Description
Book SynopsisA free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. The Practice of Texts examines the uses of the Sanskrit medical classics in two educational institutions of India's classical life science, Ayurveda: the college and the gurukula. In this interdisciplinary study, Anthony Cerulli probes late- and postcolonial reforms in ayurvedic education, the development of the ayurvedic college, and the impacts of the college curriculum on ways that ayurvedic physicians understand and use the Sanskrit classics in their professional work today. His fieldwork in south India illuminates the nature of philology and ritual in the ayurvedic gurukula and showcases how knowledge is exchanged among students, teachers, and patients. The result, Cerulli shows, is that the Sanskrit classics are presented and applied differently in the college and gurukula, producing a variety of relationships with these texts among practitioners. By interrogating the politics surrounding t
Trade Review"
The Practice of Texts is an engaging, nuanced, and dense book…Cerulli’s theoretical and methodological versatility across the disciplines of history, anthropology, philology, religious studies, and South Asian studies will certainly make this book a valuable and enjoyable read for diverse scholars and students." * History of Science in South Asia *
"The book contributes to medical anthropology through its ethnographic fieldwork and to the history of medicine and education in India by illustrating the role of the gurukula in Indian education. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the intersection of religion, culture, psychology, and the performative aspects of textual practice." * Asian Affairs *
"This book carries vivid descriptions and engaging debates that would interest scholars of South Asia in general and anthropologists and sociologists studying contemporary practices of classical knowledge in particular."
* Asian Medicine *
"By combining approaches from the disciplines of ethnography, philology, history, and religious studies, the book makes for profound and insightful reading for readers from diverse backgrounds." * Journal of Hindu Studies *
