Ayurveda, Spirituality and Healing examines the changes undergone by the South Asian health-care tradition, Ayurveda, as a result of its assimilation into the Western holistic health milieu over the last four decades. It explores the ways in which the mind-body-spirit sector in the West, with its focus on seekership, spirituality, and self-empowerment through self-understanding, shapes Ayurveda’s interpretation, promotion and practice in modern transnational Anglophone contexts.
As with other Eastern traditions that have gained popularity in the West in recent times, ‘globalised’ Ayurveda has generated a host of competing discourses on what constitutes ‘authentic’ tradition, and whether Western forms of this tradition can be considered legitimate. This book makes a unique contribution to the scholarship on the subject by arguing that the new forms of Ayurveda in the Western holistic health milieu must be taken seriously, not dismissed as ‘inauthentic’, or measured against traditional South Asian forms of Ayurveda. These new manifestations reflect the particular concerns of ‘alternative’ health practitioners in late-capitalist contexts in the West, who draw upon this tradition in creative and expedient ways to address the perceived needs of their times.