Modern friend of traditional knowledge in new avatar

Darshan Shankar passes on the baton.

The Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions went through a remarkable rite of passage here today which marked the launch of its second avatar, a change of guard and the inauguration of a new facility.

Darshan Shankar, who along with Sam Pitroda founded the organisation 15 years ago, handed over the baton of executive director to D K Ved. Simultaneously the organisation gave itself two additional facets, education and ethical commerce, along with its primary role of research.

To do this the foundation will work through two new institutions. To impart training it will set up the Indian Institute for Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine which will be a 100-bed teaching hospital. To get into commerce it has incorporated Indian Health Systems Pvt Ltd which will set up a network of hospitals and health centres based on Ayurveda and yoga.

Plus, a new facility, the Vaidya Damodaran Memorial was inaugurated to serve as a repository of natural resources used by Indian systems of medicine.

In 15 years the foundation has used information technology to create a database of medicinal plants and, related metals and minerals from primary texts going back to 1500 BC. It has also helped create 84 forest gene banks "" the largest in the world "" to promote conservation of the 8,000 species that constitute the medicinal wealth of India.

Indicating which way the foundation's work is headed, Darshan Shankar said that it was ready to pass on the technology for commercial production of herbal drinks, foods and oils based on traditional knowledge. In particular, a simple copper device, named Jal Bandhu, had been developed to purify water for drinking. The foundation has also applied for half a dozen patents based on its own innovations.

All this is founded on Darshan Shankar's belief that "medical pluralism" will hold the key to the future of healthcare and people from all over the world are and will be seeking wellness from not one but several health systems.

India was particularly blessed to have as many as five officially-recognised health systems "" ayurveda, siddha, unani, homeopathy and Tibetan medicine (Swa-rig-pa) alongside familiarity with western allopathy "" and the foundation's aim was to design a research system to bridge the different health knowledge systems.

The big task which remained, according to Darshan Shankar, was to traverse from the shaastras to science "" scientifically explain traditional health system knowledge. Pitroda put it succinctly by declaring that traditional knowledge has to be based in science and practices cannot be followed simply because "my grandmother said so".

The foundation, with 110 professionals and 17.5 acres of land on the outskirts of Bangalore, began with a grant from a Danish agency. It later received a significant Rs 30 core grant from the Tata Trust and most recently a donation from S D Shibulal, COO, Infosys for the new repository of natural resources.