Set amidst verdant, gently undulating hills, 25km from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of India's Kerala state, is the Santhigiri Ashram, a not-for-profit spiritual and health retreat where the idea of patenting herbal medicines is considered laughable.

''How can anybody claim ownership of what essentially are God-given gifts?'' asks Swami Jyotirmaya, the large, genial and ochre-clad secretary of the ashram (retreat) who worked as a bank official in Malaysia before giving it all up for the path spiritual.

He is convinced that attempts by biopirates and transnational corporations to isolate and patent the active principles in herbs described in ayurveda (science of life) are bound to fail.

This, he says, is because ayurveda was perfected through spiritual knowledge and divination rather than the empirical research of modern science.

Such has been the rush to patent ayurvedic herbs as 'prior art' that the Indian government launched in June a digital library classifying 4,500 herbs and 35,000 rhymed formulae from ayurvedic texts describing their use.

Already some 4,000 patents or patent applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office are based on medicinal properties of herbs that were well-known and cannot be claimed as intellectual property by anyone except those who lived thousands of years ago.

How ayurveda works

Like the ayurvedic physicians attached to the ashram , Swami Jyotirmaya argues that the proper use of ayurvedic medicines depends not only on the knowledge of herbs but also of the patient and his or her individual characteristics, if cures are to be effective.

But most importantly, he says, ayurveda works only by invoking the guidance of a master or guru. The herbal formulations at Santhigiri were created by its founder Karunakara Guru, who ''left his body'' three years ago but whose presence in spirit guides the healing at the large medical facility within the ashram .

Santhigiri (which means mount-of-peace) maintains vast acres of herbariums where medicinal species are grown under natural conditions, without pesticides and fertilisers and not under hot-house conditions used by commercial growers.

The herbs are harvested during particular seasons and at astrologically appropriate times before processing that follows formulas and recipes in ancient ayurvedic texts or those modified by Karunakara Guru.

The products, which have the benefit of government subsidies, are then sold at cost price to those who have faith in the system.

A package deal

Followers of Karunakara Guru at Santhigiri hold that several genetic diseases classified as pitru doshas ( pitru translates as progenitor and doshas as disease in Sanskrit) have their origins in past lives or previous existences of the soul.

They can only be treated by people who have the ability to transcend present existence in time and reach into the past, these followers say.

'' Ayurveda cannot be standardised in the same manner as western medicines,'' says Dr Narayanan, a physician at the sprawling 50-bed facility maintained at the ashram . ''All my university degrees count for nothing at the bedside.''

''In fact, ayurveda defies commercial standardisation since the characteristics of each herb differ with the seasons, the kind of plants that grow in its vicinity, the time of harvest, and the part of the herb used in the formulations."

Physicians at the ashram compare the difference between

ayurvedic medicine and patented ones, using active principles extracted from the original herbs, as like that between honey and table sugar.

Similarly, each patient and the ailments that he or she suffers from differ greatly. In fact, whether the patient will respond to a particular herb or not would again depend on his astrological status at a given point in his life span.

Finally, for successful treatment in ayurveda consideration must also be given to the physician's astrological status, compatibility with the patient and divine grace. Very often the physician must first heal himself or herself, practitioners say.

'' Ayurveda is a package in which the patient, the disease, the medicine and the divine are bound to each other and it is folly to think that any or all of these can be patented as some people are attempting to do nowadays,'' says Narayanan.

The idea of intellectual property rights as spelt out by the World Trade Organisation holds no terror for Narayanan, who thinks it is absurd to even think of patenting what has less to do with intellect than with divine inspiration.

Divination the key

One common criticism of ayurveda is that its sheer elaborateness not only defies patenting but also practical application, especially when it comes to treating poor patients.

'' Ayurveda was practiced in ancient times for the benefit of aristocracy and the upper castes and in today's modern world people need quick diagnosis and quick cures because they may simply be unable to get away for tight work schedules, commitments and careers,'' says Dr John Roy, a Boston-based cardiologist who also sees patients in his native Kerala.

But ayurvedic physicians say this is a canard subscribed to by allopathic doctors who cannot see beyond the ''pill-for-every ill'' approach pushed by the global pharmaceutical industry, rather than by any philosophy or science that is rooted in real human well-being.

Dr T K Bejoy, a master physician who runs his own ayurvedic research centre, says a good ayurvedic physician draws from divine grace and his own ability to diagnose illnesses without recourse to expensive diagnostic tools.

''Either the physician is touched by a spirit or he has the grace of a guru with a highly elevated soul,'' he said.

''The trouble is that no pharmaceutical company is willing to put money or resources into divination, which is key to the ayurvedic system of understanding disease, and in any case divine grace is not open to commercial exploitation."

Hundreds of cures

For those who would dismiss ayurveda as ancient mumbo jumbo, its voluminous texts have been the source for hundreds of cures which allopathy has benefitted from, starting with rauwolfia serpentina , (Indian snake root) the world's first real cure for hypertension and still the only one without side-effects.

In the American journal Science , Dr David Moore of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas reports that the 2,500-year-old traditional Indian medication for lowering cholesterol — derived from the resin of the guggul tree ( Commiphora mukul ) — really works.

Perhaps the best endorsement for ayurveda is the fact that in Kerala, the only state in India with a health delivery system comparable to that in developed countries, the system enjoys pride of place.

Even allopathic doctors here swear by it, especially where the management of intractable diseases and conditions are concerned. — IPS