Assembling cyavanaprāsh, Ayurveda's best-selling medicine

Abstract

The paper discusses the many forms and representations of cyavanaprāsh, Ayurveda's best-selling medicine, already mentioned in Caraka's Compendium (c. 200 CE). The medicine's compositions, applications, and meanings, change over time and from locality to locality. Cyavanaprāsh is, for example, a patriotic formula, a booster of the immune system, a modern geriatric drug, and one of the elements in canonical Ayurvedic treatments. In the beginning of the 19th century cyavanaprāsh was a patriotic formula for fortifying Indian bodies and the nascent Indian nation. Nowadays the medicine is a Fast Moving Consumer Good (FMCG) and a money maker for Dabur India Ltd., the world largest Ayurvedic manufacturer. Instead of vitalising the nation its consumption now promises to make urban middle class consumers effectively modern. Branding and modern science must make Dabur Chyawanprash attractive in the eyes of these consumers. Ayurveda and cyavanaprāsh are also part of a global counter culture marked by neo-Orientalism and Ayurvedic medicines as facilitators of spirituality. The marketing of cyavanaprāsh by India's largest Ayurvedic manufacturer is used as a case study for discussing the proliferation of Ayurvedic brands and its critics. The imaging of Ayurvedic brands such as Dabur Chyawanprash threatens to obscure the fact that Ayurveda represents a unique way of looking upon health, disease and the human body. The proliferation of brands also makes Ayurvedic medicines more expensive and puts pressure on the natural environment as the main supplier of Ayurvedic ingredients.