An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. I: Sutrasthanam — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907)
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The translator’s English as printed (Kunja Lal Bhishagratna). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
anus, liver, spleen, uterus etc', iv the Rigveda, and the *' Aitaj-e3'a Brdhmana (i). There is an entire h\inn (Rik) devoted* to the subject and treatment of Phthisis ( Knja Yakshma) which becomes utterly unintelligible in the absence of an accurate knowledge about the structure of lungs, and mechanism of the human heart. The Vtdic Arya fully understood the resultant nature of the human organism. The Rik Mantra, which to this day is recited on the occasion of a funeral ceremony, ampl}' testifies to the fact that he used to look upon his mortal frame as the product of the combination of the five physical elements (2). He understood the effects of different drugs upon digestion and the office which the tendons, muscles, flesh and nerves, etc. respectively serve in the economy. It is in the Sushruta Samhita that we find a systematic attempt at arranging together the facts of anatomical observation. The age of Sushruta, the Acharyic age of the Ayurveda, was a period of scientific investigation. The sturd}- Aryan colonists exchanged their simple mode of living for luxuiy and ease. The number of general diseases was great. Jn
( 1 ) A. fT^T ^^^ f ?gjnri:«3 f^fsffTTiRii
Rik Samhita \'. \'II, I, -'3, 538.
H. \ide also .Ailareya BrShmana I 2. II 12. Ill 37.
(2) The iialuie of the huiiiaii body as tile resulting efi'ect of tlie C(imhinatidii dftlu' live elementals havcheen clearly described in the verse.
^Tqt'TTiI^ qf? era n f%rT?ft^y'l«I^ wfaf^VTTSlf 1»: I
* Rik Samhita X M. 16 S. 3.
Which l)eing translated reads :— Let his eye go t(j the sun, let his breathwind nVx with the wind'of the atmosphere, and to the sky. earth and the cereals the parts which ha\e spriint; out of them. Cvc.
ixTR'onurTioN. » XX 111 vain did the holy Narada (i) ^reacl] the gospd of plain living and high thinking, and exhort them, like Cato, to return to their simpl'e mode of life. The long peace brought opulence in its train and wealth begot indolence and disease. Men like Bharadvaja, Angira, Yamadagni, Atreya, Gautama, Agastya, Vdmadeva', Kapisthala, Asamarthya, Bhargava, Kusliika, Kdpya, Kashyapa, Sharkaraksha, Shaunaka, Manmathayani, Agnivesha, Charaka, Sushruta, Narada, Pulastya, Asita, Chyavana, Paingi and Dhaumya etc. began to write Samhitas. Each hermitage was a College of Ayurveda, and the empirical method of investigation was introduced into each department of the science of cure.
Anatomical Anomalies in the Samhita :— Having got so far in our analysis, before passing on to the study of the Anatomical portion of the Sushruta Samhita, we must try to account for the many anomalies and discrepancies that have crept into or have been suffered to remain in the present recension of the book. Take, for example, the line in which Dhanvantari is made to speak of three hundred bones in the human organism. It is impossible that the human frame, in so short a time, has got rid of so many of of its skeletal accessories simply through disuse, or because of their becoming superfluous in the altered condition of its environments. More absurd is it to think that Sushruta, who discards all authority except the testimony of positive knowledge, would write a thing which none but the blind would believe in a dissecting room. The spirit of the a^re ill which he flouri:>lied piecliided the possibility oT^ such an crrnr.
Anomalies accounted for : -In ancient India, subjects chosen for the demonstration of practical anatomy were always children (2), and naturally those bones, which are (i) Vide Aitann'a Br5hmana VII. 13.
(2) The injunction of ihe Hindu Sllasiras is ihat '-corpse of persons more than 2 years old should he burned." Cremation of dead bodies bein"
xxi\- f (\'^Roi)rc~Ti().\.
fused or''«'inaslon"iised inlo'one whole durine: adult life, have been' separately enumerated — a circumstance which may, to some extent, account for th'e excess in the number of bon'es described in this Samhita (i). Likewise the theory that Sushrula might have included the teeth and the cartilages within the list of s'iveletal bones comes very near the truth, but It does not reflect the whole trtith either. The fact is that the orignial Sushruta Samhita has passed through several recensions ; and we have reasons to believe that the present one by Nagarjuna is neither the only nor the last one made. The redactors, according to their own light, have made man\- in'terpbLitions in the text, and when Brahmanas, thev have tried to come to a sort of compromise at points of disagieement with the teachings of the Vedas 12). Therefore it is that we come across such statements in the Samhita as ''there are 360 bones in the human body, ;-|0 it is in the Vedas, but the science of surgery recognises three hundred skeletal bones." What lends a greater colour to the hypothesis is that Sushruta, who, in the Chapter on Marma Shariram, has so accurately described the unions of bones and ligaments, anastomoses of nerves, veins and arteries etc.,
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