SCIENCE, RELIGION AND ETHICS: THE RELIGIOUS ETHICAL BASIS OF INDIAN SCIENCE OF MEDICINE

Abstract

It is often said that in Ayurveda, the Indian science of medicine, the scientific concerns are muddled up with religious and metaphysical convictions. This paper reies to show how while retaining the experiential route of science intact, Ayurveda shares certain imporant concerns with religion and philosophy in India. It affirms that this ultimately has helped Ayurveda successfully avoiding the problems associated with multiple ontologies--owing to a separation of science from values. Thsi paper will examine some important religious assumptions that play vital role in the conception and practice of the science of Ayurveda and how such approaches contributed in developing and integraing a strong code of medical ethics into the practice of medicine. The first section of the paper will bring out the experiential route of Ayurveda. The second section examines the concepts of disease and health/wellbeing in Ayurveda, in order to bring tout the ethical outlook ingrained in it. The thirs section will analyse some fundamental postulates fo Indian ethics and attempts to show that with the Vedic conception of Rita -cosmic moral order- Ayurveda uniquely defines itself as a way of physical, mental and ethical living, which aims at a very comprehensive notion of wellbeing.