A pharmacy, a blessing, and a hundred years
How a small pharmacy in Kozhikode, begun with the encouragement of Sree Narayana Guru in 1921, became Arya Vaidya Vilasini Vaidya Sala.
In 1921, Kaloor Neelakandan Vaidyar opened a pharmacy in Kozhikode. He did so at the urging of Sree Narayana Guru, who personally encouraged him to use his knowledge to build a place of care for people who had little access to it.
The pharmacy prepared Ayurveda medicines and dispensed them. Its purpose was plain, and it has not changed: make medicines of good quality, and care for the community they are made for. AVVVS still describes its founding idea in two words. Social service.
Four generations
The founder’s son, K. N. Ramadas Vaidyar (1934–1998), carried the work into its second generation. He was known well beyond it too, in Kozhikode’s literary circles, for his satire.
The third generation is Managing Director Dr Manoj Kaloor, Ramadas Vaidyar’s son, who leads AVVVS today with Dr Reeja Manoj, and a fourth generation of the family now carries the work on with them.
What changed, and what did not
The pharmacy became a manufacturer. AVVVS now makes classical and proprietary Ayurveda medicines in a GMP-certified factory in Kozhikode, where capsule, blister, ointment and cosmetic lines run beside traditional mechanised units. Its medicines are sold across India and exported to the United States, Russia, Austria, Slovenia, Colombia and beyond, and its clinical work grew into the AVVVS Ayur Speciality Clinic.
Through all of it, the Vaidya Sala has tried to do one difficult thing well: keep pace with new technology without giving up the traditions it was built on.
To become a premier, multifaceted, ethical business organisation, dedicated to quality and governed by tradition, in the field of Ayurveda.
The AVVVS mission
AVVVS marked ninety years in 2011 and a hundred in 2021. The whole story, generation by generation, is on Our history.
Arya Vaidya Vilasini Vaidya Sala, Kozhikode. First published .
