186 chapter
temple’s large complex of shrines is carefully decorated and painted and spread
over several acres of open grounds surrounded by hills. A variety of pūjas (wor-
ships) are carried out over the course of the day at the temple’s shrines. Music
is playing; incense is burning. In addition to the sensorial experience invoked
by the environment of the temple, some of the mentally affl icted people at
Chottanikkara report undergoing a spiritual change, a positive reorientation,
or a movement to a state of health and well-being that is more auspicious than
their pre-illness state. Recall Lakshmi, the woman introduced in Chapter 3
who was seeking Devi’s assistance at Chottanikkara having previously tried
allopathic treatment for her chronic fever, headache and fatigue. She described
the healing process at Chottanikkara as an uplifting transformation:
I have been coming to Chottanikkara for the last six years now. I came here
because of the chaitanyam [power/consciousness] and blessing of the Devi [the
goddess] at Chottanikkara. I started sitting for worship. From then until now,
I haven’t been to the hospital. I have no problem at all. I came here, and Devi
changed everything for me. So I have been getting aiśvaryam [wealth/glory] and
abhivriddhi [prosperity] continuously. Because of that blessing, I will be here
forever.While most patients talk of getting relief or change, Lakshmi speaks of
receiving prosperity and blessing through healing. Although she claims to
have overcome her problems, Lakshmi did not fi nd a “cure,” a simple ridding
of her illness, and a return to health as a state of functionality. Rather, she
feels she went through an auspicious transformation and developed a sense
of well-being. “Health,” or what one accomplishes in healing in this case, is
not “remedial” (to borrow Alter’s [1999] label for biomedical and anthropo-
logical assumptions about the nature of “health”). It is not a baseline state,
absent of morbidity. It is something that can be constantly improved. Like
the term sukham in Malayalam which means both “health” and “happiness”
and is included in the everyday rhetorical question, “sukham ano?” (“Are you
happy/healthy?” roughly akin to “How are you?), it can be a state that is more
vibrant and progressive than a simple absence of illness or presence of normal
functionality.
Returning to the insights of Ajit, our most frequent interlocutor on ayurvedic
therapy, we fi nd an analogous claim to reach for “another level” of well-being
through ayurveda. We recently heard of the diffi culties Ajit experienced adapt-
ing to the requirements of the 45 day treatment at the Government Ayurveda
Mental Hospital which necessitated that he stop smoking and change to a
vegetarian diet. He said he grew to like the new regimen after a while, and
later he commented on what he saw as contemporary views of health and the