ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Ashtavaidyan physicians who have had a major influence on Ayurveda practised today. In the 20th century, Ashtavaidyans and their disciples disseminated and made popular important Ayurvedic therapies like different types of massage, Pancha-karmam and other complex therapies that were preserved in their families but had fallen into disuse elsewhere in the subcontinent. A major part of this chapter is dedicated to the history and legends of each one of the leading Ashtavaidyan families. It presents the socio-historical context in which their ancestors had developed an extraordinary medical tradition by assimilating Kerala’s folk practices into their Ayurvedic repertoire. It describes their initiatory rituals and their gurukulam method of learning and memorising the entire Ashtangahrdayam, a voluminous canonical text of Ayurveda. These Brahman physicians, with Nambi, Mooss or Vaidyamadham Nambuthiri as their family names, practised a personalised method of therapy in which medicines were tailor-made and modulated to suit the condition of each individual patient. It discusses the challenges facing the younger generation of college-educated Ashtavaidyans to maintain the rigorous protocols of their ancestral personalised medicine.
