Making Tibetan medicine in Nepal

Abstract

This chapter examines the sourcing, production, and circulation of Tibetan medicines in Nepal. It focuses on the emergence of cottage industry manufacture in Kathmandu, the reasons for its persistence, and the debates about its future. In contrast to India, China, Mongolia, and Bhutan, Sowa Rigpa remains without formal government recognition in Nepal. Pharmaceutical regulations are ad-hoc, investment and support are minimal, and access to medicinal plants is increasingly problematic. Despite this precarious context, numerous Sowa Rigpa pharmacies are raising their output volumes to feed growing local and national markets. While most practitioners see some form of pharmaceutical “development” as desirable, many are also critical of the depersonalised mass production and profit maximisation taking place elsewhere, giving rise to a sense of precarity, ambivalence, and uncertainty. This chapter argues that cottage industry production persists in part due to the lack of recognition, regulation, and investment but also due to shared discourses about the advantages of small-scale production for the quality, efficacy, and social value of medicines. Rather than moving inexorably along a preordained trajectory of industrialisation, Nepal’s Sowa Rigpa pharmacists represent a coherent, adaptive, and effective mode of production while offering a unique perspective on the traditional medicine industry in Asia.