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The
contemporary Ayurvedic drug manufacturing activity is
just like any other industrial activity. There are
diverse components which propel its growth and
expansion. They include its typical knowledge base,
human resource support, financial pressures, statutory
controls, managerial and administrative practices,
market forces and technological procedures. It is in its
typically Indian knowledge base that it distinguishes
itself from the other industrial endeavours. This
knowledge base has some very unique features. It is
essentially a subjective and esoteric body of human
wisdom comprising assumptions, intuitions, propositions
and assertions. Yet it has its own axiomatic framework
of principles and practices based on a rugged system of
logical and correlative set of theories, corollaries and
deductions. Empiricism may seem conspicuous by its very
absence. Even then, time-tested applications of theories
and useful development of therapeutic products and
modalities are there for every one to see, which prove
the scientific veracity of this knowledge base. But the
point is that this vast body of knowledge has originated
from a socio-cultural milieu which is far removed from
the current realities. And every other important
component of the Ayurvedic industry, as seen above, is
typically modern in its theory and practice. Whether it
is HR practice, financial planning, market development
or technological innovations, the guiding parameters
form part of contemporary knowledge system and they are
necessarily to be developed by modern scientific
methods.
There could be, and there indeed is, an internal
contradiction between the paradigms of the Ayurvedic
knowledge base and the operating principles of modern
industrial practices. Many are the examples. The
Ayurvedic classics mostly envisage preparation of
tailor-made medicaments in single dose batch size. The
modern technology would obviously prefer scaled up bulk
level production of universalised medicines. The
classics have not paid much attention to user-compliance
of drugs in terms of their taste and dose factor. The
modern market is very sensitive to user responses in
such aspects. Similar other instances of contradictory
perceptions can be enumerated. Some of them happen to be
very crucial, particularly when they pertain to the
domain of medicine processing. The temperature of
decoction cooking, the level of fermentation, the
detoxification of metals, etc are typical examples.
In this scenario, some of the majors in the Ayurvedic
manufacturing segment deserve to be congratulated for
the courageous, ingenious and pragmatic measures they
have initiated to bring up their industry on par with
other modern industries. They have achieved this
remarkable feat by successfully attempting to bridge the
epistemological gap existing between the Ayurvedic
knowledge base and the modern industrial and
technological methods. Until very recent past, they
hardly received any Governmental patronage in this
regard.
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