In the 8th century, a healing tradition born in India -preached, according to its foundational text, by Lord Buddha himself at Bodh Gaya -crossed the Himalayas into Tibet. It flourished there for centuries, adapted, innovated, and grew into one of the world's most sophisticated traditional medical systems. Back in mainland India, it faded into the shadows. In Ladakh, however, it never left. And today, one man more than any other is responsible for bringing it back -not as folklore, not as a cultural curiosity, but as a formally recognised, scientifically engaged, institutionally anchored medical system with colleges, research laboratories, public health deployments, and a seat at the table of India's national health architecture. That man is Padma Shri Dr Padma Gurmet, Director of the National Institute of Sowa-Rigpa in Leh -and in an exclusive interview with WION, he has spoken for the first time in full about the 30-year battle that made it possible.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/-china-claimed-it-india-will-own-it-the-battle-for-sowa-rigpa-s-unesco-status-1774337789118">'China claimed it, India will own it': The battle for Sowa-Rigpa's UNESCO status</a><h2>The World He Grew Up In</h2>Long before policy files and parliamentary committees, there was a father, a lantern, and a call in the night. "My father was a famous healer," Dr Gurmet told WION. "From childhood I saw his practice, the way he dealt with patients, and the way he made medicine. During those days, modern medical facilities were quite weak in Ladakh. I remember he used to get calls at night from different villages, and he had to go to those places."What struck the young Gurmet was not the medicine itself, but the spirit behind it. "I saw his practice as service. He practiced with a pure heart. For him, it was not a business; it was more of a religious practice. Serving patients was the main motto of his life."&nbsp;Growing up, he helped grind herbs, collect medicinal plants from the mountains, and assist in the preparation of formulations. Yet, like many young men of his generation facing a modernising Ladakh with limited job prospects, he was not initially drawn to following in his father's footsteps. "As a young school-going child, I was not very keen to pursue that kind of practice," he admitted. What changed his mind was watching the tradition itself begin to disappear.<h2>A Tradition Without a Safety Net</h2>By the time Dr Gurmet completed his six-year degree in 1996–97, Sowa-Rigpa existed in a legal and institutional no-man's land. It was practised, yes -he estimates that even before formal recognition, nearly 50 percent of Ladakh's population&nbsp;relied on traditional Amchi&nbsp;practitioners. But it was unrecognised, unregulated, and increasingly unsustainable. The consequences were immediate and personal. After joining the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences as a research officer in 1997, every attempt to expand the small Leh-based unit he worked in was blocked by the same institutional wall. "Whenever I moved a file requesting more manpower or more research infrastructure, the only answer was: your system is not formally recognised, so expansion is difficult."&nbsp;Then came the ultimatum. The unit was to be wound up and its staff relocated to a mainstream Ayurvedic institution in Jammu. "We faced great difficulty, but with resistance and the help of social and political leaders, we managed to save that unit," Dr Gurmet recalled. “That day I decided that the ultimate goal was to formally enter the AYUSH system of medicine so that growth and further progress could be achieved.” It would take more than a decade.<h2>The 30-Year Campaign -Conference by Conference, File by File</h2>What followed was one of the most methodical, persistent advocacy campaigns in the history of Indian traditional medicine -conducted not from the corridors of power in Delhi, but largely from Leh, at 11,000 feet. Dr Gurmet and his colleagues organised five to six major national conferences in Delhi, bringing together practitioners, policymakers, politicians, and ministers. They built parliamentary committees. They engaged Buddhist parliamentary forums. They produced evidence. And they kept encountering resistance -including from government committees that dismissed Sowa-Rigpa as merely a translation of Ayurveda. "Two or three committees made such negative reports in 2008," Dr Gurmet said. “They did not go into detail.”&nbsp;The turning point came when then-Health Minister Dr Ambani Ramdas visited Ladakh and saw the system firsthand. On returning to Delhi, he directed his secretary, Madam Anita Das, to constitute a dedicated committee for Sowa-Rigpa -separate from the broader traditional medicine review bodies. Dr Gurmet was made its convener. "There were members from diverse fields: allopathic medicine, Ayurveda, and Buddhist scholars," he said. "We prepared a 350-page report&nbsp;after inspecting the entire Himalayan belt. That report became one of the key bases that went to the parliamentary committee."&nbsp;The result, when it finally came, was unambiguous. "With a full majority in both Houses, the bill passed without any objection, and we became a part of AYUSH." The 2010 amendment to the Indian Medicine Central Council Act&nbsp;formally recognised Sowa-Rigpa as a full-fledged Indian medical system. But recognition on paper was only the beginning.<h2>What the System Looks Like Today</h2>The distance between where Sowa-Rigpa stood in 1997 and where it stands today is, by any measure, remarkable. When Dr Gurmet entered the first formal batch of students at the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies in Ladakh, there were 15 students. Only five passed the final examination after six years. Today, six to seven colleges across the Himalayan region run Sowa-Rigpa programmes -and every seat in every college is filled. "Now, after recognition, the door has opened," Dr Gurmet said. "Almost 70 people are now employed in the main health system in Ladakh, which is a big number considering our limited resources."&nbsp;Those 70 Amchis&nbsp;-traditional Sowa-Rigpa physicians -are now deployed at primary health centres across Ladakh, working alongside allopathic doctors in what Dr Gurmet describes as a "cafeteria approach" to healthcare. “You can choose whichever medical system suits you. That opportunity exists.” He is clear-eyed about where each system has its strengths. "There are many illnesses where allopathy has limitations. For example, arthritis and other lifestyle disorders can often only be controlled by allopathy. In many cases, traditional medicine manages them better, and there are no side effects."&nbsp;On cancer -a question the world increasingly asks of traditional systems -he is measured and honest. “We cannot say we can completely treat cancer, but we can manage it better, without side effects or complications. At least we can increase lifespan and improve quality of life.”<h3>The "Padma Shri" - Caught Live, Mid-Lunch</h3>On 25th January 2026, Dr Gurmet received a call from the Ministry of Home Affairs. He had been empanelled -possibly shortlisted, nothing confirmed. He thought little of it and went about his day. Later that afternoon, an unknown Delhi number called while he was having lunch. He answered, expecting a ministry official. “He said, 'Sir, congratulations, you have been selected for the Padma.' I said, 'No, I don't know. Thank you so much.' Then he asked what I thought about it. I said I would call him back later, but he said I was on live TV.” In that unscripted, unrehearsed moment, Dr Gurmet said what he truly felt. “I told him that this is not only respect for me, but recognition for the entire system of medicine. This award was not just for me, but for the entire community and our cultural heritage, for everyone who has practised this system for such a long time.” And then, in that same moment, a face came to mind. "I was remembering my father, who had passed away five or six years earlier. His face was in front of me. He was one of the most famous Amchis&nbsp;of Ladakh. Amchi Tashi was his name, and he was the one who put me into this system."His father had defied the sceptics. “When he put me into practice, many of our relatives told him, 'Why are you spoiling your child's life? This is a profession with no scope.'” Amchi Tashi, it turns out, had better vision than the sceptics.<h2>The Work That Remains</h2>The Padma Shri, Dr Gurmet is quick to point out, is not a conclusion. It is a deadline. At NISR-Leh, the next ambition is to achieve deemed university status -giving the institute the autonomy to design its own curriculum and set its own research agenda. The Trans-Himalayan herbal garden he established over 15 years now holds more than 100 medicinal plant species, cultivated at 11,000 feet and studied for their phytochemical profiles under changing climate conditions. A second garden at higher altitude is already in planning. On the economic frontier, the gap remains stark. India's Sowa-Rigpa industry is currently valued at approximately 11 million US dollars. China's Tibetan medicine industry generates billions of dollars annually. The recent inclusion of Sowa-Rigpa formulations under India's Drugs and Cosmetics Act -just six months ago -has, for the first time, opened the door to licensed commercial production. Internationally, Dr Gurmet is in active dialogue with WHO's Global Traditional Medicine Centre in Jamnagar, and has opened collaborative channels with Bhutan, Nepal, and Mongolia -all nations where Sowa-Rigpa is practised and where a shared research and conservation framework could be built.&nbsp;India's UNESCO nomination for Sowa-Rigpa as Intangible Cultural Heritage -filed in 2019, with Dr Gurmet leading the dossier preparation -remains under consideration, with amendments being prepared for resubmission. "Our ambition is to make the National Institute at least a deemed university," he said. “The second focus must be research. It is an ambitious project.” At 11,000 feet in Ladakh, where plants that once flowered in August at higher elevations now bloom in April under Dr Gurmet's cultivation programme, an ancient medicine is learning to adapt. So, under his watch, is the system that carries it.&nbsp;

Padma Gurmet led the revival of Sowa-Rigpa in India, securing its AYUSH recognition and building institutions in Ladakh, transforming it into a modern, research-backed healthcare system with global ambitions.

In the 8th century, a healing tradition born in India -preached, according to its foundational text, by Lord Buddha himself at Bodh Gaya -crossed the Himalayas into Tibet. It flourished there for centuries, adapted, innovated, and grew into one of the world's most sophisticated traditional medical systems. Back in mainland India, it faded into the shadows. In Ladakh, however, it never left. And today, one man more than any other is responsible for bringing it back -not as folklore, not as a cultural curiosity, but as a formally recognised, scientifically engaged, institutionally anchored medical system with colleges, research laboratories, public health deployments, and a seat at the table of India's national health architecture. That man is Padma Shri Dr Padma Gurmet, Director of the National Institute of Sowa-Rigpa in Leh -and in an exclusive interview with WION, he has spoken for the first time in full about the 30-year battle that made it possible. Also Read: 'China claimed it, India will own it': The battle for Sowa-Rigpa's UNESCO status The World He Grew Up In Long before policy files and parliamentary committees, there was a father, a lantern, and a call in the night. "My father was a famous healer," Dr Gurmet told WION. "From childhood I saw his practice, the way he dealt with patients, and the way he made medicine. During those days, modern medical facilities were quite weak in Ladakh. I remember he used to get calls at night from different villages, and he had to go to those places." What struck the young Gurmet was not the medicine itself, but the spirit behind it. "I saw his practice as service. He practiced with a pure heart. For him, it was not a business; it was more of a religious practice. Serving patients was the main motto of his life." Growing up, he helped grind herbs, collect medicinal plants from the mountains, and assist in the preparation of formulations. Yet, like many young men of his generation facing a modernising Ladakh with limited job prospects, he was not initially drawn to following in his father's footsteps. "As a young school-going child, I was not very keen to pursue that kind of practice," he admitted. What changed his mind was watching the tradition itself begin to disappear. A Tradition Without a Safety Net By the time Dr Gurmet completed his six-year degree in 1996–97, Sowa-Rigpa existed in a legal and institutional no-man's land. It was practised, yes -he estimates that even before formal recognition, nearly 50 percent of Ladakh's population relied on traditional Amchi practitioners. But it was unrecognised, unregulated, and increasingly unsustainable. The consequences were immediate and personal. After joining the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences as a research officer in 1997, every attempt to expand the small Leh-based unit he worked in was blocked by the same institutional wall. "Whenever I moved a file requesting more manpower or more research infrastructure, the only answer was: your system is not formally recognised, so expansion is difficult." Then came the ultimatum. The unit was to be wound up and its staff relocated to a mainstream Ayurvedic institution in Jammu. "We faced great difficulty, but with resistance and the help of social and political leaders, we managed to save that unit," Dr Gurmet recalled. “That day I decided that the ultimate goal was to formally enter the AYUSH system of medicine so that growth and further progress could be achieved.” It would take more than a decade. The 30-Year Campaign -Conference by Conference, File by File What followed was one of the most methodical, persistent advocacy campaigns in the history of Indian traditional medicine -conducted not from the corridors of power in Delhi, but largely from Leh, at 11,000 feet. Dr Gurmet and his colleagues organised five to six major national conferences in Delhi, bringing together practitioners, policymakers, politicians, and ministers. They built parliamentary committees. They engaged Buddhist parliamentary forums. They produced evidence. And they kept encountering resistance -including from government committees that dismissed Sowa-Rigpa as merely a translation of Ayurveda. "Two or three committees made such negative reports in 2008," Dr Gurmet said. “They did not go into detail.” The turning point came when then-Health Minister Dr Ambani Ramdas visited Ladakh and saw the system firsthand. On returning to Delhi, he directed his secretary, Madam Anita Das, to constitute a dedicated committee for Sowa-Rigpa -separate from the broader traditional medicine review bodies. Dr Gurmet was made its convener. "There were members from diverse fields: allopathic medicine, Ayurveda, and Buddhist scholars," he said. "We prepared a 350-page report after inspecting the entire Himalayan belt. That report became one of the key bases that went to the parliamentary committee." The result, when it finally came, was unambiguous. "With a full majority in both Houses, the bill passed without any objection, and we became a part of AYUSH." The 2010 amendment to the Indian Medicine Central Council Act formally recognised Sowa-Rigpa as a full-fledged Indian medical system. But recognition on paper was only the beginning. What the System Looks Like Today The distance between where Sowa-Rigpa stood in 1997 and where it stands today is, by any measure, remarkable. When Dr Gurmet entered the first formal batch of students at the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies in Ladakh, there were 15 students. Only five passed the final examination after six years. Today, six to seven colleges across the Himalayan region run Sowa-Rigpa programmes -and every seat in every college is filled. "Now, after recognition, the door has opened," Dr Gurmet said. "Almost 70 people are now employed in the main health system in Ladakh, which is a big number considering our limited resources." Those 70 Amchis -traditional Sowa-Rigpa physicians -are now deployed at primary health centres across Ladakh, working alongside allopathic doctors in what Dr Gurmet describes as a "cafeteria approach" to healthcare. “You can choose whichever medical system suits you. That opportunity exists.” He is clear-eyed about where each system has its strengths. "There are many illnesses where allopathy has limitations. For example, arthritis and other lifestyle disorders can often only be controlled by allopathy. In many cases, traditional medicine manages them better, and there are no side effects." On cancer -a question the world increasingly asks of traditional systems -he is measured and honest. “We cannot say we can completely treat cancer, but we can manage it better, without side effects or complications. At least we can increase lifespan and improve quality of life.” The "Padma Shri" - Caught Live, Mid-Lunch On 25th January 2026, Dr Gurmet received a call from the Ministry of Home Affairs. He had been empanelled -possibly shortlisted, nothing confirmed. He thought little of it and went about his day. Later that afternoon, an unknown Delhi number called while he was having lunch. He answered, expecting a ministry official. “He said, 'Sir, congratulations, you have been selected for the Padma.' I said, 'No, I don't know. Thank you so much.' Then he asked what I thought about it. I said I would call him back later, but he said I was on live TV.” In that unscripted, unrehearsed moment, Dr Gurmet said what he truly felt. “I told him that this is not only respect for me, but recognition for the entire system of medicine. This award was not just for me, but for the entire community and our cultural heritage, for everyone who has practised this system for such a long time.” And then, in that same moment, a face came to mind. "I was remembering my father, who had passed away five or six years earlier. His face was in front of me. He was one of the most famous Amchis of Ladakh. Amchi Tashi was his name, and he was the one who put me into this system." His father had defied the sceptics. “When he put me into practice, many of our relatives told him, 'Why are you spoiling your child's life? This is a profession with no scope.'” Amchi Tashi, it turns out, had better vision than the sceptics. The Work That Remains The Padma Shri, Dr Gurmet is quick to point out, is not a conclusion. It is a deadline. At NISR-Leh, the next ambition is to achieve deemed university status -giving the institute the autonomy to design its own curriculum and set its own research agenda. The Trans-Himalayan herbal garden he established over 15 years now holds more than 100 medicinal plant species, cultivated at 11,000 feet and studied for their phytochemical profiles under changing climate conditions. A second garden at higher altitude is already in planning. On the economic frontier, the gap remains stark. India's Sowa-Rigpa industry is currently valued at approximately 11 million US dollars. China's Tibetan medicine industry generates billions of dollars annually. The recent inclusion of Sowa-Rigpa formulations under India's Drugs and Cosmetics Act -just six months ago -has, for the first time, opened the door to licensed commercial production. Internationally, Dr Gurmet is in active dialogue with WHO's Global Traditional Medicine Centre in Jamnagar, and has opened collaborative channels with Bhutan, Nepal, and Mongolia -all nations where Sowa-Rigpa is practised and where a shared research and conservation framework could be built. India's UNESCO nomination for Sowa-Rigpa as Intangible Cultural Heritage -filed in 2019, with Dr Gurmet leading the dossier preparation -remains under consideration, with amendments being prepared for resubmission. "Our ambition is to make the National Institute at least a deemed university," he said. “The second focus must be research. It is an ambitious project.” At 11,000 feet in Ladakh, where plants that once flowered in August at higher elevations now bloom in April under Dr Gurmet's cultivation programme, an ancient medicine is learning to adapt. So, under his watch, is the system that carries it.

Padma Gurmet led the revival of Sowa-Rigpa in India, securing its AYUSH recognition and building institutions in Ladakh, transforming it into a modern, research-backed healthcare system with global ambitions.

Exclusive: Dr Padma Gurmet- Modern architect of India's Ancient Sowa-Rigpa medicine system

In 2019, the Chinese Embassy in India issued a press release claiming Sowa-Rigpa - a 2,000-year-old healing tradition born in India, preached according to its foundational text by Lord Buddha at Bodh Gaya - as Chinese heritage. The claim, says the man who has spent thirty years fighting for this tradition, was "completely wrong."&nbsp;India responded by filing its own UNESCO nomination for Sowa-Rigpa as Intangible Cultural Heritage. The man who prepared and submitted that dossier was Padma Shri Dr Padma Gurmet, Director of the National Institute of Sowa-Rigpa in Leh - the same man who had already spent a decade getting the Indian state to recognise its own ancient medical tradition, and who was not about to let another country claim it on the world stage."India has the right to claim it as its heritage," he told WION in an exclusive interview. “I think in the coming days India will pursue this again.” That pursuit - cultural, commercial, and scientific - is the story of where Sowa-Rigpa stands today, and where Dr Gurmet intends to take it.<h2>The Battle for Ownership</h2>The historical and textual case India has assembled is, Dr Gurmet argues, unambiguous. Sowa-Rigpa's foundational text - the Chatush Tantra - records that the system was first preached by Lord Buddha at Bodh Gaya, in India. Its earliest scholars were Indian: Jivaka, Nagarjuna, Vagbhata, Chandrananda. In the 8th century, Indian scholars carried the foundational texts across the Himalayas into Tibet, where the system was adapted to a different environment and pharmacopoeia - incorporating Tibetan folk tradition and some Chinese elements - before returning to the Indian Himalayan belt in its evolved form.&nbsp;"The history of how it was first taken to Tibet is documented in the Tibetan language itself," Dr Gurmet told WION. "Chandrananda and another scholar studied the fundamental text and took it to Tibet. After that, they kept the Indian fundamentals, while also incorporating some Tibetan folk tradition and a little Chinese medicine."&nbsp;China had moved first. In 2019, Beijing listed the Lum medicinal bathing tradition&nbsp;of Tibetan medicine on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Chinese Embassy's simultaneous press release asserting a broader claim over Sowa-Rigpa as a whole was the provocation that forced India's hand.&nbsp;"India had to take this stand because there was a press release from the Chinese Embassy in India claiming the entire system for China's UNESCO heritage, which was completely wrong," Dr Gurmet said. India's nomination was filed the same year. Dr Gurmet led the dossier preparation personally. The nomination requires amendments before resubmission - those amendments are being prepared. Bhutan, significantly, has already aligned with India's position. "Their delegation came to India, and we had good discussions with them. They also consider that the system originated with Buddha in India."&nbsp;Nepal and Mongolia have joined recent workshops and conferences. A Himalayan consensus around Sowa-Rigpa's Indian origins is quietly forming.The living continuity of the tradition on Indian soil further strengthens the claim. Even before formal government recognition, roughly 50 percent of Ladakh's population&nbsp;depended on Sowa-Rigpa practitioners - not as a supplement to modern healthcare, but as its primary form. No country can claim a living tradition more convincingly than one where half its practitioners' patients never stopped using it.&nbsp;<h2>India's $11 Million Problem</h2>The UNESCO battle is inseparable from an economic one - and the numbers make the stakes clear. India's Sowa-Rigpa industry is currently valued at approximately 11 million US dollars. China's Tibetan medicine industry - built on the same tradition, drawing from the same foundational texts - generates billions of dollars annually&nbsp;from the Tibetan Autonomous Region alone. China accounts for roughly 98 percent&nbsp;of the global commercial value of this shared heritage. India, which holds the tradition's historical roots and some of the world's finest high-altitude medicinal plant resources, holds the rest.&nbsp;The primary obstacle, until very recently, was regulatory. Sowa-Rigpa formulations were not incorporated under India's Drugs and Cosmetics Act&nbsp;- making licensed commercial production effectively impossible for decades. "Just six months back, it was formally incorporated under the Act," Dr Gurmet told WION. "Even now, this process will take time. All the states need to circulate the Drugs and Cosmetics laws, and there should be a mechanism to get licenses for production units."&nbsp;Until now, the only institution operating at meaningful scale was Men-Tsee-Khang&nbsp;- the Tibetan medicine institution under the government-in-exile in Dharamshala - running approximately 60 clinics across India&nbsp;and producing medicines, wellness products, herbal teas, creams, and nutraceuticals under its own framework. That model, Dr Gurmet says, shows what is possible when structure meets tradition.&nbsp;The global market conditions have never been more favourable for India to close the gap. "Internationally, people are getting back to nature, particularly after COVID. Everyone now knows that wellness is the key to life. Herbal products are the key. You can see how much the herbal industry is growing, whether nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, or cosmeceuticals. Organic is now the trend of the century."&nbsp;The benchmark he holds up is Padma 28&nbsp;- a standardised Sowa-Rigpa polyherbal compound taken from traditional formulation to clinical validation to regulatory approval in Switzerland by a Swiss physicist Dr Gurmet describes as a personal friend. It is now formally recognised as medicine in Switzerland, with multiple peer-reviewed trials behind it. "It was a big challenge to recognise this system of medicine in Switzerland, but now it is formally recognised there as medicine."&nbsp;If one physicist operating outside India could do that with a single Sowa-Rigpa formulation, the argument for what India can achieve with its full institutional weight, its Himalayan botanical resources, and its 2,000-year tradition requires no elaboration. MOUs with CSIR&nbsp;and leading universities are already in place. Product development is the stated next phase.<h2>The Garden That Will Feed the Industry</h2>Behind every future product, however, is a plant. And the plants that Sowa-Rigpa depends on are under pressure. Fifteen years ago, Dr Gurmet took on a challenge that had no precedent. Traditional practitioners across the Himalayan belt sourced their medicinal herbs through wild collection - climbing to high-altitude pastures, harvesting what the mountain offered. But wild collection at scale is unsustainable. Species are disappearing. Climate change is pushing natural habitats higher. And if even one species is lost, formulations refined over centuries go with it. "Most traditional medical practitioners rely on wild collection, which is not right. We have seen many plants becoming extinct or degraded," he told WION. "That is why I took the challenge, almost 15 years back, to set up a dedicated Trans-Himalayan herbal garden."&nbsp;Today the Trans-Himalayan Herbal Garden&nbsp;at 11,000 feet in Leh holds more than 100 medicinal plant species&nbsp;- brought down from natural habitats at 15,000 to 18,000 feet through years of patient trial. The results have surprised even the researchers. Plants that once flowered in August at 17,000 feet now bloom in April at 11,000 feet. And some have not merely survived the transition - they have improved. "For some plants, potency increases. For some plants, if you bring them to lower altitude, you get better quantities of the substances you are looking for."&nbsp;The garden has become a destination for botanists studying Himalayan medicinal flora. Farmer training programmes run there regularly - teaching Ladakhi cultivators how to grow these species at commercial scale, building the supply chain that licensed production will eventually require. A second garden at higher altitude, conceived as a valley of flowers, is already in planning with Ladakh's chief secretary. "If you want to scale up traditional medicine or the herbal industry, you have to grow these plants, or you have to develop a mechanism for sustainable harvesting from the wild," Dr Gurmet said. “That is the only way to sustain it.”<h2>The Institutional Future</h2>With the UNESCO case advancing, commercial pathways opening, and conservation infrastructure building, the institutional future Dr Gurmet is constructing for Sowa-Rigpa is coming into sharp focus. At NISR-Leh - established in 2019 after Dr Gurmet wrote a personal letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and received a commitment within three days - the immediate priority is deemed university status. It would give the institute the autonomy to design its own curriculum, drive its own research agenda, and issue degrees calibrated to the actual frontiers of the field. "Our ambition is to make the National Institute at least a deemed university so that we can design the course curriculum ourselves. The second focus must be research. It is an ambitious project."&nbsp;Formal collaboration discussions are underway with the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre in Jamnagar. Just fifteen days before this interview, Dr Gurmet was in direct talks with the Centre. At the second WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine - organised with India's Ministry of AYUSH as a partner - Sowa-Rigpa was showcased in documentary form before an international gathering. "They are very interested in working with us and taking this forward through WHO schemes," Dr Gurmet said. The network extending outward from Leh now reaches Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia, Geneva, and in Gujrat’s Jamnagar. A tradition that once had no legal standing in its own country is building an international institutional presence - one collaboration, one conference, one garden at a time.<h2>What lies ahead?&nbsp;</h2>China's claim on Sowa-Rigpa's roots has been made. India's counter-claim is being assembled - in parliamentary records, in UNESCO dossiers, in research MOUs, and in a herbal garden at 11,000 feet where ancient plants are being brought back to cultivable land for the first time. Dr Gurmet has spent thirty years refusing to accept that this tradition belongs to anyone other than the civilisation that created it. The Drugs and Cosmetics Act inclusion, the WHO partnership talks, the Himalayan network of Bhutan, Nepal, and Mongolia - all of it is moving in one direction. "The future of Sowa-Rigpa lies in scientific research and scientific validation," he told WION. “The potential is tremendous.” From Bodh Gaya to Leh to Geneva, that future is being claimed - one step at a time.

India is pushing to reclaim Sowa-Rigpa as its heritage amid competing claims. Led by Dr Padma Gurmet, efforts span UNESCO recognition, research, and herbal cultivation to boost its global standing and industry potential.

In 2019, the Chinese Embassy in India issued a press release claiming Sowa-Rigpa - a 2,000-year-old healing tradition born in India, preached according to its foundational text by Lord Buddha at Bodh Gaya - as Chinese heritage. The claim, says the man who has spent thirty years fighting for this tradition, was "completely wrong." India responded by filing its own UNESCO nomination for Sowa-Rigpa as Intangible Cultural Heritage. The man who prepared and submitted that dossier was Padma Shri Dr Padma Gurmet, Director of the National Institute of Sowa-Rigpa in Leh - the same man who had already spent a decade getting the Indian state to recognise its own ancient medical tradition, and who was not about to let another country claim it on the world stage. "India has the right to claim it as its heritage," he told WION in an exclusive interview. “I think in the coming days India will pursue this again.” That pursuit - cultural, commercial, and scientific - is the story of where Sowa-Rigpa stands today, and where Dr Gurmet intends to take it. The Battle for Ownership The historical and textual case India has assembled is, Dr Gurmet argues, unambiguous. Sowa-Rigpa's foundational text - the Chatush Tantra - records that the system was first preached by Lord Buddha at Bodh Gaya, in India. Its earliest scholars were Indian: Jivaka, Nagarjuna, Vagbhata, Chandrananda. In the 8th century, Indian scholars carried the foundational texts across the Himalayas into Tibet, where the system was adapted to a different environment and pharmacopoeia - incorporating Tibetan folk tradition and some Chinese elements - before returning to the Indian Himalayan belt in its evolved form. "The history of how it was first taken to Tibet is documented in the Tibetan language itself," Dr Gurmet told WION. "Chandrananda and another scholar studied the fundamental text and took it to Tibet. After that, they kept the Indian fundamentals, while also incorporating some Tibetan folk tradition and a little Chinese medicine." China had moved first. In 2019, Beijing listed the Lum medicinal bathing tradition of Tibetan medicine on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Chinese Embassy's simultaneous press release asserting a broader claim over Sowa-Rigpa as a whole was the provocation that forced India's hand. "India had to take this stand because there was a press release from the Chinese Embassy in India claiming the entire system for China's UNESCO heritage, which was completely wrong," Dr Gurmet said. India's nomination was filed the same year. Dr Gurmet led the dossier preparation personally. The nomination requires amendments before resubmission - those amendments are being prepared. Bhutan, significantly, has already aligned with India's position. "Their delegation came to India, and we had good discussions with them. They also consider that the system originated with Buddha in India." Nepal and Mongolia have joined recent workshops and conferences. A Himalayan consensus around Sowa-Rigpa's Indian origins is quietly forming. The living continuity of the tradition on Indian soil further strengthens the claim. Even before formal government recognition, roughly 50 percent of Ladakh's population depended on Sowa-Rigpa practitioners - not as a supplement to modern healthcare, but as its primary form. No country can claim a living tradition more convincingly than one where half its practitioners' patients never stopped using it. India's $11 Million Problem The UNESCO battle is inseparable from an economic one - and the numbers make the stakes clear. India's Sowa-Rigpa industry is currently valued at approximately 11 million US dollars. China's Tibetan medicine industry - built on the same tradition, drawing from the same foundational texts - generates billions of dollars annually from the Tibetan Autonomous Region alone. China accounts for roughly 98 percent of the global commercial value of this shared heritage. India, which holds the tradition's historical roots and some of the world's finest high-altitude medicinal plant resources, holds the rest. The primary obstacle, until very recently, was regulatory. Sowa-Rigpa formulations were not incorporated under India's Drugs and Cosmetics Act - making licensed commercial production effectively impossible for decades. "Just six months back, it was formally incorporated under the Act," Dr Gurmet told WION. "Even now, this process will take time. All the states need to circulate the Drugs and Cosmetics laws, and there should be a mechanism to get licenses for production units." Until now, the only institution operating at meaningful scale was Men-Tsee-Khang - the Tibetan medicine institution under the government-in-exile in Dharamshala - running approximately 60 clinics across India and producing medicines, wellness products, herbal teas, creams, and nutraceuticals under its own framework. That model, Dr Gurmet says, shows what is possible when structure meets tradition. The global market conditions have never been more favourable for India to close the gap. "Internationally, people are getting back to nature, particularly after COVID. Everyone now knows that wellness is the key to life. Herbal products are the key. You can see how much the herbal industry is growing, whether nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, or cosmeceuticals. Organic is now the trend of the century." The benchmark he holds up is Padma 28 - a standardised Sowa-Rigpa polyherbal compound taken from traditional formulation to clinical validation to regulatory approval in Switzerland by a Swiss physicist Dr Gurmet describes as a personal friend. It is now formally recognised as medicine in Switzerland, with multiple peer-reviewed trials behind it. "It was a big challenge to recognise this system of medicine in Switzerland, but now it is formally recognised there as medicine." If one physicist operating outside India could do that with a single Sowa-Rigpa formulation, the argument for what India can achieve with its full institutional weight, its Himalayan botanical resources, and its 2,000-year tradition requires no elaboration. MOUs with CSIR and leading universities are already in place. Product development is the stated next phase. The Garden That Will Feed the Industry Behind every future product, however, is a plant. And the plants that Sowa-Rigpa depends on are under pressure. Fifteen years ago, Dr Gurmet took on a challenge that had no precedent. Traditional practitioners across the Himalayan belt sourced their medicinal herbs through wild collection - climbing to high-altitude pastures, harvesting what the mountain offered. But wild collection at scale is unsustainable. Species are disappearing. Climate change is pushing natural habitats higher. And if even one species is lost, formulations refined over centuries go with it. "Most traditional medical practitioners rely on wild collection, which is not right. We have seen many plants becoming extinct or degraded," he told WION. "That is why I took the challenge, almost 15 years back, to set up a dedicated Trans-Himalayan herbal garden." Today the Trans-Himalayan Herbal Garden at 11,000 feet in Leh holds more than 100 medicinal plant species - brought down from natural habitats at 15,000 to 18,000 feet through years of patient trial. The results have surprised even the researchers. Plants that once flowered in August at 17,000 feet now bloom in April at 11,000 feet. And some have not merely survived the transition - they have improved. "For some plants, potency increases. For some plants, if you bring them to lower altitude, you get better quantities of the substances you are looking for." The garden has become a destination for botanists studying Himalayan medicinal flora. Farmer training programmes run there regularly - teaching Ladakhi cultivators how to grow these species at commercial scale, building the supply chain that licensed production will eventually require. A second garden at higher altitude, conceived as a valley of flowers, is already in planning with Ladakh's chief secretary. "If you want to scale up traditional medicine or the herbal industry, you have to grow these plants, or you have to develop a mechanism for sustainable harvesting from the wild," Dr Gurmet said. “That is the only way to sustain it.” The Institutional Future With the UNESCO case advancing, commercial pathways opening, and conservation infrastructure building, the institutional future Dr Gurmet is constructing for Sowa-Rigpa is coming into sharp focus. At NISR-Leh - established in 2019 after Dr Gurmet wrote a personal letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and received a commitment within three days - the immediate priority is deemed university status. It would give the institute the autonomy to design its own curriculum, drive its own research agenda, and issue degrees calibrated to the actual frontiers of the field. "Our ambition is to make the National Institute at least a deemed university so that we can design the course curriculum ourselves. The second focus must be research. It is an ambitious project." Formal collaboration discussions are underway with the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre in Jamnagar. Just fifteen days before this interview, Dr Gurmet was in direct talks with the Centre. At the second WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine - organised with India's Ministry of AYUSH as a partner - Sowa-Rigpa was showcased in documentary form before an international gathering. "They are very interested in working with us and taking this forward through WHO schemes," Dr Gurmet said. The network extending outward from Leh now reaches Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia, Geneva, and in Gujrat’s Jamnagar. A tradition that once had no legal standing in its own country is building an international institutional presence - one collaboration, one conference, one garden at a time. What lies ahead? China's claim on Sowa-Rigpa's roots has been made. India's counter-claim is being assembled - in parliamentary records, in UNESCO dossiers, in research MOUs, and in a herbal garden at 11,000 feet where ancient plants are being brought back to cultivable land for the first time. Dr Gurmet has spent thirty years refusing to accept that this tradition belongs to anyone other than the civilisation that created it. The Drugs and Cosmetics Act inclusion, the WHO partnership talks, the Himalayan network of Bhutan, Nepal, and Mongolia - all of it is moving in one direction. "The future of Sowa-Rigpa lies in scientific research and scientific validation," he told WION. “The potential is tremendous.” From Bodh Gaya to Leh to Geneva, that future is being claimed - one step at a time.

India is pushing to reclaim Sowa-Rigpa as its heritage amid competing claims. Led by Dr Padma Gurmet, efforts span UNESCO recognition, research, and herbal cultivation to boost its global standing and industry potential.

'China claimed it, India will own it': The battle for Sowa-Rigpa's UNESCO status

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Exclusive: Dr Padma Gurmet- Modern architect of India's Ancient Sowa-Rigpa medicine system

'China claimed it, India will own it': The battle for Sowa-Rigpa's UNESCO status