Why Indian Knowledge Systems should be evidence-based Premium

Can Indian Systems of Medicine be evidence-based? The Ramdev Baba Coronil dispute highlights the need for scientific validation.

Can Indian Systems of Medicine, such as Ayurveda, Siddha, and tribal medicines, be evidence-based? These questions have come to the fore in the Ramdev Baba Coronil dispute, in which an herbal product was claimed to be a cure for COVID-19 without sufficient scientific evidence.

Many decades ago, in Vietnam, during the war, more soldiers fighting the American army were dying from chloroquine-resistant malaria than American bullets. At the request of Ho Chi Min, China’s Mao Zedong initiated Project 523, sending researchers to scour traditional Chinese medicinal literature to identify herbs for malaria-like symptoms.

The most remarkable outcome was the discovery of artemisinin, a life-saving anti-malarial drug. Tu Youyou and her team, inspired by a 1,700-year-old treatise, discovered artemisinin using modern scientific methods. This breakthrough saved millions of lives and earned her a Nobel Prize in 2015.

Despite initial scepticism, clinical trials and pathophysiological studies confirmed the efficacy of artemisinin in controlling malaria. This robust evidence convinced the global health community and led the World Health Organization to endorse artemisinin. Today, academia worldwide investigates traditional Chinese medicine using modern science tools.

In ancient Indian philosophy and scientific texts, rationalistic epistemological keywords such as pariksha, anumana, ganita, yukti, nyaya, siddhanta, tarka, and anvesana share space with some form of mythology. According to Narasimha (dated 7th-8th century), the commentator of the Rasavaiseshika-sutra, attributed to Bhadanta Nagarjuna in the 5th-6th century, only two types of evidence count in Ayurveda: pratyaksha (directly observed) and anumana (conjectured/inferred), with no role for ‘belief’ in the sense of blind faith. (Na hy āyurvede pratyakṣārthānumeyārthābhyām āgamābhyām anyacchraddheyārthatvam asti, dṛṣṭaphalatvād iti. -RVSBh 3.45).

Caraka distinguished between Yuktivyapashraya bheshaja (reason-based) and Daivavyapashraya bheshaja (faith-based) therapies, emphasising the process of investigation, ‘pariksha‘, as critical for arriving at scientific truth. He stated that a claim becomes generally acceptable only after it has been thoroughly investigated by several investigators and is supported by robust and rational evidence.

Then why has Ayurveda fallen on the way?