Essay name: Surgery in ancient India (Study)
Author:
P. P. Prathapan
Affiliation: Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit / Department of Sanskrit Sahitya
This essay studies Surgery in ancient India based on Sanskrit sources such as the Sushruta Samhita. These references indicate evidence of theoretical and practical knowledge of hygiene rivaling contemporary routine practices. Further topics include Ayurveda, a historical study of surgery, surgical schools and instruments used in ancient India.
Chapter 5 - Surgical instruments in Sushruta Samhita
12 (of 62)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
Download the PDF file of the original publication
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
323
Pupils who learned Sanskrit were given the opportunity to study
Ayurveda texts also. Some learned it along with K膩vyas and Natakas.
Teachers taught student directly without charging any fees. They believed
that teaching or transmission of their knowledge to the deserving si峁as
was their sacred duty. Students lived and practiced with their gurus. So
they got enough chances to have direct experiences of different types of
treatment and to identify the medicines and their use. This was especially
true in the A峁ａ弓avaidya families. These Vaidyans were very good scholars
who were always dedicated to their profession and cultured service
mentality. They wrote commentaries in Sanskrit on Ayurvedic texts. Indu
the disciple of V膩gbhata and the author of 艢a艣ilekha commentary of
16 Ast膩ngahrdaya was born in Kerala. Even now some of the Astavaidya
families, follow this through preservation and transmission of their family
tradition. Scholars of these families are well versed in both Sanskrit and
Ayurveda.
Sahasrayogam
There is no solid information about the time of the writing of
'Sahasrayogam'. We get a detailed account of a new medicine called
'Madhusarahi'. This medicine is found in the Sahasrayoga also. The work
'Sahasrayogam' got its name due to the inclusion of more than a
