In-Disciplining Jwarasur: The Folk/Classical Divide and Transmateriality of Fevers in Colonial Bengal

Abstract

Extant scholarship on Jwarasur [the Fever-Demon] sees him as a colonial-era invention tied to the exigencies of colonial rule. Jwarasur is held to belong exclusively to the domain of Bengali ‘folk medicine’ rather than ‘classical Ayurveda’. We challenge both these contentions and draw four inter-related inferences. First, we posit that Jwarasur was not alien to classical Ayurvedic medicine. Second, we claim that Jwarasur was significant to the way Ayurvedic physicians negotiated fever. Third, we trace the invention of the folk/classical divide under colonial modernity. Finally, we posit that the divide inspired new reading strategies through which modernising Ayurvedists sought to expunge the transmateriality of Jwarasur. Jwarasur, we find, was constantly re-embedded into multiple heterogeneous traditions of medical and religio-moral practice. These diverse embeddings actively militate against the existence of any corpuscular ‘systems’ called ‘folk’ or ‘classical’ medicine. Rather Jwarasur is a common figure that networks a number of heterogeneous, amorphous domains. The extant disciplinary protocols of History, Anthropology, etc., however, are blind to this networked past and hence keep alive the colonial distinctions of ‘folk’ and ‘classical’. Our critical history contrapuntally, seeks to restore the promiscuity of these corpuscular fields and historicise the divisions that distinguish them.

Disease, Demon, and the Deity: Case of Corona Mātā and Coronāsur in India

“…Other times, he is believed to be her servant. Whether as husband or servant, Jvarāsur is an affliction and to fight him off the goddess needs to be placated (Mukharji 2013). 8 A few centuries later, in the southern states in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we see an evolution of independent goddess shrines associated with the Āmman tradition; like its Sanskrit counterpart, Āmman also means mother and comes to be associated with the general re-emergence of the goddess tradition in the late medieval period.…”

“…In some instances, he is also mentioned without any reference to Śītalā Mātā. For further detail, see Mukharji (2013). 9 On the basis of an interview with Mrs. Punam Varma, a resident of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh and a practitioner in the Agiyā-paniyā Devī tradition.…”

Revitalisation of Ayurveda in Colonial Tamil region and Contributions of Pandit Srinivasa Narayana Iyengar - A Historical Perspective

“…A plethora of multiple meanings, practice and texts under the name of Ayurveda were transformed into a monolithic medical practices on the basis of Sanskrit texts [14] , c. . Sanskrit-centric Ayurvedic physicians tried to secularise their medicine by marginalising other indigenous practices as superstitious and irrational and termed them to be folk medicine, although those practices previously were considered as a part of the classical Ayurvedic texts [42] , [43] , [44] . Above all, ‘Sanskrit Ayurveda’ — a newly formed competing model — was projected as a national medicine [45] .…”

Indigenous and Western Medicines in Colonial South India: Nature of Discourses and Impact

“…As to the nature of disease causation a 'single coherent theory' was not practiced in premodern India. In fact, indigenous medical 'systems' had multiplicity of theories for the causation of disease such as the tidoa-tattva (humoral theory), the pragyapradha-tattva (disease causation through 'violation of good judgement), the sapta-dhātu tattva (theory of seven 'bodily supports'), the theory of epidemics through the moral corruption of the monarch and theories of heredity, etc (Hymavathi, 1993 andMukharji, 2013). Indigenous medical texts frequently carried more than one theory in the same texts.…”

“…Before the revitalisation of indigenous medicines, a single theory that defined everything had not emerged. During the late nineteenth century, a single coherent theory based on humours (vāta, pitta and kapha) gained currency as the sole authority of indigenous medicines (Mukharji, 2013 andAttewell, 2013). Moreover, humoral theory was established as a fundamental theory of indigenous medicines during the debates between indigenous and western medicines.…”