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.Tamilpriyan writes, The siddhars were noble people, born to serve humanity.They were great men who lived for others, not for themselves.Even though theywon immeasurable powers, they didn t use this rare power even a single time fortheir own good.They happily used their rare power only for the benefit of thecommon person ( potumakkaë). 13 Among the rules and regulations of the SouthIndian Siddha Vaidya Association in 1952 were the injunction to publicize siddhamedicine so that the common person can live without disease, and the decreethat all its members must work with the conviction that all Tamils born in TamilNadu are a single race, without differences of caste and religion. 14 Paul JosephThottam recounts a story from a text attributed to Bhogar, PMgar 7000, that linksextraordinary abilities to compassion for ordinary people.Konkanar, a powerfulyogi, was intrigued by the extraordinary powers of two acquaintances.When heinquired into their powers, one of these acquaintances, a butcher, explained. We the utopian character of siddha medicine 113have no extraordinary powers.We say what we feel, and we feel for others as muchas we feel for ourselves.We carry out our duties to the best of our abilities.Thereis nothing more to it than that. These householders gained great power throughtheir empathy for ordinary people, not through rigorous ascetic practice.On hear-ing this, Konkanar went about healing and helping people, beginning his careeras a well-known medical siddhar.15G.J.Parthasarathy named his clinic after Tirumular to highlight the egalitar-ian nature of his work and siddha medicine in general.For him, it is Tirumularmore than other siddhars who embodies the quality of inclusiveness, presumablybecause of the sage s occupation of the body of a shepherd. Tirumular is for all thedoctors in Tamil Nadu.Many people who I know take on Bhogar and Agastyar.Those who take on Tirumular are rare in Tamil Nadu.I m one of those.If youwant to understand why.he wanted all people to know all the practices whichhe learned, which he knew, all the medicines he used, his wisdom and his knowl-edge.But if you ask what other siddhars said, only the good people should know.They thought their knowledge should not go to bad people. Indeed, this depictionof the medical siddhars as keeping their knowledge secret is faithful to the way thatthe premodern medical texts portray the siddhars, but as we will see in chapter six,Tirumular is no different from the other siddhars in this regard.Most vaidyas take the ñnasiddhars to exemplify an egalitarianism that allÉmedical siddhars share, and they speak of their own practices as being specificallyfor the common person.In his short editorial comments at the beginning of severalissues of his Cittar Ulakam, Parthasarathy states that my service is transformingsiddha medicine into a movement of the people. 16 He repeated this to me as wespoke. I don t run this magazine for intellectuals.[It s for] ordinary middle-class,low-class people. His editorials address the concerns of his target audience.In onehe defends quotas for tribal peoples, which will be necessary to maintain untilthere is social equality.until caste is destroyed. 17 In another he urges the partyholding power in Tamil Nadu, the DMK, who desire the best for our people, togive pensions to hereditary vaidyas who do not have them, and to increase the pen-sions of those who do.He suggests that the government provide siddha medicinesto the poor. If the Tamil Nadu government gives bank loans to farmers to growmedicinal plants, and then purchases those plants, they can provide free medicinesto our people. 18 For Parthasarathy, Tirumular is the model for his public service,because he desired that everyone has medical knowledge.For doing my publicwork, he is a great help to me.I have taken him on as a guru. Like many other siddha vaidyas, Parthasarathy considers the common peo-ple who need help to be those in the villages.He criticizes siddha doctors who earnsiddha medical degrees for their neglect of ordinary Tamils. None of the doctorswho have studied here go to the villages and do fieldwork.They are just in the city. 114 recipes for immortalityNow, even though they adhere to siddha medicine, they have an allopathy mental-ity, and treat according to allopathy methods.That shouldn t be. His criticism ofvaidyas with degrees invokes a significant division among practitioners, betweenthose educated in government colleges and hereditary vaidyas
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