One of Kerala’s great sons

During his 150th birth anniversary year, a look at the life of PS Varier, the founder of the 117-year-old Arya Vaidya Sala

Photos: PS Varier; PK Warrier; Arya Vaidya Sala

By Shevlin Sebastian 

In the late 1800s, in the Malabar region of Kerala, when people would consult with Ayurveda physicians, the latter would write their prescription on slips of paper. Thereafter, the patients and their relatives had to get the ingredients. Some they could buy from a shop while others like roots, herbs and leaves had to be plucked from the place where they grew by people who knew of them. Then the ingredients had to be mixed in the right proportion. Since these medicines did not have any preservatives, it lasted only for a few days. Following that, the entire process had to begin all over again. As a result, only the wealthy could afford this type of treatment. Many ordinary people began to take recourse to allopathic treatment, in which mass-produced tablets were readily available.  

This lacuna regarding medicines was felt keenly by Ayurveda physician PS Varier. He felt that like allopathy, medicines needed to be made systematically with added preservatives. So, on Vijayadashami Day, in October 1902, he started the Arya Vaidya Sala (AVS) in the village of Kottakkal (47 km from Kozhikode).  

It was a success story from the very beginning. The AVS has gone from strength to strength. Today, they have hospitals at Kottakkal, Kochi and Delhi. There are three modern medicine manufacturing units along with quality control labs. “These factories produce more than 550 classical and new-generation formulations which are made available to patients through 26 branches and 1800 authorised dealers spread across the country,” says PK Warrier, the managing trustee. 

And during the 150th birthday celebrations of Varier, on September 24, at Kottakkal, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu rightly said, “PS Varier was a representative of the Indian Renaissance. He was an effective clinician with a unique healing touch, an academician-cum-educator, a benevolent entrepreneur, a philanthropist, a man of letters, a promoter of fine arts and an institution-builder.” 

Yes, indeed, Varier was an institution builder. Apart from the AVS, Varier built an Ayurveda College, which is celebrating its centenary, a Vishwambhara temple, a herbal garden as well as a Kathakali Academy. In 1903, he also started an Ayurveda magazine called Dhanvanthari. Today the AVS has a publication department which has brought more than 200 books on Ayurveda. The Chief Editor is the well-known academician Dr KG Paulose. 

Early life 

Varier was born in 1869, the same year as Mahatma Gandhi. He belonged to a lower-middle-class family of Ayurveda physicians. Initially, Varier had a Sanskrit education. 

“It was taught in the family,” says Paulose. “There were no schools at that time. Every child was taught at home by the elders. But at the age of 16, he was sent for Ayurveda education to Wadakancherry (65 km from Kottakkal) by the elders of the family.”  

He studied under Kuttanchery Vasudevan Mooss, a Namboodiri who belonged to one of the eight great families of Ayurvedic physicians in Kerala, the ashtavaidyans. It was a gurukul system. “That meant he stayed in the house of the guru and helped in the household works,” says Paulose. “He stayed there for four years and studied the higher branches of Ayurveda.” 

He also had the good fortune to learn the basics of allopathy from Dr V. Varghese, who was the chief of the government hospital at Manjeri, not far from Kottakkal. Varier had gone there to treat his eyes which had been damaged from constant reading. Varghese took a liking for Varier and invited him to stay and get an idea of Western medicine. Varier accepted and spent three years. “He realised the shortcomings of Ayurveda and the merits of allopathy,” says Warrier. “So he set about bringing changes to Ayurveda.” 

Varier, a devout Hindu, was also a secularist. During the Moplah rebellion of 1921 (Muslims revolted against the British for a heavy-handed crackdown by the latter on the Khilafat Movement, which was a campaign in defence of the Ottoman Caliphate. However, in the latter stages, it became a Hindu-Muslim conflict).

“During that period every Hindu was an enemy of the Muslims and vice versa,” says PK Warrier. “But Varier stood with the Muslims. When a peace committee called the Bharati Seva Sangh came from Bombay, Varier told them, the rehabilitation works and distribution of food should be extended to the Muslims, too.” 

The committee members including their head GK Devadhar were shocked to hear this. “It was the first time a Hindu was speaking on behalf of Muslims,” says Warrier. “At that time, all the male Muslims were either killed or had absconded or deported to the Andaman Islands. There were only women and children left. And they were very frightened.” 

When Devadhar asked Varier why he was supporting the Muslims, he said, “Hunger is the same in the stomach of a Muslim as well as a Hindu.” 

In his home, at Kailasamandiram, in the centre of the archway above the main gate is an image of Lord Krishna. On either side, on two pillars are a Christian cross and the Muslim crescent. In an adjacent temple, which had an idol of Lord Vishvambharan, people of all castes were allowed to pray. 

As Vice President Naidu said, Varier was indeed a Renaissance man.