|
|
BOOK REVIEW:
By Don Craig FALL, 2000 | THE ANCIENT HEALING ART of Ayurveda is disappearing fast in the East and reappearing in the West. That's the premise of David Crow's book, "In Search of the Medicine Buddha," which is a rich description of Nepal and a culture that can only be weakly imagined by those of us who haven't lived there. Crow takes us into the world of an ancient people, a healing system that was already old when Siddhartha Gautama was born, and a jungle forest ecology that grows thousands of medicinal plants; all of which he feels may disappear within the next two generations. Crow is a San Francisco acupuncturist and herbalist who began his studies in Chinese medicine there in 1980. He traveled to Nepal in 1987 in search of medical teachings from the Tibetan Buddhist and Ayurvedic traditions. He would return again and again over the next ten years to live and travel through Kathmandu and the villages and jungles of the Terai and the mountains of the Himalayas. Crow's book is not for the scientist looking for provable theories, or the herbalist looking for measurable recipes to duplicate at home. It is food for thought for the student of holistic healing. His style is lyrical, poetic, and romantic, but his writing also is extremely vivid in its descriptions of the life he found with Nepalese physicians and alchemists. For example, his first apprenticeship was with a Dr. Chopel who introduced him to Sange Menla, the Medicine Buddha:
Another chapter describes life in the apothecary shop of Dr. Chopel, Crow's mentor who is affectionately known as Amchi-la: "Amchi-la would inform me whenever special ingredients arrived, as when a small bag came from Tibet: purified gold, which went into his formulation of 'The Great Purified Moon Crystal Pill.' This extraordinary remedy was originally compounded from thirty-four ingredients, including herbs like saffron and nutmeg, minerals and metals." His other chapters include a discussion of Ayurveda, alchemy, Soma, spirituality and the three poisons of the mind (desire, anger, ignorance); the chauvinistic attitude towards women in a subcontinent that has goddess temples everywhere; embryology and reincarnation; sattvic medicine or spiritual healing; mercury, the Sperm of Shiva; the richness of botanical medicinals in the forests of Nepal; and a description of the death and ritual cremation of his mentor, Dr. Chopel. AYURVEDA IS A HEALING SYSTEM considered to be the oldest in the world, and it traces its roots to the Vedic period in ancient India, about 1500 B.C. The name comes from the Sanskrit 'ayur' (life) and 'veda' (knowledge). It is a holistic system that includes the harmonious balance of mind and body, environment and behavior, spiritual healing, and herbalism. Even that is too simplistic a definition, for as Crow says, "The more one learns about this healing philosophy, the more unfathomable it becomes." The irony he finds is that Ayurveda is losing popularity in India, Nepal and Tibet. Physicians there who call themselves 'Ayurvedic' are becoming dependent on synthetic pharmaceuticals and laboratory tests. To a great extent, they are becoming driven by Western materialism. On the other hand, Ayurveda is gaining interest in the West, along with other Eastern techniques such as acupuncture and hands-on energy healing or qigong (sometimes pronounced 'chi-gong'). At the heart of Ayurveda is sattva, a kind of mystical benevolence the physician brings to his patient. Crow writes:
Ayurveda is complicated, if not unfathomable. PAGE 2: Mercury and the Healing Touch
|
