The Evolution of Anatomical Knowledge in Ancient India, with Special Reference to Cross-Cultural Influences

Abstract

Ludwig Edelstein's study of the history of Greek anatomy will be used as a model to examine the evolution of anatomical knowledge in ancient India. The earliest evidence of Indian anatomy is found in the Vedic literature, dating from 1500 B.C. to 200 B.C. It provides a clear picture of the acquisition of anatomical knowledge by means of the sacrifice of animals, principally the horse, and of men; chance observations contributed a comparatively small amount to the body of anatomical knowledge. As a result of these sacrificial rites quite accurate lists of bodily structures of the horse and of man have been recorded and transmitted by means of the traditional religious texts. These catalogues remained the principal sources of anatomy until the first centuries of the Christian era, when we find a codification of Indian medical knowledge in the surgical text, Susruta Samhitd. Isolated in a chapter on anatomy, a new approach to the study of the bodily is recommended: in order to acquire the most complete understanding of the human body the author prescribes that first-hand observation of the should be combined with textual learning and proceeds to detail the correct method to dissect a cadaver. This precept, reflecting a characteristically non-Indian attitude, may well have had its origin in the Alexandrian school of medicine, in particular in the teachings of Herophilus in the first half of the third century B.C. The instruction which added a wholly new dimension to Indian anatomical thought could have been transmitted to India around the time of Alexander. As in the Hellenistic world, scientific dissection was not readily accepted by the Indian medical community and its practice quickly vanished. During the short time it was known and performed in India, some advances seem to have been made in the understanding of the inner of the human body, increasing the store-house of anatomical knowledge already possessed by the Indian physicians. A similar technique of dissection is detailed in the twelfth century Salernitan anatomical text, Anatomia magistri Nicolai phisici. This remarkable occurrence poses questions, the answers to which cannot be definitely given until more evidence becomes available. The paper concludes with a critical translation of chapter five on the enumeration and distinction of the bodily parts in the book of anatomy of the Sugruta Samhitd.