Running a neo-traditional ‘Gurukul’ for developing scholars in Ayurveda well versed in the theoretical foundations along with modern education
The CTF proposes to undertake another important task in realizing its objectives. Today, there may be only of a handful of scholars who have fully memorized the texts of the course works of Ayurveda and able to interpret them properly. This is one of the fields that have been totally neglected and is therefore serious implications. The proposed Gurukul, which will retain the traditional methods of teaching the source works of Ayurveda, and help students in understand not only the basics of Ayurveda, but also interpret them in a way that can be easily understood by modern medical practitioners. Thus, it will be a happy and unique blend of the ancient and the modern, oriental and the occidental, and will result in a generation of scholars who will bridge the gulf between the traditional and modern streams of knowledge in general and medical sciences in particular.
Developing a ‘Corpora’ programme for Ayurveda
The word ‘Corpora’ is actually the plural of the word ‘corpus’. In the present context, it means ‘A large or complete collection of writings: the entire corpus of Old English poetry’.
In Linguistic terminology, a corpora is a body of utterances, as words or sentences, assumed to be representative of and used for lexical, grammatical, or other linguistic analysis.
There is a huge amount of, almost inexhaustible, corpus of literature mostly in India and to some extent abroad dealing with various systems of Indian Medical systems. According to an approximate estimate we have nearly hundred thousand palm leaf, paper and other manuscripts dealing with the Indian medical systems, that too written in different Indian languages. Out of this vast literature only 2% has been printed and published. Even among the printed books, many books that were published in 18th & 19th centuries are in a bad shape; as one takes up many of these books to read, they crumble into pieces, since they are worn out due to many factors like passage of time, bad quality of paper and binding etc. Similarly the innumerable manuscripts dealing with invaluable information are also on the verge of extinction.
Hence the only solution is to key in all the texts dealing with Indian systems of medicines that are in the different Indian languages and create a corpora of all such texts and make the same machine-readable. Further this will be hosted on the Internet providing wide accessibility. Search facilities based on the different criteria will also be provided.
Fellowship programme in the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda and comparative / cross-cultural studies of traditional and modern streams of knowledge
The TDU-FRLHT has been recognized as a Centre of Excellence (CoE) under the Dept. of AYUSH, Govt of India. Under this programme, the TDU-FRLHT has a Fellowship programme to promote research and development in different fields related to Ayurved and Integrative medicine. The CTF is one of the important centres promoting this Fellowship programmes. Under the auspices of this centre, fellowship is proposed to be awarded for research work in the theoretical foundations of Ayurveda and comparative / cross-cultural studies of traditional and modern streams of knowledge.