But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go for it.

Photo by Biji Kurian

It’s a question that must dog many a discerning traveler to India: should I take advantage of the plentiful and cheap Ayurvedic spas? Even though it’s a travesty of the ancient healing system?

All across India, especially in the state of Kerala, visitors are beckoned with glossy brochures showing a bikini-clad blonde doused in oil by a wise-looking woman. “Ayurvedic body massage: 600 rupees,” the price list reads.

It’s tempting. But at its heart, it’s not Ayurveda. It’s packaged exotica for tourists.

What is Ayurveda?

First, let’s get one fact clear: there’s no such thing as Ayurverdic massage. Not in the purest of terms.

Ayurveda is a 5000-year old holistic discipline that uses herbs, oils and foods to treat people. Unlike Western medicine, which targets specific symptoms, Ayurveda looks at the entire organism. A treatment may last weeks and involve repeated oil applications, a prescribed diet, and a strict schedule.

The massage is in fact just the application of essential oils. It was never meant, like Swedish and Thai massages, for temporary relaxation.

How did Ayurveda get trendy?

Like with so many other things, it was celebrity endorsement. Once Madonna and Naomi Campbell tootled about its benefits, Ayurvedic spas started sprouting everywhere. They offered one-time treatments promising ancient wisdom in concentrated form.

The cosmetics industry pounced on the trend and launched a line of Ayurvedic products as “Aveda,” truncated for Western mnemonics. Ironically enough, in India, “Aveda” means “against the Vedas,” the ancient Hindu scriptures that originated the science.

Predictably, Ayurveda purists are incensed.

So should you stay away?

Not at all. Yes, many of these so-called Ayurvedic spas offer only a passing resemblance to the real stuff. But so what?

I did a four-day Ayurvedic treatment for tense shoulder muscles. The practitioner had suggested seven, but I didn’t want to spend that long in the dull little Kerala town of Kannur, where there are a few Ayurveda schools. He consented anyway. It was still money for him.

It didn’t cure my tension. But each application felt good. They left me relaxed, fragrant, energized. And they helped me understand the discipline a little more.

The central question, then, should not be “Is it wrong to receive a single massage,” but “What’s wrong with receiving a single massage?”

It’s standard these days to isolate one piece of a much greater system and use it on its own. Yoga, originally, was a way of life, not a fitness class at the local gym. Apple became the atomizer-in-chief with the iTunes Music Store.

And in this age of rampant cross-pollination, where Tae-bo, Brazilian jiujitsu, and crème brûlée cappuccinos are hardly daring hybrids, what is truly pure?

It creates jobs

It’s a benefit that can’t be ignored. Ayurvedic spas provides many Indians with decent wages in hospitality. Migrant Ayurvedic healers find themselves unable to practice as doctors in countries with strict standards. But they can work if it’s disguised as a vanity item.

And it helps popularize a fascinating discipline as faith in Western medicine wavers and people seek alternative options.

So treat yourself to an oil rub. Just call it by what it is.