Ayurveda and Plastic Surgery
Lord McCaulay wrote to Queen Victoria, unless you destroy the spiritual heritage of this country, you cannot rule this country. He wrote a letter to Queen Victoria, it is still available.
Lord McCaulay when he came to India he travelled the length and breadth of India and he said this country is so rich, I couldn't find one beggar and one sick person in this country. And the cultural heritage is so strong, you can never rule this country unless you destroy the spiritual heritage of this country.
So then they brought a number of startling rules. They first made a law, barring all architects to work. That's why they made Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. All the architects were asked not to work. So after the eighteenth century, there is not a single building made by Indian architects in all the British provinces.
Then they put a bar on the weavers, so that they can bring all the clothes from Leicester and Birmingham. So there were all these colonial rules.
And systematically, the Ayurveda system was banished. Because of one British soldier. In India, when someone lost, they would cut a little bit of their nose, they would never kill because killing is wrong. The only way to show someone has been defeated is they would cut a little piece of the nose.
When he came out of the Mysore kingdom, an Ayurvedic doctor caught hold of this soldier and in just three hours time he does plastic surgery, he fixes the nose back. This soldier on his return, writes to Queen Victoria, 'our country is far behind the medical science that is prevalent here, we must learn from the medical science here.'
- Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar