Negotiating 'Science' In 'Traditional' Indian Medicine In The Twentieth Century: The Case Of Bengali Ayurbed. (360G-Wellcome-080149_Z_06_Z)

The aim of this project is to understand the modalities of Ayurbed's engagement with 'modern' medicine in the twentieth century. By focussing principally, though not exclusively, on the pedagogical reforms instituted in the past century, not only does this project seek to bring the historiography on Ayurbed into the twentieth century, but also to deepen its analytical scope.Whereas most histories of this interaction are based in the colonial period and are concerned principally with issues of structural change towards professionalisation and commercialisation, I intend to study the epistemic changes that accompanied these structural changes. By bridging the gap between the colonial and the post-colonial contexts, I also seek to understand the varieties of ways in which the notion of 'being scientific' has been negotiated beyond the rhetorical posturing. By studying the debates and difficulties in arriving at a clear cut consensus on 'scientificity,' in the post-colonial context, its complexity may be realised in greater relief. In studying the colonial context alone there is a serious possibility of flattening out many of these complexities into antinomies of 'revival' and 'reform.' Bengal, with its four contending colleges, is an ideal site for such comparison.