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Buddhism in the everyday medical
practice of the Ladakhi amchi
Laurent Pordié
Almost the entire content of the medical texts, as well as the
therapeutic practices carried out daily by the practitioners of
the scholarly medicine of Ladakh, North-western India, are of a
technical medical and a-religious nature. However, medical
ethics and elements of medical epistemology are based on
Buddhism, and all healers underscore the importance of the moral
dimension in the practice of medicine, a dimension that refers
expressly to religion. The ethnography presented in this article
therefore shows the importance of religion for medical practice
in both moral and practical points of view. The author argues
that it is because religion is not constitutive of medicine
(like medical theory is), that it can be considered as an
“ensemble of supportive paradigms” of medicine.
Keywords: Tibetan Medicine; Amchi; Buddhism; Ladakh |
