REMEMBERING AYURVEDA OUT LOUD

Remembering Ayurveda Out Loud: Before It Dies Twice

“If you don’t remember somebody out loud, they die twice.”

Dr Aakash Kembhavi MD, PGDMLS, MS (Counseling & Psychotherapy)

A Note to the Reader

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are deeply personal reflections based on over 25 years of experience within the Ayurveda education, practice, and research ecosystem. They are not written to hurt, blame, or demean any individual, institution, or organization. Rather, they emerge from a place of genuine concern for a system I have dedicated my life to—a system I watch slipping away in silence.

If these words resonate with pain, it is because loss always hurts. If they provoke discomfort, may that discomfort lead to action. If they inspire recognition, may that recognition translate into remembrance.

This article is my attempt to remember Ayurveda out loud—to speak its name, its principles, its essence before it dies the second death of collective forgetting. It is written not in anger but in grief, not to condemn but to call out, not to divide but to awaken.

We are losing something precious, and I refuse to let it disappear in silence.

Note on Authorship: This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence, using AI as a collaborative tool to give voice to observations, experiences, and fears accumulated over decades of practice, teaching, and advocacy. The emotions, concerns, and love for Ayurveda are authentically mine; the articulation has been enhanced through AI collaboration.

The First Death: When Practice Becomes Performance

There’s a line from a film, The Equalizer 2, where a character tells him - that has haunted me for years: “If you don’t remember somebody out loud, they die twice.” The first death is physical—the body ceases. The second death is memorial—when no one speaks the name anymore, when the memory fades, when existence itself is erased from collective consciousness.

I watch Ayurveda dying its first death right now, in real time, and I am terrified of the second.

The first death is not dramatic. There’s no funeral, no moment of passing, no clear marker between life and death. Instead, it’s a slow fade—practice becoming performance, substance becoming simulation, medicine becoming merchandise. Ayurveda still walks among us, still speaks, still appears in clinics and colleges and conversations. But something essential has already stopped breathing.

The Breath That Has Stopped

I recognize the signs of this first death everywhere:

In our colleges, where students memorize Sushruta Samhita without understanding Sushruta’s mind—where texts are exam content, not clinical wisdom. We recite Charaka’s words without channeling Charaka’s approach to observation, reasoning, and therapeutic innovation. The books are open, but the tradition is closed.

In our clinics, where diagnostic protocols that took millennia to refine are abandoned for convenience. When was the last time you performed a complete Dashvidha Pariksha? When did you last spend an hour understanding a patient’s Prakriti before prescribing? We’ve kept the prescription pad but discarded the process that should inform it.

In our research institutions, where we study Ayurveda as an object of curiosity rather than a living methodology. We validate individual herbs while ignoring the sophisticated systems of diagnosis and treatment contextualization that give those herbs meaning. We publish papers, but we don’t advance practice.

In our pharmacies, where classical formulations are “improved” into unrecognizability. We add synthetic excipients, alter traditional preparation methods for efficiency, and market products that Charaka would not recognize as the formulations that bear his name. The label says “Chyawanprash,” but is it?

In our practice patterns, where we’ve learned to call ourselves Ayurvedic physicians while practicing something that would perplex our ancestors. A little Ayurveda mixed with homeopathy, naturopathy, modern diagnostics, and whatever else seems to help patients—or at least whatever patients will pay for.

This is the first death—Ayurveda exists, but it no longer lives as itself.

The Silence That Accelerates the Second Death

But the first death, heartbreaking as it is, is not the death I fear most. I fear the second death—the death of memory, the death of recognition, the death that happens when we stop speaking Ayurveda’s true name out loud.

This second death is already beginning, and it’s happening through our collective silence about what we’ve lost.

The Silence of Compromise

We don’t talk about how few practitioners can actually perform traditional diagnosis. We don’t mention that most BAMS graduates cannot read Charaka Samhita in Sanskrit—the language in which its subtleties live. We don’t acknowledge that “Panchakarma centers” often perform procedures that would horrify classical practitioners.

We stay silent because speaking feels:

  • Judgmental: Who am I to criticize fellow practitioners?
  • Counterproductive: Why create conflict in the community?
  • Futile: The system is too big to change
  • Risky: Speaking out might affect my professional standing
  • Exhausting: I’m tired of fighting battles no one wants to win

But silence is not neutrality. Silence is complicity in erasure. Every day we don’t speak the truth about what we’ve lost is another day closer to the second death—when no one will remember what Ayurveda actually was.

The Silence of Adaptation

We’ve developed sophisticated vocabularies to justify our compromises:

  • “Integrative practice” (translation: I don’t practice Ayurveda purely anymore)
  • “Modern adaptation” (translation: I’ve abandoned classical principles)
  • “Patient-centered approach” (translation: I give them what they want, not what Ayurveda prescribes)
  • “Evidence-based practice” (translation: I trust modern studies over traditional wisdom)
  • “Practical application” (translation: I’ve simplified Ayurveda to the point of unrecognizability)

These phrases are not bridges between tradition and modernity—they’re euphemisms that let us avoid saying out loud what we’re actually doing: forgetting Ayurveda while still claiming its name.

What Dies With the Second Death

When we stop remembering Ayurveda out loud—when we stop speaking honestly about what it truly is and what we’ve allowed it to become—what exactly dies?

The Death of Diagnostic Precision

Classical Ayurveda offers breathtaking diagnostic sophistication: Ashtasthana Pariksha, Dashvidha Pariksha, detailed examination of Nadi, Mutra, Mala, Jihva, Shabda, Sparsha, Drik, Akriti. This is not checklist medicine—it’s a comprehensive methodology for understanding the unique constitutional state of each individual patient.

When we stop practicing this, when we stop teaching students to actually perform these examinations, when we replace them with blood tests and questionnaires, we lose not just techniques but an entire epistemology—a way of knowing the patient that modern medicine has yet to replicate.

If we don’t remember this diagnostic precision out loud, if we don’t insist on its practice and transmission, it dies. And with it dies the ability to practice individualized medicine with the sophistication Ayurveda pioneered.

The Death of Therapeutic Depth

Ayurvedic therapeutics is not about matching herbs to diseases. It’s about understanding Dosha-Dushya relationships, Srotasa involvement, Ama accumulation, Agni status, and the appropriate sequence of interventions based on Roga-Bala and Rogi-Bala.

When we reduce this to “take Triphala for constipation” or “turmeric for inflammation,” we’re not simplifying Ayurveda—we’re killing it. The depth dies, the context dies, the individualization dies, and eventually, the efficacy dies.

If we don’t remember therapeutic depth out loud, if we don’t demonstrate in our practice why this complexity matters, the second generation of practitioners won’t even know it existed. And the third generation won’t believe it ever could have.

The Death of Philosophical Foundation

Ayurveda rests on profound philosophical foundations: Samkhya cosmology, Vaisheshika epistemology, Nyaya logic, the sophisticated understanding of Purusha-Prakriti relationships that inform concepts of health and disease.

Modern Ayurvedic education often treats these philosophical foundations as ceremonial introductions—acknowledge them in the first chapter, then move on to the “practical” material. But these aren’t decorative elements; they’re the root system that nourishes every clinical decision.

When we stop teaching philosophy as the foundation of practice, when we stop requiring students to wrestle with these concepts, when we treat them as cultural heritage rather than clinical necessity, we cut Ayurveda off from its roots.

If we don’t remember this philosophical depth out loud, if we don’t insist that clinical practice must emerge from philosophical clarity, we lose the coherence that makes Ayurveda a system rather than a collection of remedies.

The Death of Linguistic Precision

Sanskrit is not just the language in which Ayurvedic texts were written—it’s the language in which Ayurvedic concepts can be most precisely expressed. Translation always involves interpretation, and interpretation involves loss.

When we teach Ayurveda entirely through English translations, when we allow students to graduate without Sanskrit competency, when we ourselves stop reading original texts and rely on summaries and simplified versions, we lose access to subtleties that shaped the system’s development.

Words like Dosha, Dhatu, Mala, Ojas, Tejas, Prana—these are not simply translatable. Their meanings shift and shimmer across contexts, carrying layers of significance that no single English word can capture. When we forget the language, we lose access to the precision of the thinking.

If we don’t remember linguistic precision out loud, if we don’t insist on at least functional Sanskrit literacy, we doom future generations to practice Ayurveda through distorted translations, increasingly distant from original meanings.

My Personal Terror: Watching the Second Death Approach

Let me be vulnerably honest: I am terrified.

I have spent over 25 years in Ayurveda—studying, practicing, teaching, researching, advocating. I have read the classical texts in Sanskrit. I have struggled with their complexities, marveled at their insights, and tried to apply their principles in clinical practice. I have trained students, written articles and given lectures.

And I watch it all slipping away.

The Students Who Don’t Know What They’re Losing

I teach students who are bright, capable, well-intentioned. But they don’t know what Ayurveda is. They’ve never experienced it practiced authentically. They’ve never seen diagnostic precision result in therapeutic accuracy. They’ve never witnessed the sophistication of classical treatment protocols properly applied.

How can they remember out loud what they never knew existed?

They’re learning a hollowed-out version of Ayurveda—all the terminology but none of the depth, all the formulations but none of the diagnostic frameworks that should guide their use, all the historical reverence but none of the clinical rigor.

When these students become practitioners, what will they remember? What will they pass on? A further diluted version of an already compromised system, until Ayurveda becomes just a cultural reference point with no clinical substance.

The Colleagues Who Have Stopped Trying

I know practitioners—brilliant, well-trained, deeply knowledgeable—who have given up trying to practice authentic Ayurveda. Not because they don’t know how, but because:

  • Patients don’t have patience for complex diagnosis
  • Insurance doesn’t reimburse for hour-long consultations
  • Competition demands quick fixes and visible results
  • Economic survival requires volume over depth
  • Social media rewards simplification over sophistication

They still call themselves Ayurvedic physicians, but they’ve quietly shelved the practices that define Ayurveda, replacing them with whatever works commercially. And I understand—I genuinely understand—because the alternative is often economic non-viability.

But understanding doesn’t change the reality: each practitioner who stops practicing authentic Ayurveda is another voice that stops remembering out loud. And when enough voices go silent, the second death becomes inevitable.

The Institutions That Have Surrendered

I’ve worked in Ayurvedic colleges for decades. I’ve sat through countless meetings where we discuss “modernization” and “making Ayurveda relevant” and “attracting students.”

But what we’re actually discussing is: How do we make Ayurveda easier? How do we reduce the Sanskrit requirement? How do we simplify the curriculum? How do we make students feel successful without requiring them to master difficult material?

We’ve collectively decided that authentic Ayurveda is too hard to teach, too difficult to learn, too complex to practice, and too demanding for modern contexts. So we simplify, dilute, compromise—and call it progress.

But this isn’t adaptation; it’s surrender. And every year we graduate another batch of students who have been taught a compromised version of Ayurveda, we move closer to the point where no one remembers what was lost because no one ever learned it existed.

The Weight of Remembering

The line haunts me: “If you don’t remember somebody out loud, they die twice.”

I feel the weight of that responsibility. I feel it when I teach students who don’t want to learn Sanskrit. I feel it when I see practitioners prescribing randomly without proper diagnosis. I feel it when I read research papers that fundamentally misunderstand Ayurvedic principles. I feel it when I watch Ayurvedic product commercials that bear no relationship to authentic practice.

The Exhaustion of Being the Voice

There’s an exhaustion that comes with being the person who keeps saying, “But that’s not real Ayurveda.” You become the difficult colleague, the inflexible purist, the one who won’t adapt, the one who’s always criticizing instead of building.

You’re told:

  • “You’re being too rigid”
  • “Times have changed”
  • “We have to be practical”
  • “Perfect is the enemy of good”
  • “You can’t turn back time”
  • “This is the best we can do in current circumstances”

And maybe all of that is true. Maybe I am too rigid. Maybe times have changed. Maybe we do have to be practical.

But someone has to remember out loud. Someone has to say what’s being lost. Someone has to refuse to pretend that compromise is the same as evolution, that dilution is the same as adaptation, that forgetting is the same as progress.

Because if all of us who know what Ayurveda truly is stay silent—if we all decide it’s not worth the exhaustion, the conflict, the professional risk—then who will remember? Who will speak the name of authentic Ayurveda when we’re gone?

The Grief of Witnessing Loss

There’s a particular grief in watching something die while those around you don’t realize it’s happening—or worse, while they celebrate what they think is growth and adaptation.

I watch “Ayurveda” expand globally, and I grieve. Not because global reach is bad, but because what’s expanding is often a hollowed-out version bearing little resemblance to the system I love.

I watch “Ayurvedic” products multiply exponentially, and I grieve. Not because commercial success is wrong, but because most of these products have no legitimate connection to Ayurvedic principles or practice.

I watch “Ayurvedic wellness” become a multi-billion dollar industry, and I grieve. Not because prosperity is problematic, but because this prosperity is built on brand recognition, not clinical authenticity.

I watch students enthusiastically embrace “Ayurveda,” and I grieve. Not because their enthusiasm isn’t genuine, but because what they’re embracing is a simplified, Instagram-friendly version that would perplex actual Ayurvedic scholars.

This is the grief of watching the first death while knowing the second death approaches—and feeling powerless to prevent it.

The Choice: Silence or Voice

That line: “If you don’t remember somebody out loud, they die twice.”

It’s not just about remembering privately, cherishing memories in your heart, maintaining personal respect. It’s about remembering OUT LOUD—speaking the name, telling the stories, insisting on acknowledgment, refusing to let silence erase existence.

I have a choice. We all have a choice.

Choice One: Strategic Silence

I could stay silent. Focus on my own practice, teach my own students, write my own papers, and let the larger system drift wherever it drifts. Many thoughtful people choose this path—not from cowardice but from wisdom about where energy is best invested.

The logic is compelling:

  • I can’t change the entire system
  • Speaking out creates unnecessary conflict
  • Better to be a lighthouse than a foghorn
  • Model good practice rather than criticize bad practice
  • Focus on what I can control

This path has dignity. It’s not surrender; it’s strategic retreat to defensible positions. Maintain authenticity in your corner of the world and let that be enough.

But the cost is clear: if everyone capable of remembering out loud chooses strategic silence, who speaks for Ayurveda when we’re gone? Who tells the next generation what was lost? Who interrupts the narrative that “this is just how Ayurveda evolves”?

Choice Two: Exhausting Voice

Or I could keep speaking—writing articles like this, challenging compromises, insisting on standards, refusing to accept dilution as evolution. This path is exhausting. You make enemies, create conflict, exhaust goodwill, and often change nothing.

The costs are real:

  • Professional relationships strain
  • You’re labeled rigid, impractical, purist
  • Students resist being told they need to work harder
  • Institutions resent being challenged
  • The wellness industry dismisses you as irrelevant
  • You become increasingly isolated

But someone has to do it. Someone has to remember out loud. Someone has to be the difficult voice that says, “We’re losing something precious, and we need to acknowledge that loss.”

Not because it will certainly succeed, but because silence will certainly fail.

What I’m Asking For: Remember With Me

This article is my attempt to remember Ayurveda out loud. To speak its name—its true name, not the brand name it’s become. To insist on remembering what it actually is, not what we’ve marketed it to be.

But I can’t do this alone. One voice crying in the wilderness just sounds crazy. But many voices, speaking truth, refusing to forget, insisting on authenticity—that might be enough to prevent the second death.

For Students: Learn What You’re Inheriting

You’re inheriting something remarkable—a healthcare system that developed sophisticated diagnostic protocols, individualized treatment approaches, and philosophical depth over three millennia. Don’t settle for the simplified version.

Learn Sanskrit. Read original texts. Study with teachers who know authentic Ayurveda. Demand more from your education than exam-passing capability. Insist on clinical training that teaches actual diagnostic procedures, not just prescription patterns.

Remember out loud by refusing to accept compromised education. Your insistence on quality is a form of remembrance.

For Practitioners: Practice What You Profess

If you call yourself an Ayurvedic physician, practice Ayurveda. Not a hybrid of convenience, not whatever sells, not simplified versions for patient satisfaction—actual Ayurveda with its diagnostic rigor and therapeutic depth.

Yes, it’s harder. Yes, it’s economically challenging. Yes, it requires more from patients and more from you. But every consultation where you perform authentic Ayurvedic diagnosis, every treatment protocol based on classical principles, every patient educated about what real Ayurveda offers—these are acts of remembrance.

Remember out loud by practicing authentically, even when it’s inconvenient.

For Educators: Teach What’s True

Stop teaching simplified versions because students don’t want to work hard. Stop removing Sanskrit requirements because it’s difficult. Stop eliminating complexity because it’s easier to standardize.

Your responsibility is not to make students comfortable—it’s to make them competent. Every time you lower standards, you hasten the second death. Every time you teach authentic Ayurveda despite resistance, you keep memory alive.

Remember out loud by refusing to compromise educational integrity for enrollment numbers or student satisfaction scores.

For Researchers: Study What Matters

Stop doing research designed primarily to generate publications. Stop validating individual herbs while ignoring the diagnostic systems that contextualize their use. Stop accepting methodologies that can’t actually evaluate Ayurvedic practice appropriately.

Do research that advances clinical practice. Document outcomes honestly. Develop methodologies appropriate to individualized medicine. Share negative results as openly as positive ones.

Remember out loud by insisting that research should serve clinical advancement, not academic resume-building.

For Industry: Manufacture With Integrity

Stop putting “Ayurvedic” on products that have no legitimate connection to Ayurvedic principles. Stop altering classical formulations for profit margins while claiming traditional authenticity. Stop marketing lifestyle products as medicine.

If you’re going to profit from Ayurveda’s name, honor Ayurveda’s standards. Manufacture classical formulations correctly. Source ingredients appropriately. Test for authenticity and purity. Price products accessibly rather than as luxury goods.

Remember out loud by refusing to exploit Ayurveda’s brand while abandoning its substance.

For Institutions: Regulate With Teeth

Stop accepting compromised standards. Stop allowing colleges to operate without qualified faculty or adequate infrastructure. Stop permitting practitioners to call themselves Ayurvedic while practicing nothing recognizable as Ayurveda. Stop letting the pharmaceutical industry sell products that don’t meet classical specifications.

You have power. Use it. Every standard enforced is an act of remembrance. Every time you hold the line against compromise, you prevent the second death.

Remember out loud by exercising regulatory authority with the courage to maintain meaningful standards.

The Hope That Drives This Writing

I write this in grief but also in hope. Grief for what’s being lost, hope that it’s not too late to prevent the second death.

The first death may be inevitable—systems evolve, contexts change, traditional practices adapt to new circumstances. Perhaps authentic classical Ayurveda in its original form cannot survive in modern healthcare contexts. Perhaps some degree of compromise is necessary for any survival at all.

But the second death—the death of memory, the death that comes from silence—that’s preventable. We can remember out loud even while acknowledging change. We can speak truthfully about what’s being lost even while accepting that some loss may be inevitable. We can maintain memory even when we can’t maintain practice.

What Remembering Might Look Like

Imagine if:

Every Ayurvedic college had at least one faculty member committed to teaching authentic classical Ayurveda, insisting on standards, refusing to compromise—not as the only approach but as a living connection to tradition.

Every city had at least one practitioner committed to authentic practice, serving as a reference point for what Ayurveda can be when practiced with integrity.

Every professional gathering included honest conversation about what we’ve lost, not as guilt-inducing accusations but as acknowledgment of reality.

Every journal published at least some papers that engaged seriously with classical texts and traditional practice, not just biomedical validation studies.

Every regulatory body maintained at least some standards that protected authentic practice from complete dilution.

This wouldn’t be restoration of some imagined perfect past. But it would be remembrance—keeping alive the knowledge of what Ayurveda truly is, maintaining reference points to authentic practice, preventing complete forgetting.

Before the Second Death

That line keeps returning: “If you don’t remember somebody out loud, they die twice.”

Ayurveda is dying its first death right now—not dramatically, but gradually, through a thousand small compromises and concessions. Each simplified curriculum, each compromised diagnostic procedure, each diluted formulation, each practitioner who stops practicing authentically—these are not just adaptations, they’re small deaths.

But the second death—the death of memory—that’s what terrifies me. The thought that within two or three generations, no one will remember what Ayurveda actually was. The diagnostic sophistication will be forgotten. The philosophical depth will be lost. The therapeutic precision will disappear. And people will think that what remains—the products, the wellness trends, the lifestyle branding—that this is what Ayurveda always was.

That’s the second death—not just the loss of practice but the loss of memory of what the practice could be.

I refuse to stay silent while that happens.

This article is my remembering out loud. It’s imperfect, incomplete, and possibly ineffective. But it’s my refusal to let Ayurveda die twice. It’s my insistence on speaking its name—its true name—before forgetting becomes complete.

I’m asking you to remember with me. Not to live in the past, not to reject all change, not to pretend current contexts don’t matter. But to remember out loud what Ayurveda truly is, what we’ve lost, what we’re losing, and what we might yet preserve if we refuse to forget.

Because if we don’t remember Ayurveda out loud—if we all quietly accept compromise, dilution, and forgetting as inevitable—then the second death is certain.

And once that memory dies, once no one remembers what authentic Ayurveda was, it’s gone forever.

So I remember. Out loud. Imperfectly but insistently.

I remember Ayurveda as a sophisticated diagnostic system, not a collection of herbs.

I remember Ayurveda as individualized medicine, not standardized protocols.

I remember Ayurveda as philosophical depth informing clinical practice, not remedies divorced from worldview.

I remember Ayurveda as healthcare for all, not luxury wellness for elites.

I remember Ayurveda as rigorous scholarship requiring lifelong study, not weekend certification workshops.

I remember, and I speak that memory out loud, before the second death makes remembering impossible.

Will you remember with me?

The author is an Ayurvedic physician, educator, and institutional leader who has spent over 25 years working within the Ayurveda system. This article emerges from deep love for a tradition that shaped his life and profound grief at watching it fade. It is written not to blame but to call others into the work of remembrance before it’s too late.

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