Sri Lankan contribution to Japan

P. L. N. De SILVA

AYURVEDA: This is the success story behind the transfer of a 3000 year old medical technology by an Ayurvedic physician from Sri Lanka to Japan.

At a simple ceremony held at the Hotel Lanka Oberoi in March this year, Dr. Upali Pilapitiya of Kasbewa was presented with two prestigious awards from the Association of Colo-Proctology of Japan and the Japan Association for Ayurvedic Research for introducing an Ayurvedic method of treatment for anal-fistula patients.

The awards were presented by Professor Nanba of the Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University of Japan, and Dr. Kenji Tazawa of the Ayurveda Society of Japan.

'Kshara Sutra' a slim chapter in the Susruta Samhita, a book on surgery written about 3000 years ago by Acharya Susruta, sets out in fifteen small sections the highly complicated treatment for all types of anal- fistula, a most painful condition.

21 years ago, Dr. Pilapitiya, introduced this ancient alkaline thread treatment to Professor Nanba Tsuneo M.D., a Japanese surgeon. Earlier, invasive surgery was the only treatment available. Dr. Nanba is a practising Western qualified surgeon.

Having mastered this technique, Dr, Nanba Tsuneo trained other Western medical surgeons and established a unit for the treatment of anal-fistula. Dr. Pilapitiya kept contact with him giving the necessary assistance during the last two decades.

During the past 21 years the Japanese surgeons have successfully treated over 1500 patients. The patients are reluctant to disclose their condition to any one in the initial stages.

However, it is at that stage that the treatment is relatively easy. Nevertheless, patients suffer in secret till the condition worsens, which is another reason as to why the treatment is so difficult.

The relief felt by any patient on the way to recovery after the severe pain has been brought under control, is limitless.

Some patients become incapable of continuing the work they did as useful citizens in the community. The various kinds of medicine had to be carefully prepared. The process of treatment itself is time consuming and the doctor must have great patience.

The physician

Dr. Upali Pilapitiya, (whose father was a well-known traditional Ayurvedic physician from Gampola), started his education at the Gampola Convent and later at Kingswood College Kandy.

As a duck does to water, he had entered the Ayurvedic college in Colombo and obtained his D.A.M.S (Hons) and had become a lecturer in that institution. Subsequently, he obtained his Masters Degree and then his Doctorate in Ayurvedic Medicine from the Gujarat Ayurvedic University.

He is probably the first Sri Lankan Ayurvedic Physician to obtain a doctorate in that tradition of medicine.

Thereafter, he studied Acupuncture and other forms of traditional medicine in China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Nepal, Yugoslavia and the Czech Republic.

He rose to be the Secretary to the Ministry of Indigenous Medicine and became the first Director of the Bandaranaike Memorial Ayurvedic Research Institute.

He also received the Presidential Award "Widdyanidi", and "Saharabiseka Viddyasoori", a state award and a special award from Prime Minister Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike called "Vishva Prasadini". Dr. Pilapitiya has had an impressive preparation for the work he is doing at present. He never uses Western drugs in his practice. (Even his plain tea, he takes with a piece of 'Kithul Jaggery'!)

The origins

Ayurveda is said to be eternal in scope but progressive in outlook. Tradition attributes the origin of Ayurveda to the creator Brahma. However, the creator did not create Ayurveda. He only "recollected or recalled to memory Ayurvedic science."

Then he taught it to Prajapathi who taught it to divine twins, the Aswini brothers. They taught Indra. He taught it to the sons of Holy Atri i.e. Agnivesa and his five brothers. They wrote separate and special treatises of their own.

After long years, some of these works got lost and Acharya Vagbhata had collected the essence of their works summarized it in his great book Astangika Hridaya , the heart of the eight limbed medical system, which is described as a most beautiful Sanskrit poem in addition to being a great storehouse of Ayurvedic knowledge.

Our own king Buddhadasa, the most famous physician in ancient Sri Lanka, did the same because he collected all available medical knowledge and included it in his Sarartha Sangrahaya. King Buddhadasa is credited with some fantastic cures through surgery.

In the 4th C. A.D. there had been considerable intellectual association between India and Sri Lanka. Vagbhata was probably a contemporary of King Buddhadasa.

A few of Vagbhata's verses had somehow got in to the comprehensive work on Ayurveda composed by king Buddhadasa, the Sarartha Sangrahaya which was also produced in Sanskrit verse.

As to how a few verses of Vagbhata got into a Sri Lankan book is not known. Pandit Ariyadasa Kumarasinghe who edited the Sarartha Sangrahaya says that king Buddhadasa established Ayurvedic halls of treatment in each village and appointed a paid Ayurvedic practitioner to every group of 10 villages and the patients were given free medical treatment.

Surgery in ayurveda

Simply because there is now no surgery in the curriculum of the present day Ayurvedic students, some think that there was no surgery in Ayurveda Medicine. The three thousand year old text by Acharya Susruta, the Susruta Samhitha alone proves that ancient Hindu Medicine had very advanced surgery.

The WHO commissioned a competent person to produce the surgical instruments described by Susruta.

The WHO now has 142 instruments used in Ayurvedic surgery. Western surgeons have confessed that any operation done today can be done with those instruments except perhaps intricate brain surgery done with the help of laser technology.