Turmeric or Haldi is an age-old spice that has been used by Ayurveda and has immense medicinal and healing properties. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar unravels the incredible benefits of turmeric, its role in ancient Indian traditions and as a life-saving drug.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: I want to share with you one incident that happened in 1980. I had organized a meeting of Ayurvedic doctors and doctors of modern medicine in New Delhi. It was in Vasant Vihar and there were about 50 to 60 doctors on each side. As the conference was going on, the discussion of turmeric came up, and I vividly remember this discussion of turmeric. All the allopathic doctors said that turmeric has no value, it is just a pigment. They dismissed the Ayurvedic doctors who said that turmeric is a vayasthapan, which means it arrests ageing, and it creates more ojas (vitality) in your system. This is what the Ayurvedic doctors kept saying, but the allopathic doctors said that it was all total nonsense.
Today allopathy has recognized that the turmeric does the job of 19 life-saving drugs, including cancer. Turmeric is an anti-viral agent, if you have a viral fever. Usually, allopathic doctors say that there is no medicine for viral fever, just take some fresh turmeric with fresh lime, and that will do.
In India, we make pickles of turmeric, ginger and lemon, and this is the best. Turmeric is anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and an antioxidant. It does the work of aspirin, it is a blood thinner, and it stops blood coagulation. It does the work of 19 important life-saving drugs.
In our tradition, on any auspicious event, the first thing that we buy is turmeric, and then we buy clothes and other things. I remember when we got new clothes, my grandmother used to put a little turmeric at the corner of the cloth. If it is a new cloth, put some turmeric at the corner. Turmeric is given so much importance in our country even today.
Ayurveda is the medicine of the 21st century. Of course, not all Ayurvedic preparations which people do are hygienic or scientific in nature. We must not ignore science, but along with science, we must take Ayurveda.
