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Swapnaushadhi: The Embedded Logic of Dreams and Medical Innovation in Bengal

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Abstract

Numerous medicines in South Asia have their origins in dreams. Deities, saints and other supernatural beings frequently appear in dreams to instruct dreamers about specific remedies, therapeutic techniques, modes of care etc. These therapies challenge available models of historicising dreams. Once we overcome these challenges and unearth the embedded logic of these dreams, we begin to discern in them a dynamic institution that enabled and sustained therapeutic change within a ‘traditional’ medical milieu.

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Notes

  1. For a detailed discussion of the history of Chandshir chikitsha, see Mukharji (2012), pp. 85–108.

  2. For a discussion on the history of Babon Gaji, see Mukharji (2010).

  3. The category of ‘folk medicine’ is usually seen to be either, entirely unchanging and static, or an archaic remnant of a bygone age that has somehow outlived its time. Both these frameworks are deeply problematic. Moreover, the category unthinkingly clubs together vastly different modes of therapy into a black-box that no longer has much descriptive or analytic power. For a fuller critique of the category of ‘folk’ medicine, see Mukharji (2013).

  4. Shulman and Stroumsa (1999), p. 1.

  5. Benjamin (1968), pp. 83–110.

  6. Doniger (1984), Green (2007), Al-Baghdadi (2006), Brittlebank (2011).

  7. Das (2012).

  8. Blanes and Santo (2013).

  9. Benjamin (2008), p. 238.

  10. For a discussion of these elements, see Mukharji (2012), pp. 85–108.

  11. See Mukharji (2010).

  12. Benjamin (1968), p. 261.

  13. Benjamin (1968), p. 263.

  14. Benjamin (1968), p. 262.

  15. Poe (2006).

  16. Blanes and Santo (2013), p. 199.

  17. Milne (2013)

  18. Hume (1921), p. 135.

  19. Hume (1921), p. 391.

  20. Wylie (1854), p. 365.

  21. Chatterjee (2013).

  22. Anon (1818). Dream mentioned on p. 454.

  23. Das (1998), p. 81.

  24. Simha (1978), p. 172.

  25. For a more detailed description of these forms of remedies at another shrine, see Naskar (1995), p. 337.

  26. Feierman (1979), Hsu (2001).

  27. Hsu (2001), p. 6.

  28. Simha (1978), p. 172.

  29. Bedtirtha (1907). Remedy mentioned on p. 179.

  30. Dhanwantari (1909). Remedy mentioned on p. 281.

  31. Bedtirtha (1907), pp. 178–79.

  32. Morinis (1982), p. 260.

  33. Sax (2009), pp. 98–99.

  34. Personal Field Notes, December 2008.

  35. Simha (1978), p. 171.

  36. Niyogi (2006), pp. 152–53.

  37. Niyogi (2006), pp. 153–54.

  38. Niyogi (2006), pp. 151–52.

  39. Basu (2008), p. 213.

  40. Gupta (1941), pp. 162–67.

  41. Wright (1834), p. 377.

  42. Mukhopadhyay (1911), pp. 75–86.

  43. Morinis (1982).

  44. Bedtirtha (1907), pp. 178–79.

  45. Sharif (2000), p. 145.

  46. Khater (1877), p. 2.

  47. Wujastyk (1998), pp. 316–17.

  48. Sengupta (1871), pp. 52–56.

  49. Bourdieu (1988).

  50. Williams (1976), p. 168.

  51. Ibid.

  52. Williams (1976), p. 169.

  53. Deleuze and Guattari (2004).

  54. Scott (1991), Jay (2005).

  55. Poe 2006.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Laurent Pordié and Harish Naraindas for encouraging me to write this up and then waiting patiently despite repeated delays. Comments from the anonymous referees were enormously helpful in fleshing out the arguments made here. Conversations with David Hardiman gave me confidence that dreams could be historicized. Finally, Manjita Mukharji patiently heard, challenged and helped improve each of the myriad versions of the argument from its inception through to maturity.

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  1. Department of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Projit Bihari Mukharji

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Mukharji, P.B. Swapnaushadhi: The Embedded Logic of Dreams and Medical Innovation in Bengal. Cult Med Psychiatry 38, 387–407 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-014-9387-6

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