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.As I have shown, the extraordinary aspects of siddha medicine have beenactively reworked in contemporary times to more closely conform to shifting basesof authority in modern Tamil Nadu.But as Simmel suggests, the second world does not just emerge as a epiphenomenon of the manifest world, as it has significantinfluence over that manifest world.This imagined world is not idle reverie, because 196 recipes for immortalitythe experiences of vaidyas, their perceptions of their medicine, and especially theirsense that much has been lost, emerge from discordance between their idealiza-tions of tradition and their estimation of the present state of their knowledge.Their utopian formulations are themselves primary modes through which vaidyasconstruct their world, modes that are irreducible to other sorts of human activity.Furthermore, the contrast between these two worlds forges a relationship betweenthem.The character vaidyas ascribe to this concealed second world suggests thework that those with the proper Tamil feeling should set for themselves in themanifest world: the recuperation and revelation of this obscure world through col-lecting and systematizing its scattered remains.In this way vaidyas hope to mergethese two worlds, to recover the traditional world for modernity, to make siddhamedical knowledge available to public scrutiny.Such a merger, they suggest, willrevive the glory of Tamil medicine and culture that at this point exists most force-fully in the hopeful writings of Tamil revivalism.If for heuristic reasons it is useful to think of vaidyas as engaging in two worlds,the utopian and mundane, or the extraordinary and the ordinary, this does notmean that the practices, experiences, and hopes of vaidyas are bifurcated or contra-dictory.After all, the distinction between religion and science is not absolute, as wenow understand that religion is not a phenomenon distinct from other arenas ofhuman activity, nor is science purely materialist and rational.Conceptions of theextraordinary are subject to political, economic, and material concerns, and scienceis likewise transformed by politics, consumerism, nationalist objectives, and fan-cies of the imagination.This is borne out in siddha medicine, in which science andreligion have both become signs and sites of contestation, used as much for theirrhetorical force as for their descriptive and methodological value.Vaidyas claimthat their medicine is both eminently practical and potentially liberating, useful forcommon ailments but capable of curing even the most chronic and deadly diseases.Indeed, among the most common siddha medicines are those that use widely avail-able ingredients and that promise something between immortality and remedy.For example, the Mklikaimaõi article on country medicines describes sandal-wood as well-known for its use as a decorative substance, yet it also has medicalgreatness. Red sandalwood is particularly powerful.If one soaks a chunk of san-dalwood in water and drinks the water, body heat and bile will decrease.Painfulurination and chest palpitations will disappear.It will give the body strength andyouth. If one grinds high-quality sandalwood root into a powder, mixes it withmilk, and drinks it, diabetes will be brought under control.11 The simple and theextraordinary reside comfortably together.G.J.Parthasarathy gave me a flyer thatannounces the recipe for an oil bath, with the heading apply oil and then bathe,and get rid of all diseases! His simple medicated oil is prepared with sesame oil,the leaves of a drumstick tree, parboiled rice, cumin, black pepper, garlic, dried conclusion 197pepper, and turmeric.When applied twice a week under specific conditions, it willcure forty ailments, including varicose veins, insomnia, skin diseases, diabetes, andproblems with vision.This is the technique of good living of our ancestors, onaccount of which they lived lives without disease. Parthasarathy told me that hehad ten thousand of these fliers printed and posted as part of his public service.He insisted that oil baths are necessary in Tamil Nadu because of the hot weather,and that I should also take oil baths when I am in Tamil Nadu. Only then can yoube without disease.If you don t, then some disease will come. He told me that oilbaths cool the body and reduce bile, and so are necessary to compensate for the hotclimate. If there s too much heat, cancer, diabetes, all diseases will come.To levelthat, always oil bath
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