ABSTRACT
Avanaparambu Maheshwaran Nampoothiri was a 90-year-old nattuvaidyan from Wadakkanchery taluk, Thrissur district. By the twentieth century, indigenous healing practitioners trained through different modes and registered under TCMP Act and Ayurveda doctors educated through the newly evolved educational institutions were the only people authorised to practice vaidyam. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book elaborates the way in which the literate practitioners tapped the potential of print media to ascribe authenticity to their practice. It explores the process of the production of the modernised and institutionalised Ayurveda and the simultaneous estrangement of the multifarious healing practices as nattuvaidyam through the functionalisation of knowledge. The book revisits the critical premises and points of departure, and suggests their relevance to scholarship on indigenous medical practices in South Asia.
