Ayurvedic Man: Encounters with Indian Medicine

Fascinating exhibition at the Wellcome Collection looking at Indian medicine from traditional techniques to the present day.

The show was cleverly arranged taking different aspects of medicine such as surgery, anatomy and potions and introducing each with a quote from Paira Mall who was sent to the Indian subcontinent by Henry Wellcome to collect objects for this collection and to acquire local knowledge. The show was multilayers not only being about Indian medicine but also the art of collecting and the nature of colonialism.

The star of the show was the Ayurvedic man himself, an 18th century Nepali painting of a man with a detailed text on the parts of the body and the related humours of wind, bile and phlegm. It was show on its own in a booth with a reading of the text in the original language and translation. 

I loved the early 19th century European influenced pictures called Company School pictures including one of an operation on a leg. Also a drawing of  huge British opium factory, a part of our history we seem to choose to forget.

The curator had commissioned contemporary works to enlighten the show and my favourite was Ranjit Kandalgaonkar’s detailed drawing representing the Bombay Plague shown with a AV linking to information from the late 19th century on the plague.

Closes on 8 April 2018

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