Ayurveda: a multilectic interpretation

Ayurveda, in practice, comprises far more than a medical tradition in Sri Lanka. It provides, in addition to a manuscript for health care, a popular knowledge paradigm by which the population addresses social, epistemological and ontological issues in their lives. The concept of health expands to include the many existential levels that are basic to a definition of the self and the many arenas of life in which it is made evident. The concept of 'multilectic' process is introduced in this paper to explain this dynamic that characterizes popular Ayurveda, a dynamic that Sri Lankans specify as consisting of a fundamental complex interplay of mutually interrelated factors that are capable of referencing multiple meanings and life contingencies neither contradictory, dichotomous, nor unidirectional in nature. Because of the extent to which Ayurveda is embedded in the everyday lives and fundamental conceptual frameworks of the Sri Lankans, it is likely to remain an integrating knowledge system and a powerful explanatory paradigm in their general lives as well as for their health care dilemmas.