For the mentally ill and their relatives, Poonkudil Mana, near Manjeri is a sanctum rather than an asylum. This Mana has provided traditional psychiatry through the centuries to those who have lost sight of reality. Now the whole family is practicing what they received as a boon.
The Mana provides separate lodging facilities for men and women. It has about 30 inmates. A large number come as outpatients everyday. They are not business-minded in their vocation. The whole success of our medication depends on the benediction of our family deity, Bhagavathi?, asserts P.N.Namboodiri, who was invited to participate in an international conference on mental health held at Bangalore in 1997
The family deity exists only in their mental conception. The Mana has no icon of its family deity. They do not depend on text books to study the method of treatment. The knowledge is transmitted orally from generation to generation.
The mode of treatment followed at poonkudil mana based on traditional Indian Psychology, which lies scattered in the Upanishads and the Vedas. Hereditary knowledge is strictly adhered for the treatment and is fully on the basis of Ayurveda.
The treatment for mental diseases do not come to an end unless the tendency to repeat the diseases is fully eliminated from the patients. The Heenasatwa (a worsend condition of mind ) inclined in a body is said to be the actual reason for disease. The remedial methods to eliminate these symptoms are very extensive and systematic in Ayurveda approach. Poonkudil mana is one of the assylums where the orginal Ayurvedic medicines are prepared and used for the treatment for mental health.
The medicines prepared and used are on hereditary basis, a successful systematic preparation. Its chief merit being that it contains very useful plant remedies. The process of preparation of these medicines are traditionally arrived in the widest theoretical thinking of the forefathers of mana. The treatment also involves herbal medicines, including special oil bath, which are prepared in mana itself, Brahmi Ghee – a mixture made from the liquid extract of a herbal plant and ghee – is an important ingredient. It sharpens the brain of the patients and make body and mind cool. Other herbal plants like chittamrit (Tylophora cord folio), Kizharnelli (Philanthus Niroori) Kanchunni (Eclipta Alba) and Sarpagandhi (Rauwolfia serpentina) are also used for preparation of medicines.
