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.
Nature of Self : — v^; elf is a simple substance, and, as such, is immaterial. Force is substance and substance, is force. It is endued with constructive intelligepce, and, like gravitation or cohesion, can permeate a material body, without, in any way, disturbing h. It is adaptative or elective, or, in other words, elects that kind of selves for its parents as are best suited to the purposes* of its being. Man is the outcome of an influx of a se.f, a force, a dynamis with its path determined by the dynamics of the d^jeds of its prior existence. To think that vitality starts from xxviii , iNTifoniTCTioN.
•• protoplastfv is insanity. Cimemically examined protoplasm is but', C, O, H, N anci S. But no amount of C, O, H, N afid S put together will constit<ite life. The idea that life 'iias nothing prior to it, that the force which controls the co-ordination of man's economy perished with the death of his organism, is'quite puerile. Life is expansion and not creation, and, as such, is linked to those unseen realities which constitute its prior and future selves. We see only the middle link in the chain of existence which we call life, but take no notice of the preceding or succeeding ones which are invisible (i). The grosser material body is linked to a finer, imma<;erial one, in as much as nothing can exist vvithout being attached to its antecedent. So at each conception there is the influx of a new self, for the lifeless constituents of a human body can not create a man, no matter how many chemical or physiological actions may be postulated to run to their rescue.
Ayurvedic Embryology : — Before entering into the discussion of Sushruta's tiieory of conception, we shall take a little more trouble to enunciate fully the Vedic theories on the subject. "The child is the fruit of the combination of sperm and ovum" (2'. It lies with its head downward inside the uterus, a fact which facilitates its passage out of, and protects its form from the effects of anv injur}' done to that viscus. (3) The eyes of the child a-y ..n^finrtltTi'',
Bhagavat Gita II. 28.
(2) ^f ^wic^t ^ra: ';^»j]3R^5i'^^f^: 1
Astanga llridayam (Vagbhat) c ShArira SthSnam. Ch, I. i.
« * * ^ r\^Tf[ ^'^^Vh ?clT 1
' * Aiteriya Brahmana \'I. ic g(^ introduct?oa. i xxix
1.1 as the cephalic portion of the feJal body is tirst ,».1eveloped. The factors, which are essential to the developme'nt of the fetal hody, from the time of fecundation to the 'ippearance of the characteristic sense-organs, have '^een described in a verse of the Rig Veda (i). In thfe Vedic mythology each organic function is 'consecrated to the tutelage of a presiding^' deity, and a Vedic Aryan loves to call a thing oftener by the name of its divine custodian than by that of its own. Rightly translated, the verse would read as follows : — "May Vishnu (the presiding deity of ether and nerve force) expand thy uterus, may Tvashta (the presiding deity 'of heat and metabolism) bring about the full differentiation of the limbs and the sex of the foetus, may Prajapati (the presiding deity of the ovum) sprinkle thy uterus, and mayst thou conceive through the blessing of the lortl of human destiny. May Snrasvati (goddess of intellect) and the Ashvins, the surgeons f>1' the gods (the |iresiding deity of fission, etc.) help thee in taking the seed." Now, the development of the fetal body takes place after the pattern of its father's species, and this conformity to the pattern of its species represents an act of intellection. Hence, the aid of the goddess of intellect has been invoked with that of the celestial surgeons, who preside over the process of cell-division, so essential to the formation of the fetal limbs. Divested of its allegory, the verse would mean
(i) f^^?itf^ ^^?tg, ^^T^qTt% f^sig I
JTwf ^f% f^5?t^T#, w ^f? T?:«^frr I rf Tf 5fIW ^WlH'i ^^fT *?Tffl fl^f?^ II
' Rik Samhila X, M. 184, S.
XXX t INTfionUCTION.
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