Pedagogies of Indigenous Medical Knowledge Among Deprived Castes in Precolonial Malabar

Abstract

The article examines the dissemination of indigenous medical knowledge among deprived castes in precolonial Malabar by foregrounding oral pedagogy, hereditary apprenticeship, ecological familiarity, and community-centered healing traditions. Moving beyond the conventional historiography that privileges classical Ayurveda and Sanskrit textuality, the study argues that marginalized caste communities and tribal groups sustained autonomous therapeutic systems rooted in experiential and embodied knowledge. Drawing upon subaltern historiography and indigenous epistemology, the article analyses the role of Ezhavas, Mannans, Velans, tribal healers, Kalari practitioners, and women in preserving and transmitting medical practices through caste occupations, ritual performance, and domestic instruction. The study interconnects evidence from Hortus Malabaricus, the writings of Francis Buchanan and William Logan, and the records of the Basel Mission to reconstruct the social history of indigenous medicine in Kerala. It demonstrates that healing knowledge circulated through oral transmission, apprenticeship, ritual pedagogy, ecological interaction, and women-centered caregiving rather than through formal institutions alone. The article further explores how colonial medicine and missionary intervention disrupted these hereditary pedagogic systems by privileging biomedical rationality, print culture, and institutional education. By recovering the medical traditions of marginalized communities, the study contributes to a more inclusive understanding of Kerala’s intellectual, ecological, and scientific history.