Ayurveda research: Ontological challenges

Collaborative research involving Ayurveda and the current sciences is undoubtedly an imperative and is emerging as an exciting horizon, particularly in basic sciences. Some work in this direction is already going on and outcomes are awaited with bated breath. For instance the ‘ASIIA (A Science Initiative In Ayurveda)’ projects of Dept of Science and Technology, Govt of India, which include studies such as Ayurvedic Prakriti and Genetics. Further intense and sustained collaborative research needs to overcome a subtle and fundamental challenge-the ontologic divide between Ayurveda and all the current sciences. Ontology, fundamentally, means existence; elaborated, ontology is a particular perspective of an object of existence and the vocabulary developed to share that perspective. The same object of existence is susceptible to several ontologies. Ayurveda and modern biomedical as well as other sciences belong to different ontologies, and as such, collaborative research cannot be carried out at required levels until a mutually acceptable vocabulary is developed.