In a drafty government institute in New Delhi, Nighat Anjum reads from a dog- eared textbook on traditional Indian medicine and acquaints herself with the miracle fruit known as aamla, which is said to be useful in treating heart palpitations, immune disorders, bed- wetting and memory lapses.
Tapping on a computer keyboard, the 27-year-old physician enters its properties in a database that eventually will contain more than 100,000 traditional remedies - the collective wisdom of the ancient healing arts known as ayurveda , unani and siddha, the latter based on the teachings of the Hindu god Shiva.
Other entries include powdered nightingale droppings (a skin lightener and laxative), nightingale flesh (an aphrodisiac), ostrich fat (for aches and pains), ostrich blood (for inflammation), charred sea crab (constipation, ulcers, cataracts and dental stains), honey (for improving vision), tumeric (for treating wounds and rashes) and coconut milk (urinary tract infections).
Employing about 150 doctors and technicians, the four-year US$2 million (HK$15.6 million) effort is aimed at protecting India's traditional remedies from theft by multinational drug companies in a practice known as bio-piracy.
The database will also include hundreds of yoga poses so that foreigners cannot copyright them as their own.
Though Indian officials can point to just a handful of such intellectual- property cases involving traditional medicine, they say the threat is bound to grow as foreign drug companies seek to cut soaring research-and-development costs by finding new products among natural remedies that have been used in India, China and other developing countries for millennia.
More broadly, the compilation of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library reflects a nationalistic pride in India's ancient scientific heritage.
It also reflects Indian citizens' continuing faith in herbal and other natural treatments that often are viewed with skepticism in the West.
Indian officials say the data- collection effort will promote the commercialization of traditional Indian remedies, help validate their scientific underpinnings and encourage collaboration between Indian and foreign pharmaceutical companies.
In doing so, they say, the project will spur the development of a uniquely Indian health-care industry that blends 21st-century technology with spirituality and the wisdom of ages in the same way that Brahmin traditions of Sanskrit and mathematics helped set the stage for India's information-technology boom.
"India's strength is civilization, and its culture and knowledge," said VK Gupta, the director of the National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources in New Delhi, which is overseeing the project.
"The moment we revisit that, the power of India is unimaginable."
Mark Grayson, a spokesman for Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, the drug-industry lobbying group, described the Indian project as "a solution in search of a problem."
He said "there is no evidence of bio- piracy," noting that most modern drugs are developed from chemicals with the aid of computers, rather than from natural substances.
At the same time, he said, the Indian effort could "inhibit drug development" by discouraging companies from developing new cures from plants whose medicinal uses India now claims as protected intellectual property.
The drug industry is opposing India's efforts to amend World Trade Organization rules to protect such ancient remedies.
The most popular traditional medical system in India is ayurveda, which is rooted in Hinduism - its original Sanskrit formulations were recorded 2,000 years ago on palm leaves - and aims to restore the "balance" between body and spirit.
Despite the growing influence of Western medicine, ayurveda remains the dominant form of treatment in many parts of rural India, where access to conventional care is often limited.
Even in such major cities as New Delhi, which boasts several world-class medical facilities, ayurveda is widely embraced.
Pharmacies stock ayurvedic remedies alongside antibiotics and other conventional treatments. Bollywood stars hawk ayurvedic medicines from billboards.
And a generation of middle-class children has grown up on morning spoonfuls of Chyvanprasam, a jam-like ayurvedic supplement.
A politician's charge last week that a line of ayurvedic cures peddled by one of India's most popular television gurus had been adulterated with human bone made the front pages of Indian newspapers - and sparked an attack by the guru's followers on the politician's Communist Party office in New Delhi.
Besides ayurvedic medicine, the database also is recording remedies from unani, a system that was introduced to the subcontinent 4,000 years ago by the Greeks.
Unani is based on the theory that sickness is caused by an imbalance in "the four humors" - black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm - that define human temperament, according to Anjum, the unani doctor who was entering the data on the aamla fruit.
The system relies heavily on herbs and is "very effective," she said.
Siddha, which was first practiced in southern India by followers of Lord Shiva, employs medicines made from herbs, animal parts, metals and minerals. "Even though it is coming from supernatural power, so much is scientifically proved," said Muthu Kumar, a siddha expert who is working for the database project.
Gupta, the project director, said the need for the database became apparent in 1995, when two Indian-born scientists in Mississippi were granted a US patent on the use of tumeric, a common spice, to heal wounds.
The move sparked protests from the Indian government, which cited ancient Sanskrit texts describing the use of tumeric for the same purpose. The patent was revoked.
To create the database, Gupta's team since 2001 has been poring over ancient texts in Sanskrit, Urdu, Persian and Arabic in search of traditional formulas.
Working in drab cubicles and enduring frequent power cuts, the specialists enter the formulas in alphanumeric code, which is then translated automatically into English, Japanese, French, German and Spanish.
Sometime this year, the complete library will be made available to foreign patent offices on a secure Web site.
Indian officials hope the patent offices will use the database in evaluating whether to grant patents on natural remedies.
"This traditional knowledge has been validated in the laboratory of life," Gupta said, with the zeal of a true believer. "It has been nurtured and grown in India for 4,000 years."
THE WASHINGTON POST