Banaras Hindu University (BHU) recently introduced a six-month certificate course on ‘Bhoot Vidya’ or the ‘science of paranormal’. The course will be taught to doctors holding Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) and Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree holders.

It is essentially psychotherapy and doctors will be taught about remedies and psychotherapy to treat psychosomatic disorders and abnormal psychological conditions caused by unknown reasons, which some may consider is due to the presence of supernatural things like Bhoot (ghosts).

The first set of classes will begin in January and will be conducted by the faculty of Ayurveda. According to Yamini Bhushan Tripathi, the Ayurveda faculty dean, “A separate unit of Bhoot Vidya has been created in the faculty of Ayurveda for imparting formal education to doctors about the branch. It deals with the Ayurvedic remedies of treating ghost-related ailments and psychosomatic disorders.

He further added, “Bhoot Vidya is one of the eight basic branches of Ashtanga Ayurveda. It mainly deals with psychosomatic disorders, diseases caused by unknown reasons and diseases of mind or psychic conditions. Faculty of Ayurveda at the BHU is the first in the country to create a separate unit of Bhoot Vidya and design a certificate course on the subject.”

Efforts to set up a separate unit for this Ayurveda branch began six months back. The proposal was drafted after the meeting of heads of all 16 departments in the faculty, which was then sent to the academic council of the university. It was approved as a separate unit and a certificate course on one of the basic branches of Ashtanga Ayurveda.

Source: IANS