About the speaker:

Indudharan Menon is a scholar in residence at NCBS doing research on Indian medical traditions for its Science and Society programme. He has been looking at the origins of the practices, the methodology and the theories of traditional medicine from the point of view of the history of ideas. One of the objectives of his research is to understand the socio-historical contexts, belief systems, philosophical assumptions and worldviews that have contributed to the emergence of Ayurveda as a formal medical system. He is also studying and conducting fieldwork on the Ashtavaidya physicians and folk and shamanic healers of Kerala.