The birth place of soul medicine

 The history of medicine people in India is layered, ancient and deeply spiritual. Long before the codification of Ayurveda, healing in India was rooted in the land, in the forests, mountains, rivers and villages. Every region had its own lineage of medicine people, shaped by local ecology and spiritual traditions. Some were born into families of healers, others were chosen by dreams, visions or illness. Their knowledge came not only from observation, but from communion with the natural world. They learned from plants by sitting with them, fasting beside them or meditating in sacred groves. They listened to the wind, studied animal behavior, paid attention to lunar rhythms and respected the ancestral teachings.

In Vedic culture, the bhishag (physician) was also a spiritual seeker. The Atharva Veda, one of the oldest scriptures (circa 1200 BCE), contains hymns to ward off disease, chants to restore life force and instructions for herbal preparations. Healing was seen as a divine act, often accompanied by mantras and offerings to deities like Dhanvantari, the god of medicine and an incarnation of Vishnu. The line between doctor and priest was blurred. Health was not measured by symptom management but by one’s alignment with dharma (right living), agni (digestive fire), and prakriti (constitutional nature). Disease, in this view, could stem from poor diet or seasonal imbalance, but also from unprocessed grief, broken taboos or spiritual disconnection.

As Ayurveda developed into a formal science, it was organized around the tridoshic theory: Vata (air/ether), Pitta (fire/water) and Kapha (water/earth). Ancient healers like Charaka, who lived around the 2nd century BCE, emphasized preventive care, individualized treatment and the importance of understanding the patient’s emotional and spiritual life. Sushruta, often called the father of surgery, performed skin grafts, cataract surgeries, and even brain operations using refined metal instruments and herbal anesthetics, astonishing advancements for his time. Their work was preserved in Sanskrit texts, but many healers,especially women and tribal elders, carried their knowledge orally, passing it through apprenticeships, rituals, and practice.

In rural India, the vaidya (Ayurvedic doctor) coexisted with dayans (female shamans), ojhas (spirit healers), hakims (Unani practitioners), pachakuthira and velichapad (oracle-healers in Kerala), and countless other local specialists. In Tamil Nadu, siddhars practiced a mystical form of healing that incorporated mineral alchemy, sacred geometry, yogic breathwork and complex pharmacological formulas. Some were yogis who could heal through touch, gaze or mantra alone. In Bengal and Assam, tantric healers used rituals involving yantras, sacred fire and goddess invocations to treat infertility, madness, and possession.

Midwives (known as dais) wisdom of childbirth and postpartum care. They used oils, steaming herbs, abdominal wrapping and chants to protect both mother and baby. They knew how to turn breech babies, stop hemorrhage with poultices, and support lactation with foods and tonics. Their knowledge was rooted in experience, lineage and spiritual devotion, often guided by goddesses like Shitala Devi, the protector against disease.

Colonial rule disrupted these ecosystems of knowledge. British policies favored Western biomedicine, and many Indigenous healers were discredited or criminalized. Ayurveda was declared “unscientific,” while the British imported allopathic drugs and restructured education around English medicine. Still, the traditions lived on. Village healers continued to treat patients with local herbs, astrologers aligned treatments with lunar calendars and sadhus wandered with bundles of dried roots and tinctures. In temples, people prayed to Naga deities for snakebite cures or brought their mentally ill loved ones to sacred lakes and holy men for spiritual intervention.

In post-independence India, efforts were made to revive and legitimize Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani systems. Today, the Ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy) supports institutional training and regulation. However, the soul of healing still often lives outside hospitals, in forests, shrines, and the hands of traditional practitioners who remain largely undocumented. These medicine people may not hold degrees, but they carry generations of embodied knowledge. They heal through presence, prayer and plant-spirit relationships.

In the modern world, where people are increasingly overwhelmed by chronic disease, emotional trauma, and disconnection from self, the role of the traditional Indian medicine person is more vital than ever. They offer a path back to wholeness, not by replacing modern medicine, but by restoring what was lost: reverence for the body, the sacredness of the Earth, and the understanding that healing is not only what we take, but how we live. The medicine person sees the individual not as a case to be fixed, but as a soul to be rebalanced. Their tools are often simple,warm oils, bitter roots, gentle fasting, holy ash, but their work touches something ancient in us, something that remembers we were never separate from nature, from spirit or from one another.

~Shanti Freedom Das