The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine (review)

Francis Zimmermann. The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine. Indian Medical Tradition, vol. 4. Originally published as La jungle et le fumet des viandes (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1982). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999. xvi + 254 pp. Rs. 295.00.

This is the Indian reprint of a well-known work published first in Paris (in French) in 1982 and then by the University of California (in English) in 1987. Since it first appeared nearly twenty years ago and has already been extensively discussed in several reviews, it needs no new introduction. Thus it suffices to recall its subject matter--namely, the interrelations between classical Indian medical theory and ecology, and between the physical environment (the macrocosm) and the human body (the microcosm). The contrast between dry and wet is especially important in this context. In short, the book states that ecological structures have influenced the structure of Indian medical theory, and thus medical practice.

Francis Zimmermann's approach is structuralist, and has been honed in later publications. ¹ Structuralism has found a home in the French and North American academic traditions, and this work by a French scholar has drawn mostly rave reviews in North America. ² However, structuralism resembles theology: it is ultimately based on a belief--that fundamental structures govern human endeavor. It has its critics, and some have even called it intellectual onanism; clearly, not everyone shares this belief. Thus it is not surprising that Zimmermann's book was greeted rather coolly in a review by Oskar von Hinüber. ³

This is undoubtedly a brilliant and very learned study, with some profound insights. Yet I too must confess to finding some aspects problematic. Together with the question of the efficacy of structuralism, it is particularly the problem of the hermeneutic closure of academic discourse relating to the study of ancient textual sources that bothers me. Here we quite often have intellectuals studying the opinions of intellectuals--especially when the sources studied are normative/theoretical and not empirical and therefore attractive to those who are more interested in normative/theoretical considerations than in realia. In such an environment theory can easily turn into fact, and considerations of one's own academic milieu may be taken to apply to the material studied. This assumes particular importance when theoretically inclined academics deal with empirical traditions. ⁴ Medicine is of course one such domain, and it is difficult to believe that it was theory and not considerations of efficacy that prompted ancient Indian physicians to treat their patients in a particular manner, and that the methods used were usually not arrived at empirically. Anyone who even cursorily reads classical Indian medical texts cannot but notice the discrepancy between their theoretical and practical parts--and this discrepancy can be seen even today, when learned practitioners elaborate on medical theory, but base their treatments on empirical traditions (provided they still follow traditions at all).

Thus one has to ask whether here we might not have a situation similar to that in Tantrism, where actual practices, irrespective of how they originated, have been taken up and elaborated upon by learned theoreticians, whose works are then studied by modern academics and quite often taken to be the basis of the actual practical system. I feel that Zimmermann's study is concerned not so much with trying to understand Indian medicine as with creating a tertiary theoretical framework to encompass traditional theories already probably secondary in the given context. Of course it would be naive to assume that there was no interaction at all between theory and practice, but assuming the primacy of theory is surely not very helpful in examining this.

Even after all these years this book makes very stimulating reading. But what one may deduce from it, and how one should or could apply these deductions, is not clear...