parallelly, we get exposed to the pharmaceutical things, you know, preparing kashaya powders or this type of Ayurvedic pharmaceutical form, which is very interesting because to smell different herbs or to drink some arishta could be very, very fascinating when we are children. But more than that, it was creating a sense of closeness something very important. I still remember, you know, when patients touch the Father's feet and how they show their respect to them. This gives a lot of great message unknowingly that I could be a vaidya in my future. You know, nowadays if I say to my child, you see, this is a very promising profession, like that, blah blah blah, he never takes into consideration. I can be, I can understand. Because if instead of that, if we demonstrate to the child, okay, you see how society is looking at a Vaibhya, how important you are by just by observation, that makes a great sense. I realized when I joined in Ayurvedic college, of course it is a very tough time too because after a certain period we have to study this Ashtanga Hridaya book. Sanskrit book. So I had to go for the basic education in the Sanskrit for a few years so that I could able to read and unlock the Sanskrit poems like that.

Right, right, right, right. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. That's just fascinating, imagining you as a child in your father's consultation room. And you know, you know, if it was the West, the probably the parent would be like, oh, you'll catch some disease, you will catch some bacteria. You know, done in such a beautiful way that you were invited into his work and you were mentored right from you were 7 years old. A lot of our, uh, you know, new students of Ayurveda are studying from standardized syllabuses for 5 years. You are a dean of an Ayurveda college yourself, and, and, and the rich generational knowledge that you gained from, you know, sitting by your father It's two entirely different flavors, textures, experiences. How do you help new practitioners remedy this? How can they remedy this?

Actually, it's a very complex thing. The first thing what we do as a tradition is that we, we don't create physician or a clinician. Rather, we create, we make him to a thing instead of, you know, adding information like that. So currently in academic institutions, since I am teaching from last 17 years as a professor in an Ayurvedic college, it's very nice in many ways that when we study together with a class, we have diversified subjects, diversified professors, we Very interesting to learn diversified things. There are a lot of advantages also in the current curriculum where we can learn lot of things, even many informations. But the traditional curriculum by and large depend upon one guru or one teacher under whom maybe few disciple may be there. But the advantage in the, for the second system, the guru system, is that it is the guru's responsibility to make his disciple the best. Because if he get out of the society, if he do If you do something wrong, the claim will go to the— bad name will go to the guru. So it is a big responsibility for the guru that disciple should be really trained, not beyond the time period. If he is really satisfied only, he can send him to stop learning. Whereas in the regular academic period, we have a stipulated period of time, we have stipulated content. Okay, we just hand over some something to the large and according to their intelligence. And by large, luckily, there is no total responsibility. Fairly okay, there are 30 teachers or 40 teachers maybe teaching one student in whole course. So maybe the student get first prize, we say, oh, she is my student. But she, if she fails, maybe we say, okay. That type of guru responsibility is really missing in academy, but that can be imbibed. That's what I'm doing in the current institute where I am working as a principal of that Ayurvedic college. We are trying to take the positive things and values from the guru traditions plus the existing academy. It is a big challenge, but it's— it has both advantages too.

Right, right. I can see that. But I'm so grateful and glad and happy that, uh, physicians like you, leaders like you, are taking a step forward, especially from Kerala, who are again reconsidering the importance of the Gurukula system. And you are coming up with various different modalities to develop students into the next generation of vaidyas, because unfortunately From my conversations with Ayurveda students, it looks like, you know, only the students who do not get into good colleges choose Ayurveda as a stream, which is sad because you need so much intelligence to study those Sanskrit texts. The smartest of India should be studying Ayurveda. And through my podcast, it is my endeavor that more, uh, you know, not more people get to know this, that Ayurveda is truly something where you can create a very satisfying, deeply nourishing profession. And the most smartest of Indians should move towards Ayurveda.

Very true, very true.

Dr. Nambi, different parts of India have different kinds of Ayurveda has evolved over time. This is my understanding, please correct me if I am wrong. And I believe that, you know, like from Bihar, from Kashmir, from Pune, different flavors of Ayurveda has evolved over time. How is it that Kerala Ayurveda is unique and what is the contribution of Kerala Ayurveda to Ayurveda in general?

As you know well, geographically Kerala was very fortunate to kept very independent out of other part of the country because one side is a huge area of sea and other side is the Western Ghats. And the western part of the Western Ghats is rich, fauna and flora is very good. So even there was, even now, Kerala's 30 to 40% of the land is none other than the forest. So if you imagine few thousand years, even just few hundred years before itself, definitely our greenery, our green could be much, much superior. So the beauty of Ayurveda in Kerala, as I mentioned in the history, as I mentioned, is that by and large we are really exploring all the floral potentials or the herbal potential of that land because very good climate, temperature always start from +20°C to +40°C all over the year except some hill stations. This create a very good climate to do many of the procedures, many of the treatments in the people. And more than that, as I mentioned, there is a strong culture which was not even distracted by any foreign invasions in the last few hundreds of years. Very critically, most of the other part of India like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, unfortunately, when the Muslim invasions come, when the Britishers come, when other invasion happened, they were forced to lose their tradition, or somehow they lost the tradition and they have to survive in some other option. Fortunately, so far Kerala is concerned, the big advantage Kerala had was that of course we had some invasions, but this was not really touching the real, what you say, real the culture of the state. Except we had a Tipu Sultan travel from the Malabar, from Madras to the Malabar area and broken some of the temples. Or maybe some mild Portuguese and British invasion. By and large, they never touched the culture of the state. That's a big advantage we had. Secondly, especially Britishers and other people, they were really exploring the potentials of knowledge of these people in Kerala. One of the big book on the medicinal plant was written by a Western, Hermann Gundart. Was a Western guy and contributed by E.T. Achudhan from Kerala. So the flora was explored by Westerners, and the whole menu of the Kerala vaidyas have been honored by Viceroy, like Vaidyarathnam. You might have heard a company called Vaidyarathnam because it's an honor, like a Padma Shri, Padma Vibhushan. That is an honor given by Viceroy. That time Kerala was ruled by the Mysore territory in India under the East India Company. So the advantage Kerala had was two. One was the local physicians were really exploring the potential of the flora. Second was they were least touched by invasions. That's a big advantage we had. Because of that, Kerala emerged with a strong traditional background with a lot of Contributions in the books. There are so many books which not even known by North Indian Ayurvedic people, like Chigilsaamanjiri, Yoga Amrutham, Sahasrayogam. There are so many books, even mixed, written not only in Sanskrit, some of them are written in mixture of Malayalam, Sanskrit, and Tamil called Manipravalam. So this is the thing Kerala had unique.

Hmm, that sounds beautiful. Beautiful. What about like the, the, the kiri and the— is, is that all part of it?

That's also what I mentioned is about book. Of course, Kerala had a unique method of exploring the procedures based on two things. One thing, Kerala had a big advantage that there is no extreme temperature, like there is no winter. Of course, of course we have summer, but not summer like Rajasthan. So a moderate climate. Even today we have between 20 to 40, something like that. So you can imagine maybe 100 or 200 years temperature never go to so high, even in Palakkad. So the big advantage was that this was quite moderate living temperature where we could able to explore the external therapies largely. So Kerala physicians tried to explore the potentials like Kiri, that is the Potali swedas. Like different type of shirodhara. There are many procedures they invented based on their experiences. So this become a brand all over the world. Actually, Kerala become a brand for Ayurveda all over the world because of these reasons. Even today, if very any seriously ill health issues comes from any part of the world, people try to come to India and Most probably they will be looking for a chance, a place in Kerala, somewhere in Kerala to have an Ayurvedic treatment.

This is something I've heard from clients as well, clients and other physicians as well, that the Ayurveda in the north of India is good for maintaining health, but if you really wanted to take care of some serious illness, then you go to Kerala, to the Vaidyas in Kerala. Is that also your understanding? Is that what you believe?

It's true, but in North also there are many, at least nowadays, there are many good institutions also. They are doing Ayurveda very, very well, but there are different styles are there. Just like we have different type of diet in different part of it, Ayurveda also had a different, as you rightly mentioned, different taste of Ayurveda. In North of the India, by and large, they use herbal mineral preparations. Like basmas, sinduras, different type of medicines because of the scarcity of availability of drugs, at least in, in the middle part of the country. Maybe Himalayan side, they may be using it by large, but Kerala, as I mentioned rightly, mostly we use pure herbal preparations by a large. That is our upper hand even today.

It's wonderful to know. Whenever I read some of the Sanskrit texts, I always notice that the Himalaya and the Malaya is said in the same word. And that's where I understood that, oh, Malaya, Malayalam, Kerala was as important to the Vedas who wrote the books as the Himalayas.

It's true. Why? Because most of the saints, especially great rishis, olden time, Kashyapa, this type of people. During the winter, they stepped down from Himalayas and traveled to South India. You know, when September, October and all, when the temperature start falling down in Himalayan area, they have to migrate. And that time, the center part of the India, like Madhya Pradesh or this center part, was almost empty. I mean, there was no much population. So they obviously try to come to a lower temperature area, like in South India, like Hyderabad, I mean, the Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala was the area where these type of sages, temporarily they used to come here, stay for few months, and when the temperature start warming up here, like, uh, May, April, March, April, then they go back the similar way.

Yeah, yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Dr. Nambi, I was reading that modernization is affecting the Ayurveda lineages as well, and many are choosing unfortunately to not become physicians. Uh, what is your opinion on that? What are your thoughts? What can the public or the government do to help?

It is very true. Out of these 18 families, only 8 families were remaining in last 100 100 years. Only Ashtavaidya, the other one become 8 families. Even in this 8 families now, already there are few families already doesn't have any practitioner. For example, Kuttanjeri Moos is one family, now no more members are there. The last Kuttanjeri Moos was my father's guru under whom my father studied around 12 years. Then there is another Ashtavaidya family called Valladu Moos was also doesn't exist anymore. So like that, now actually I should say around 5 families are only surviving, out of which I can say we are hardly 15 or 20 people are there in the real time, real practice now in Kerala. So like an endangered species.

Oh God. Does that worry you?

It's really, no, I definitely, it is worrying, it is actually should be the worry of the country. Because it is a genetical, it is a genetical succession which we should take care. It is not my blood, my gene containing few centuries of genetical transmission of internal wisdom. Probably there may be a period come the science could able to explore the genetical decoding and able to revive the whole knowledge back.

Amazing.

Why not? There could be a time because the traditions are nothing but a distillation of our own experience. So my father survived up to age of say 80 years, 75 years. So he might have had at least he had 50 years of experience which he transferred to me. So this is a distillation, just like a distillation of experience. So Even I don't know, but there will be a distilled memory will be there in my genes. So this should be preserved. That's a very, very important thing. Definitely, uh, the policymakers or other people could take consideration of these, try to, uh, may revive these type of families' wisdom, help them to expand and explore their potentials.

Perhaps adopt new students who are brilliant and who want to carry on the torch.

Yes, true, true, very true.

Is there anything else you would like to share with us about the Ashtavedyas that I may have missed asking you?

Actually, what else? It was very, very— you see, I was studying under my father from the age of 7, then And then certain years I started learning this Ashtanga Hridayam. Then I have been put into an Ayurvedic college for my graduation, then post-graduation, and so on. But very interesting for in my life was that the teaching and learning was really changed the person's life. And how this can be influenced is that we can change people's life. Because I strongly believe that Ayurveda is such a wonderful medical system which can be a mother of all medical systems. Yes, because like even nowadays with the corona or whatever the pandemic comes, the existing medical system may have a shock how to handle this. Because the common rule that host, agent, and there are host, there are agent, and the internal system environment. So looking, searching for the host and host not able to track rightly, environment is by large changing. So only possibility is that make the host at its best. So If we want to make our host best, we want to know the culture on which the host is evolved. I'm not born as a person here in this earth in Kerala at this location. Rather, I have genes of my ancestors, my ancestors like that, which was influencing me in my immune system. So a medical system may have limitation to know my system, whereas a traditional knowledge system have a strong wisdom because that also traveled the time. So each country could— this is the right time each country should explore their local traditional knowledge systems. United States may have its own local traditions, Europe have its own local traditions, Africa has all local tradition. Because of human ignorance, many of the countries lost. For example, I used to teach lessons in European countries, different institutes like Ayurvedic Point or European Academy of Ayurveda, like the They used to say to us, after First and Second World War, we lost almost all the local knowledge systems of the herbs. So now we are looking Ayurveda as a mother of knowledge system through which we could able to explore our own local system. Yeah, it's not that Ayurveda herbs should travel and United States come there and heal the people. There are so many herbs growing in that country, there are so many minerals, metals, many things are there. With that local thing, with the wisdom of Ayurveda, we could able to analyze and understand and utilize and heal the people. So in that perspective, definitely I strongly believe that future is for Ayurveda.

Absolutely, absolutely. I 100% agree with you and believe in what you're saying. Like, there are herbs growing outside outside my door, you know, there's that I have no knowledge of. But I know a little bit about what my grandmother showed me or my mother showed me in Kerala. And there's this particular herb that is growing outside my door, which is like spread everywhere like a carpet. And I was looking it up and it's called pig face or Carpoprotus. And it is something similar to aloe vera apparently. But I know nothing about it. So I don't feel brave enough to, you know, break it open and rub it into a wound because I've never seen a grandmother show it to me. But in India, I'd be so confident going into the garden and plucking something and chewing on it because I was feeling slightly under. So every— you absolutely said it right— every nation has to discover their own local herb knowledge because that is carrying the correct information for their body to heal. Dr. Nambi, are there any projects you are excited about right now that you would like to share with the listeners? Any projects in Ayurveda?

Okay, uh, currently I'm trying to teach in different countries. I'm— as of course I'm a clinician, but meantime I'm trying some time to teach Ayurveda to different countries. Uh, for example, recently I had a lesson on Southern California University of Ayurveda. I mean, Southern California University, SCU, had an Ayurvedic I spoke to them addressing about future of Ayurveda. So I strongly, I still believe I would like to travel, I would like to see different part of the country, try to look at the herbs and try to revive many herbs which could be utilized for the common thing. For example, in Europe, since I have been last 17 years, I frequently travel there and give lessons. We tried to explore some of the herbs of Europe, European plants, and tried to use based on the logic of Ayurveda, which was very successful. So these very small, very few number, like 10 to 15 herbs, but for us this is a great thing because of course in Ayurvedic books we may have few thousands, but in a short period of 10 years if you are able to bring up 15 drugs, another 100 years we would be able to do many things. So I personally believe that we are trying to, try to see different floras of the country and try to explore how we can use this. Because I strongly still believe that medical profession is not something to be business in the commercial way, I mean. Rather, it is between a person-to-person relationship and person-to-nature relationship. We have to survive in the nature. There are many pandemics may come. Today we have something, tomorrow we can get another thing. But if you are tuned with the nature, nature will give enough message to help us. Because nature is the mother and it is the mentor, it is the guide. So if you are tuned with the nature, definitely nature will help us. To explore different things and through which we could be able to survive. Never in the conquering, arrogant, rude way, rather humble, requesting, and in a prayer mode.

Yes, that's beautiful. Yes, when we are humble and surrendered, that's when nature opens her gifts to us.

Absolutely.

Excellent. How can people get in touch with you if they wanted to organize a workshop in their own country or invite you over for a speaking assignment?

How do they— they can contact me through, uh, yeah, my mail or phone number. You can share my mail or phone number. Let's see how things going on.

Well, thank you so much, Dr. Nambi. It is such a pleasure to to speak with you, an honor to speak with you. We wish you great success in everything you do, and we wish that the Ashtavadya lineage continues on for many, many, many centuries and generations. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Jagadguru. Krishnamurti. Jagadguru. Devaki Paramananda. Devaki Paramana Dhamma. Devaki Paramana Dhamma. Krishna Vamana. Krishna li begane baaro. Krishna li begane baaro. Krishna, Krishna, Krishna.