Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the transmission of classical medical knowledge was mostly non-institutional, passed on from physician teachers to their chosen students. Historically, there are limited examples of institutionalised medical education; however, towards the end of the colonial period, teaching colleges for traditional medicine had been established. Today, there are about 300 (poorly funded) medical colleges imparting education in various Indian systems of medicine through a five-and-a-half year course, which is similar in structure to Western biomedicine courses. Only a graduate of a recognised medical school is legally entitled to practise traditional medicine.

Although institutionalisation was intended to improve the quality of medical education, this has not happened. While access to education has improved, the quality of education is believed to have deteriorated. An unbroken tradition of more than 3,000 years is thus declining. The dynamism of the Ayurvedic tradition can be inferred from the fact that serious treatises on Ayurveda in the form of aphorisms, compendiums, texts on pharmacy and specialised fields of medicine and surgery, as well as lexicons that were produced between 1500 BC and 1900 AD. In the last 100 years or so, however, there has been a ‘lull’ in its creativity.

History of Policymaking in Indigenous Medicine

It can be seen from historical records that the European response to indigenous science falls into two phases. The earlier phase was a part of the European quest for useful knowledge from the non-European world.