AYURVEDA: THE ART OF BEING

At one point, he kneels, places his hands together, and explains to God why he is picking these herbs--they're for the doctor, Swamigal. Slowly, the man moves across the meadow to a river where he washesthe herbs. The camera lingers, leading you to imagine the warmth of that meadow, and the coolness the river water, and the comfort those sensations would bring to your body. You're witnessing both an essential practice of Ayurveda--the gathering of herbal remedies--and experiencing its most basic principle, the microcosm and the macrocosm, the interdependent relationship between people and the Earth.

Pan Nalin's exposition is beautiful and mysterious, and the interviews that follow, with the practitioners of this ancient Indian practice, are as subtle and as enigmatic. This isn't a film for those accustomed to the FAQ approach to documentary. The charismatic Dr. Swamigal, the droll Dr. Kostopoulos and the forthright Dr. Murthy, among other practitioners--all "vaidyas" or doctors of Ayurvedic medicine--demonstrate techniques, but they do not systematically explain their treatments. Rather, they discuss the philosophical foundation of Ayurvedic medicine, which is as different from Western medicine as Ayuvedic "drugs" are from the pills allopathic physicians dispense. Since Ayurveda is an art as much as it is a science, each doctor, while sharing a basic philosophy of healing, also draws upon beliefs and practices handed down from family members who were also vaidyas.

Obviously aware of their role as the first cinematic ambassadors of Ayurveda, some of the vaidyas trot out their miracle patients, one whose cancerous tumor disappeared, and another who, once blind from a diabetic condition, now has regained much of his sight. It's amusing to see these healers as colporteurs, hawking a philosophy of restoring balance. Fortunately, Nalin keeps the claims to a minimum, while depicting some surprising successes in the course of the film. One little girl, whose family was told by an allopathic physician that she would never walk, is hospitalized, bound in leg braces, and treated with various oils. Near the end of the film, she begins to walk.

In Nalin's eyes, the little girl's cure is a demonstration of the power of Ayurvedic medicine, yet for Western audiences, it seems incomplete. Her disease isn't named, and the vaidya doesn't explain his treatment. Clearly, Nalin does not wish to compare Ayurvedic practices with Western medicine. That's risky, since it might prove too enigmatic for some audiences, but it's courageous because it preserves the integrity of Ayurveda.

The filmmaker traveled throughout his native India--and to Greece--in order to make Ayurveda, speaking with many practitioners, including specialists. In the course of his research, he uncovered methods that were once thought to be lost. One example is the diagnostic "mud scan," where a vaidya packs special kinds of mud over the body of a patient, who then sits in the sun for one hour. When the mud is washed away, spots on the patient's skin reveal the source of his illness. Particularly memorable are the sequences with Dr. Murthy, who reads CAT scans brought to him by patients, and then prescribes roots and tree bark for their maladies. Hundreds of people wait on line for hours in order to be treated by him. For his part, the vaidya says, he is lucky to have so much land, and to be able to provide these healing plants to his patients.

Ayurveda: The Art of Being ends the same way it begins, in that shining meadow, the Eden of Ayurveda. While the film demonstrates this healing art as a thriving practice elsewhere in the world, you wonder why, if it works so well, it has not undermined allopathy. In fact, allopathy has many of its roots in Ayurveda. Colonization, and the diasporas it perpetuated, supplanted much of the knowledge of healing practices in India, Africa, and even here, where Native Americans practice a similar type of herbal medicine. Nalin's meadow is a return to that knowledge, a reminder that it's still there for the taking--or rather, for the healing.