2: Traditionalizing, Modernizing, and Politicizing Ayurveda

Reflecting on the notions of tradition and modernity, this paper considers rhetorical tactics during the Ayurvedic Revitalization Movement in the late-19th century that contributed to popular understandings of Ayurveda’s past and future in India. I consider a prominent example of “integrationist rhetoric" in the work of a physician-political activist, Bhagvat Sinhjee, whose ideas in the book Aryan Medical Science are emblematic of views in late and post-colonial India that shaped the contours of Ayurveda and ayurvedic education in the 20th and 21st centuries.