Hela Weda Mahima: The Glory of Indigenous Medicine in Sri Lanka

After the preparation is made correctly, the power of the medicine is tested through pendulum method. They believe that the oil is moving according the practitioner's wish clockwise or anticlockwise and it can predict the some questions asked about the patient's condition.

School children attending a special ritual in Kelaniya temple. Bodhi Puja is a special votive performed for obtaining blessings from the sacred Bo tree in healing rituals.

The Bodhi Puja is a special kind of ritual performed for obtaining blessings for healing of chronic diseases and bedridden patients as well as patients who are in critical conditions with intensive care treatments. People believe that this scared tree has a power of blessing enriched with divine forces and cosmic energy that passed through the leaves.

People practice watering the tree as well as offering other sacred things while hanging color flags on which the patient's name is written. If the disease is diagnosed as caused by a malicious effect of demonic force or bad planetary influence this kind of ritual is prescribed by healers as they believe that their treatment is more successful and effective with the blessings.

Layman society believes in the protection of divine forces in curing chronic ailments. They offer devotion after attaining the desired healing of a patient.

The lenses are made with aquamarine gemstones belonging to the beryl variety called Diyatharippu. It is skillfully polished to suit the user’s andiriya (the status of the visual impairment based on age category) and said to be very cooling to the eye.

Diagnosis of diseases by pulse reading is a special practice unique to indigenous medical lore. Different family traditions imply different techniques for such diagnosis as inherited by ancestral wisdom through family lineages. The vital touch of physician is considered as a healing touch that minimize the social distance between practitioner and the patient who seeks the divine qualities from the practitioner.

Physician-patient relationship is a cultural bond that keeps the spiritual harmony represented by betel leaves beyond the monetary values. Respecting and bowing to a physician is a form of recognizing the blessings of good health, as well as the spiritual values and qualities the healer has inherited from the ancestors of indigenous medical lore. In indigenous medical lore there is no monetary value given for the service rendered but the humanistic value is reputed.

Palm leaf manuscripts are the most valuable treasure of documented indigenous medical knowledge in written form. They are honored and venerated by the traditional communities as a sacred heritage. The documentary heritage embedded in the indigenous medical lore is mostly preserved in this treasure trove of palm-leaf manuscripts. Most of these manuscripts are found in temple libraries as well as in private custodies of traditional practitioners.

Bhesajja Manjusavais the only medical text written in Pali language and recognized as a national documentary heritage under the UNESCO memory of the world program. This text belonged to 13th century AD and written by a monk named Atthadassi and prescribed for monastery life as the book does not contain chapters for treatments for women's and children's diesease. This book has more than 60 references from source books existed during that period.

Writing on palm leaf is an ancient art of documenting knowledge. Stylus is used for inscribing on the leaf and it is a traditional writing tool of palm-leaf manuscripts. Different kinds of stylus are used among traditional writers and the letters inscribed by this tool are preserved for millennia after blackening. Most of the ancient temples writing art is taught as a mandatory subject of monastery discipline.

Most of the practitioners keep their private collection of palm leaf manuscripts. Those manuscripts are generally inherited; handwritten manuscripts are gifted by masters; and printed books used by the family elders. The palm-leaf manuscripts contain recipes belonged to the family lineage preserved by ancestors. The present generation dedicate for the conservation and continue the knowledge embedded in these sources.

Some houses belonging to well-known indigenous families are declared as national treasures by the Department of Archeology; they are protected by law. A house with such prestige and status reflects social class and the reputation of a family tradition. Family heritage and ancestral reputation are most important factor to show the glory of knowledge that they inherited from the previous generation as cultural symbol.

A traditional house where indigenous medicine is practiced is highly renowned to the lay people. Most practitioners keep ancient furniture and family pictures showing ancestral lineage. They believe that a traditional house like this has a blessed atmosphere and is where ancestral spirits support the physician in the healing process. Also in Sri Lankan traditional culture is very much reputed by general laymen society as a symbol of ancestral identity.

Indigenous people also inherit their own medical lore, which is now disappearing due to social transformation. Some of them occasionally visit the city temple and show their healing practices inherited from ancestors. Some laymen still believe that these indigenous people have good skill of healing with natural remedies.