Traditional ayurveda home for good health in Nawinna

by Sureshni Pilapitiya

The Sri Lankan Traditional Ayurveda Home in quiet and peaceful Maharagama has the perfect environment for spiritual and physical healing, with its cool and soft breeze and numerous ayurvedic plants and trees in itsenvirons.

It is a haven for all types of ayurvedic treatment , where one can get satisfactory and reliable treatment under one roof.

If anyone requires such Ayurvedic treatment he can visit the Sri Lankan Ayurveda Home in Nawinna, Maharagama, where it is located.

There are several resident Ayurvedic doctors and it is also open to outside Ayurvedic doctors too to practise for the convenience of patients.

The Sunday Observer spoke to some of the doctors at the Home to get more information about the benefits of Ayurveda in general. Dr. Lalith Sagara Senanayaka, Dr. Methsuva Hatharasinghe and Dr. Bandula Sumedha Peiris spent time with us delving deep into the subject.

Ayurvedic medicine has been in use for thousands of years to cure different illnesses with the use of various herbs and Ayurvedic extracts. Up to date, it has produced excellent results and solutions even to many diseases and illnesses. It is said that Ayurveda can cure most health problems which cannot be solved by western medicine.

According to Dr. Hatharasinghe, the Sri Lankan traditional ayurveda home is the perfect place to meet traditional Ayurvedic doctors who are thorough practitioners of the profession.

There are people who swear by Ayurvedic medicine and want to be treated with ayurvedic medicine but unknown to them they end up going to quack ayurvedic doctors and fake Ayurvedic Centres and end up being cheated as they are given various concoctions which are truly not ayurvedic medicine and they end up still suffering the illness.

Then these people lose faith in the system. Most of these Ayurvedic centres do not offer a proper service to customers.

There is treatment in Ayurveda for different illnesses, such as gastritis, diabetes and cholesterol.

The Ayurveda system has different methods of diagnosing, such as pulse-checking. By checking the patient's pulse the doctor can diagnose what kind of illness a person is suffering from and prescribe treatment. This is the contention of these three doctors.

Dr. Hathurusinghe said that Ayurveda can find the symptoms of some illnesses which allopathic medicine cannot find. An experienced Ayurvedic physician can do a proper pulse check.

To give proper medication, the doctor should have the spiritual touch and ability as well. Pulse-checking is related to pancha maha buthayo (the five major causes of diseases) where everything is connected to nature and to the surroundings.

It has some kind of universal power which cannot be explained. During the past, our ancestors lived up to more than a 100 years, but now this trend is gradually on the wane with more and more people becoming sick with various types of illnesses and their life spans reducing, according to their way of living and food consumption.

Even kidney disease that people in the Rajarata area are afflicted with, is due to the chemicals used for cultivation and even the food is contaminated with chemicals.

If they make use of Neeramulli or Watermelon, it would have had a scientific effect and provide relief, he said. Dr. Sumedha Peiris expressed the opinion that kidney problems occur due to reckless food consumption.

When asked about Panchakarma Dr. Hathurusinghe said that for proper panchakarma to take effect, it takes at least a month. Nowadays, it is considered illegal. But it is a sacred method of treatment.

We should do everything for the improvement of health. Today housewives have everything at hand, so they do not want to work as in the old days when housewives had to ground and pound which is an ideal form of exercise to keep a healthy body. Instead everyone seems to be going to gyms. But a gym cannot do what this form of exercise can do, because the method is different.

There are certain methods in Ayurveda to check if a person is healthy.

In the past, Ayurvedic doctors also researched in the same way that Western doctors do nowadays.

Ayurveda is based on scientific methods. It is scientifically proved that certain illnesses which cannot be cured by western medicine can be cured by spiritual healing, such as doing a seth shanthi or by chanting pirith.

Pirith is known to be an excellent remedy to cure weak minds and undiagnosed illnesses. Gradually, the illness tends to cease with such spiritual healing. Diseases such as diabetes occur largely due to wrong food consumption.

Today, even children are likely to be afflicted with diabetes because of what they eat, sweets, chocolates, chilli paste and even carbohydrate - rich food which finally turns into sugar. According to Dr. Peiris, there are different herbs that are used for illnesses, such as Heen bovitiya, Kothalahimbutu, and Corriander.

Ayurvedic medicine is prepared according to ancient Ola scripts written by hermits and ancestors. They are there for thousands of years and are time tested remedies and put into practise from generation to generation. Many practitioners do not give away their Ayurvedic secrets and have a tendency to preserve them.

There is Ayurvedic treatment for epilepsy as well. For dengue, one sure remedy is the juice taken out from the papaya leaves. The method was introduced, but not put into much practice, due to the lack of public interest. Such methods should be popularised because it has been tested and proved that life can be saved by this simple remedy. There is a certain way of preparing the juice. To hear of such a remedy will certainly be a boost and give encouragement to those suffering from dengue.

According to these ayurvedic physicians, medical practise on the whole is commercialised.

Even after the illness is cured, doctors want the patient to come back. But in Ayurveda, that is not the case.

Ayurvedic physicians treat patients with utmost care and responsibility. In today's world, there is a tendency not to appreciate what is good. It is only if the people are healthy that the country will move forward.

For the slightest discomfort patients go in search of medical specialists, they do not trust in Ayurveda and what it can do to heal because of the lack of information and publicity.

In most instances students opt to follow an Ayurvedic course only when they cannot enter the Medical Faculty not because they nurture a desire to study Ayurvedic Medicine.

Ayurvedic Medicine can be promoted to international level if the authorities give the necessary recognition to Ayurveda, which is not the case at present. Without state patronage this cannot be achieved. At the same time if we can capture a foreign market for ayurvedic products, we can earn foreign exchange which will be a boon for the country.

But this does not mean that foreigners will be permitted to copy our techniques and violate intellectual property rights by illegally exporting valuable ayurvedic products.

Therefore, Dr. Hathurusinghe, Dr. Senanayaka and Dr. Peiris were of the view that the Ayurvedic practise is a sacred, respected and a noble job, and that Ayurvedic medicine should be extended with the necessary recognition and the status it deserves.

The Sri Lankan Traditional Ayurveda Home is a classic example of true and traditional Ayurvedic medicine for all types of diseases.

Ayurvedic doctors and students are welcome to offer their services for a good cause, come together under one roof and enable Ayurvedic medicine regain its lost prestige.