Isnt the idea that only by modern science have diseases been cured West-centric?

From: Mukund
Atheists, Rationalists, Devotees of Scientism etc. say that it due to modern science only, which is few hundred years old, we have been able to conquer
deadly diseases and make the world better place to live. And their Indian counterparts also seem to accept it blindly and put forth this argument during debate on science and Spirituality. But isn’t this view western centric, because as we know in Indian sub-continent, Ayurveda has been there from eternity?

Transcript

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question from Kund Prabhu atheists, rationalists, devotees of scientism etc say that it is due to modern science only these few hundred years old we have been able to conquer deadly diseases and make the world a better place to live and their Indian counterparts also seem to accept it blindly and put forth this argument during debate on science and spirituality but isn’t this view western centric because as we know in Indian subcontinent Ayurveda has been there from eternity answer yes Ayurveda has been there for a long long time it is a part of the Agha Upangas or the Vedas and the Vedas themselves are eternal so certainly there have always been methods for treating people using herbs using Ayurvedic preparations and also using mantras for example in the Mahabharata when Durudhana comes to Bhishma after being wounded on the 8th day of the battle then Bhishma actually treats him with mantras and herbs and cures him, relieves him of the pain so now modern people especially modern skeptics may not believe in the potency of mantras to heal so they have reason for their disbelief and the reason is that we don’t have any empirical evidence now the fact that there are several devotees in the western several diseases which in the western world created a huge amount of destruction like the black plague and other diseases and when the vaccines and the medicines for them were discovered it did save a lot of people so where credit is due there is no need to deny credit and from the point of view of recent scientific history there have been many diseases which would have caused a lot of death if some cures had not been found and the cures have been found through science so to the extent that diseases have been cured the scientists can be given credit and it is also important to recognize that the whole modern history is Eurocentric like Rudyard Kipling said the white man’s burden he had the idea that actually it is a white man’s burden to civilize the rest of humanity and actually the colonization of the rest of the world which is done by Britain and Europe at large which led to so much suffering and destruction of the indigenous cultures from the point of view of Britain and Europe was actually a noble selfless task that all these other races are uncivilized and through science and education it is our burden, our responsibility to civilize these races so it is a very Eurocentric view of things and for that Eurocentric view of history as well as the world to change those who are in the Indian tradition and those who know about the glory of the Indian tradition need to give objective facts along with solid reasoning then there will be a change in the perspective so Ayurveda is a burgeoning body of research at least as an alternative medicine in the West in India still it is considered to be a second grade career option most people who want to be doctors first go for allopathy and later on if they don’t get then they may go for BAMS or BHMS or something like that so Ayurveda is not attracting really the best brains right now and because it is not attracting the best brains so there is not so much research happening in terms of bringing forth the techniques for curing various diseases that are given in the Ayurvedic books so of course still there is no doubt that in Charaka Samhita and Shishruti Samhita there are methods for surgery also and quite sophisticated surgery at that which are described and the more awareness of this is spread the more it will be recognized that it was not modern medical science alone that led to the countering of diseases ultimately this world is a place of misery and human beings have intelligence and energy and they will use their intelligence and energy to find ways to combat the miseries of this world so there are two ways to combat the misery one is by trying to find out from God and use the means that he has given and the other is to find out by our own research so Ayurveda and the Vedic body of knowledge in general depends on or uses the knowledge that comes from God to counter the miseries of this world so even at a material level it is not that people were just dying of sickness in Vedic times there were means to cure them and in the western civilization increasingly in the westernized parts of the world which is no longer restricted to the west the reliance has always been on man’s own means to come up with solutions so it is this Eurocentric view of the world which is propagating that idea that only recently have we been able to cure diseases and to some extent if we consider the recent history of India the last 300, 400, 500 years and after the repeated invasions of India which started from Alexander in the 3rd century BC and which were the most disastrous during the period of repeated Islamic invasions and Islamic rules so much of India’s indigenous culture was lost and so when the Britishers came to India and especially when they also exploited India by the turn of the 20th century and even before that to some extent India was filled with poverty and there was a lot of suffering in terms of diseases and modern medicine was the only means available for curing people so because of all this the historical record does seem to support the idea that modern science has been able to save people from diseases so as I said where credit is due we should give the credit but beyond that the credit is not just to modern science because science has ultimately come from human beings and those human beings can depend on their own intelligence or they can use God’s intelligence and utilize that to counter suffering in this world also that’s what is done through Ayurveda so by presenting objective evidence and logical inference we can counter this Eurocentric view of the world in medicine as well as in history in general