An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. I: Sutrasthanam — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907)

A little more investigation into the biological thesis of the Rishis would be necessary for the clear comprehension of "Shukra-Vahulyani" and '"Shonita-Vahulyam" ' of Sushruta and other Tantras (3). iMan is both animal and spirit ; and the Ayurvedic physiology recognises two distinct sets of apparatus in his organism answering to the different phases of his existence. The one helps him in performing the organic functions, which are so essential to his animal existence, and keeps intact the co-ordination of those internal functions with the incidents of his environments. The other is attuned to the finer forces of nature, and responds

(I) The Evolution of Sex. Ch. XVIII.

Prof. P. Gedde/i and J, A. Thomson. (2) "The body or soma'\ Weismann says, "thus appears to a certain extent as a subsidiary appendage of the true bearers of the life,— the reproductive cells". Ray Lankester has again well expressed this :— "Among the multicellular animals, certain cells are separated from the rest of the constituent units of the body, as egg-cells and sperm-cells ; these conjugate and continue to live, whilst the remaining cells, the mere carriers as it were of the immortal reproductive cells, die and disintegrate. The bodies of the higher aniivals which die, may from this point of view be regarded as something temporary and non-essential, destined merely to carry for a time, to nurse, and to nourish the mure important and deathless fission -products of the unicellular egg."— Quoted in the Evelution of Sex (P. Geddes and J, A. Thompton) 1901. Chap. XVIII.

(3) (a) ^liTf^^T wtwrf^ ^f<f^ry^: HiTi^ 1

Sarada Tilak Tantram. (15) Sushrula SamhilA (ShSrira Sthdnam Ch. Ill )

INTRODUCTION. ' XXXV

to the call of his higher or psychiq self. Tli'e one is organic, the other is psyC^ic The one chains him down to the phenomenal, and is" governed by the laws of growth and decay ; the other opens on the region of absolute realities where growth and decay have no room to be. Growth is not the only condition of life. Man may exist without food (i)or respiration, only if he can manage to dive deep into the realities within himself. Between these two sets of apparatus there is the Jivatma, which, by its own peculiar energy (the will-force), can operate in phenomenal or organic pl?,in, or recede from thence into the psychic one, thus being in contact with the world of the senses' and the one that is beyond the darkness of death. Death, in fact, is the grand usherer to life, which is only the rise of the curtain over the life's drama, all equipments for which are made in the green room of death.

A man can not propagate at will. No amount of willing on the part of the parent-animal can help him in creating progeny. The self of the child, who is about to come into life, chooses its own parents, according to the dynamics of its own acts or Karma, from the region of the lunar Pitris or quiescent life, if it be warrantable to use such an expression (2). The self of the would-be child mixes with the self of its human father, and hovers over the reproductive cells of the latter's organism, and regulates the intensity of its father's sexual desire, according to the nature of the sex, determined necessary for the fruition of the purposes of its advent into the world. A greater intensity of its father's desires ensures the preponderance of tile Pitrika Shakti (katabolism) in the impregnated ovum, which

Skanda PurSnam quoted by Shridhara SvSmi in his commentaries on the Vishnu Purdnam. Ch. VI. V. i6. ,

(2) ^^^m ^7m\^m 1

Shruti.

XXXVl ' INTRODUCTION.

determiiies the male^sex of the child, while such a thing, on the part of the mother at the time, is followed by the relative preponderance of the Afatrika Shakti (anabolism) which accounts for the femininity of the issue. Equal intensity of sexual desires in both the parents, creating an absence of the relative preponderance of the Pitrika and Matrika Shaktis in the impregnated ovum, leaves the sex of the child practically undetermined. The relative preponderance of the Pitrikd or Matrika Shakti, as evidenced by the greater or less intensity of the sexual desire of either of the parents, which results in the speedier emission of the paternal or maternal element (sperm or ovum) during an act of successful fecundation, is contemplated by the term ''Shukra-Vahulyam," or "Shonita-Vahulyam," by the framer of the Samhita, as ma}- be fully substantiated by a couplet by the venerable Daruvahi (i).