A proposal for a new internationally-recognized alternative medicine foundation in Sri Lanka, to honour the ancient tradition of the healing kings, using traditional healing resources plus the best of modern complementary medicines, East and West.

by Prof Keith Scott-Mumby MB ChB, MD, PhD

Southern California Open International University for Complementary Medicines

["world healing" is a deliberate double entendre, implying that it can heal the world, as well as heal the individual]

This is a proposal, subject to sponsorship funds, to aid Sri Lanka rise to new levels of international recognition, after the disastrous 2004 tsunami. World attention has been focused on the country and the medical plight of many unfortunate victims.

Now we have entered what most people recognize as the aftermath: the rebuilding phase.

It is a golden opportunity to utilize the continued good will and generosity of sponsors, to do something creative and visionary, which will bring great health benefits to the local population. We have identified funds which the donors would like to see used to create an alternative medical facility. The full concept will also make it into a specific world-unique teaching college, where many aspects of energy medicine and alternative therapies, including indigenous modalities, will be taught and validated. In time this may come to the status of a unique state-recognized university.

We would like to affiliate or combine this project with a World Bank sponsored project in Balangoda, in which indigenous medical lore and botany has been developed towards growing and harvesting suitable medicinal herbs. This is 30 acres of government-owned gardens and now 5 years of World Bank funding has come to an end, the government is looking for someone to take up sustainable management of the project overlooking Chandrikawewa. I believe, interesting as it is, growing herbs profitably is very difficult to conceive. But if combined with a medical unit actually prescribing the substances, then viability will be attainable very quickly.

As a teaching facility, a great deal of free skilled medical aid will be available to local inhabitants, paid for by visiting international student and patient fees. Key concepts, such as herbal remedies and homeopathy are very inexpensive indeed, when compared to Western scientific medicine. Sri Lanka has a long tradition of being at the forefront of healing, but today it is largely forgotten and history has to come to our aid to remind us….

"If you can’t be the king, be a healer"
attributed to King Buddhadasa

The king has always been invested with healing powers. According to the epic chronicle the Ramayana, a king ruling Sri Lanka about 10,000 years ago, called Ravana, was also a great healer. He is portrayed with 10 heads, signifying immense wisdom, and twenty hands, signifying great dexterity. One of the pairs of hands is holding what are probably acupuncture needles.

Besides a number of medical discoveries that are only now being acknowledged by Western medicine, the ancient Sinhalese are perhaps responsible for introducing the concept of hospitals to the world.

According to American historians Will and Ariel Durant, King Pandukabhaya (4th century B.C.) had lying-in-homes and hospitals built in various parts of the country after having fortified his capital at Anuradhapura. According to Prof. Arjuna Aluvihare (Vidhusara Science Magazine, Nov. 1993), this is the earliest literary evidence we have of the concept of hospitals anywhere in the world.

According to the Chulavansa, King Sena II (851-885 A.C.) built the oldest properly excavated hospital in the world, at Mihintale. That is to say: not that the excavations are the oldest but the hospital itself.

King Dutugemunu is well reputed to have built many hospitals and put dispensaries in every village of size. King Aggabodhi VII (766-772 AD) studied the medical plants over the whole island of Lanka (to find out) whether they were wholesome or harmful for the sick. This is perhaps the first recorded instance of medical research anywhere is the world.

King Buddadasa (C. 3^rd AD) is credited with the saying "If you can't be the king, be a healer." King Buddhadasa carried out great feats of surgery on humans and animals, including brain surgery. He constantly carried a set of surgical instruments with him on his journeys. It also said of this king that he operated on a low caste (Chandala) woman in order to deliver her child. It speaks well of Buddhadasa that he threw aside ancient prejudices "unimaginable in those caste-ridden days" to have attended on an untouchable female. Clearly, this noble and compassionate king considered service to humanity to be a sacred and estimable duty, transcending all social customs.

We may perhaps take his point of view as an inspiration for our proposed giving and healing centre.

Incidentally, experts have suggested that the anaesthetic used by Buddhadasa for his surgery was a mixture of acupuncture and herbal opiate wine.

Which brings me to acupuncture. Sri Lanka almost certainly originated acupuncture. Small pointed bones and needles of flint, quartz, chert and other hard substances have been found among cave artifacts from the Balangoda district, going back over 30,000 years. Swiss archeologists Sarasin and Sarasin report these being possibly used for acupuncture, as well as the obvious tattooing and stitching ("Steinzeit auf Zeylan", 1908). Moreover, ancient Sri Lankan manuscripts depict acupuncture points mapped on the human body. Acupuncture was also used on animals. The probable reason that the Indian (Sri Lankan) elephant was successfully tamed is that acupuncture points were worked out that calmed the beasts and enabled them to be communicated with and trained (The African elephant, of course, has never been trained). These early writings considerably pre-date (500 years older) the now less important Chinese Yellow Emperor's Book, which is supposed to be the first tract on acupuncture.

As for the efficacy of local medicine this is borne out by a number of western authorities right down from the Portuguese colonial period (16th-17th centuries).

Joao Ribeiro, the famous Portuguese soldier-historian who served in Sri Lanka from 1641-1658 has written in his reputed work "Fatalidade Historia de Ceilao".

This is truly a formidable history onto which to graft our passion for a World Healing Foundation.

It is very pivotal to the success of this scheme that it looks outside the parochial and takes an international view. That will attract the right kind of health experts. It also means that overseas patients will be attracted in significant numbers (the type of individual that has been dubbed the "health tourist"). The name can be decided later but at this stage I favour "The World Healing Foundation", subtitled the "King Buddhadasa College of Alternative Medicine", in line with my earlier comments.

I would like to see the name gradually elevated, until it becomes a unique and famous property, much as the Mayo Clinic is identified with all that is best in Western medicine. With this in mind, I propose that we build wonderful gardens and residential chalets for guests, along eco-friendly lines. We can introduce other environmental concepts, such as wind power and solar power. I believe we can interest local sensitive architects to this scheme and have them empower it as a gift or for very low fees (there will be great prestige involved).

Done well, done really well, it will be a heavenly and serene place that attracts media interest and patients from around the globe. The gardens might become as admired as Lunaganga or Brief. The architecture should be in the Bawa tradition but unique and specific to the project. I am an internationally-known author on alternative medicines and see it as easy to promote such an inspired venture, with a steady stream of media articles, and lectures, on many aspects of the work we will be doing.

I am constantly fascinated by Sri Lanka’s ancient pre-eminence: his little island was evidently on a par with ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and Egypt of the pharaohs. Long before the Romans (400 BC), Sri Lanka had hydro spas, swimming pools, public baths with working spray-jet showers, major irrigation reservoirs and hydro-engineering skills that worked accurately to a fall of one inch in one kilometre. All this should be brought out in the promotions of our College.

It may be possible to affiliate with known tourist organizations, which have the skill and sensitivity to develop luxury quarters, that will attract an affluent clientele. I am thinking of Aman (If you have not heard of Aman, they have created some of the most stunning resort hotels in the world). This will provide the on-going funds to make available free treatments to the local populace and greatly reduced "resident" rates for all Sri Lankans. A small fee must be charged for remedies, to ensure viability of the herb gardens, but also because it is well-recognized that entirely free medicine, except in the most dire of cases which cannot pay, it always undervalued and therefore less effective.