The Preservation and Development of Amchi Medicine in Ladakh

Abstract

This article is about the preservation and development of the localized form of Tibetan medicine known as amchi medicine or Sowa Rigpa in the Himalayan region of Ladakh. The article discusses the traditional position of the amchi, the practitioner of this system of medicine, and how that position has changed over time. The rapid development of Ladakh in the last few decades has brought about fundamental changes in traditional social and economic patterns. These changes have led to challenges for the amchi system and various responses to overcome these challenges. The article focuses primarily on the work of one amchi, Tsewang Smanla, who is also a coauthor of the article. Smanla's training and practice are discussed, along with the various projects he has directed that aim to support and develop the amchi tradition in Ladakh.

Keywords:

• Tibetan medicine
• Ladakh
• medical pluralism
• modernity

Notes

1 This article follows the standard convention in medical anthropology, which is to refer to modern scientific or “Western medicine” as biomedicine. In India, biomedicine is commonly referred to as “allopathic medicine,” a term we use in this article when discussing data from Indian reports or surveys.

2 Other works of note in this area are Pordié 2002, 2008a, 2008b; Kloos 2004, 2010; Besch 2006; and Blaikie forthcoming.

3 Further details about this campaign and about the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Council can be found in van Beek (1999).

4 Rinchen Zangpo translated the famous Collection of the Essence of the Eight Branches (Astāngahrdayasamhit¯) by Vagbhata, his own commentary to it, and the commentaries of Candranandana.

5 In Ladakhi the word is pronounced as it is written, sman. In the central Tibetan dialect, the initial consonant is not sounded, and the word is pronounced “men.”

6 The primary meaning of the Tibetan word rgyud is “tantra,” but it can also have the same meaning as brgyud, “family lineage”; both words are pronounced the same.

7 Thus continuing a Tibetan cultural tradition that Pordié (2008b: 26) and Janet Gyatso (2004: 84) note existed in Tibet from the eighth century and continued into the twentieth century.

8 On the role of oracles in the healing process in Ladakh, see Day 1989, Crook 1997, 1998, and Rösing 2006.

9 This is discussed in some detail in Pordié 2008b: 137–70.

10 These are government figures acquired by Smanla that represent the situation as it was in 1996.

11 Much of the information in the original report can be found in Padfield (1995).

12 Moxibustion involves burning a cone of the herb Artemesia vulgaris on one of seventy-one locations on the body that are related to various disorders.

13 As the amchis surveyed sometimes did not respond to all the questions; thus, the total number of responses does not always equal sixty-five.

14 See Pordié 2008b: 195 for a list of these organizations and associations and a brief description of their operations.

15 The process leading to the recognition of Sowa Rigpa in India was complex and protracted and is dealt with in detail in Kloos 2010: 235–73.

16 The two premier Tibetan medical teaching institutions are Men-Tsee-Khang, situated in the Tibetan exile community at Dharamsala, India, and the Tibetan Medical College of Tibet University in Lhasa, Tibet. Both institutions run a five-year course leading to a bachelor's degree, known in Tibet as kachupa (bka’ bcu pa). The Tibetan Medical College in Lhasa also runs a three-year master's degree, rabjampa (rab byams pa), and a three-year vocational course, dusrapa (bdus ra ba). Both institutions have an advanced grade akin to a professorial title, menrampa (sman rams pa), which is given on completion of an exam after ten years of practice. The two Tibetan medical schools that use the Men-Tsee-Khang syllabus and exams are the Chagpori Medical Institute in Darjeeling and the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies in Ladakh. Presumably graduates from the Tibetan medical course in the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath will also qualify for these positions.