Teaching ayurveda to Germans in their country

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Ayurveda in Germany? Has the West shed off its scorn for this ancient system of medicine was the question we had in our minds when we at Express went out to the Global Ayurveda Festival to meet Dr Jeevan E P, who teaches Ayurveda in Germany. ‘’Of course, it is not recognised there and we can only practise under an allopathy doctor. But there are many allopathy doctors there who are now getting interested in Ayurveda. It is them I teach,’’ said Jeevan, a native of Kozhikode, Vadakara to be precise. Of the 450 students he has taught, Dr Jeevan said that maybe around 50 have taken it up seriously, studying further about it. His students include not just medical students, but also healing practitioners and teachers of Yoga, which Jeevan said is very popular in Germany. Jeevan teaches Ayurveda courses in 1,000 hours, while a normal BAMS course has 4,500 hours. ‘’I cut it down as most of the medical doctors would already have studied anatomy, physiology and so on as part of their course in college.  It would only be a duplication if we teach them that at our Academy too,’’ he said.What Jeevan is worried about is that his Ayurveda Care Academy has not been given any affiliation by any of the Universities.  ‘’We need to develop our system of medicine. Otherwise, we might end up importing Ayurvedic medicines from Germany as we do with homoeo medicines,’’ he warned.But how can Ayurvedic medicines, which depend on a lot of tropical local plants, be made in Germany, without diluting the tradition?   ‘’Oh, we have identified plants in Germany that are equivalent to those we find here in terms of medicinal properties,’’ said Jeevan. There are less than 10 Ayurvedic doctors in Germany, of which four are Malayalees. Ayurveda Care Academy offers Panchakarma treatment that lasts for different durations such as 21 days, 28 days and so on. At the Global Ayurveda Festival, there were two more doctors from Germany who had a regard for Ayurveda and who let Ayurveda doctors practise at their hospitals - Dr Horzt Przuntek and Dr Mark Rosenberg.