"homeopathy" in India

[Ashok Aklujkar]

> From: Allen W Thrasher <athr at LOC.GOV>
> Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:56:37 -0400

> "homeopathy" is often used there to mean any system of medicine
> except mainline modern Western medicine?

Not so as far as my experience goes. I have yet to come across a person who
used "homeopathy" when he/she had Ayurveda or Unani medicine or naturopathy
in mind. 

This does not mean that you will not come across a significant number of
Indians who think that Homeopathy is Indian, non-Western, in its origin or
that it is a very old system of medicine. We should not take their view of
the history of Homeopathy as conditioning the denotatum of "homeopathy" in
their usage.

By the way, one occasionally comes across 'baarak.sarii" at least In
Maharashtra. I suppose it stands for a branch/offshoot of Homeopathy that
rests on twelve mineral products called "cell salts" or "tissue salts."

ashok aklujkar