Significance, life journey and teachings of the father of surgery in Hinduism
Sushrut is known as the father of surgery in Hinduism. He is an ancient saint and physician whose work focused on brain surgery, plastic surgery and constructing surgical equipment and setting procedures. He is also well known as the father of Indian medicine. His name roughly means renowned or well heard of. One of the oldests texts available in the world on surgical procedures is that of rishi Sushrut which goes by the name Sushrut Samhita meaning Sushrut’s Compendium. This is also known to be the base scripture for the foundation of Ayurveda, Indian medicine. He is said to have practised around 600 BC and 800 BC.
Father of Surgery
The early life of rishi Sushrut is not well known as common knowledge. But he has always been deemed as a healer and someone who used medicines to cure diseases and ailments, his abilities were believed to be gifts of god. Although surgery existed before Sushrut, he was the one to advance the developments in the medical field.
His surgical procedures included caesarean section birth, hernia surgery, reconstruction of nose and cheek, prostate removal operations, cataract removal, tooth extraction, treatment of internal bleeding and outer wounds. He also diagnosed diseases of sensory organs such as eyes, nose, ears, recommended drops and medicines for the healing. Rishi Sushrut invented prosthetic limbs, developed a school of embryology. He elevated his knowledge with dissection of the human body, understanding the anatomy for being able to treat it.
Unlike multiple supernatural methods of healing in that era, Sushrut disbelieved in intangible entities curing human bodies and took up the responsibility on himself. His wisdom about the functioning of the human body led him to lay such strong foundations and learnings.
Saushrutas
Sushrut had earned the respect of many people who wanted to learn surgery themselves. These became the disciples of Sushrut and called themselves the Saushrutas. They were prohibited from actually performing a surgery before studying for at least six years, as the medical education takes that long to grasp and fully understand. Similar to the Hippocratic oath which originates from Greece, Saushrutas too has to undertake a promise stating how they would operate to only heal and not to cause any damage. For the practice, Sushrut made his students cut vegetables, dead animals or old wood to perform a perfect incision. This was then followed by letting the students watch actual surgeries and observe Sushrut himself operating.
Sushrut Samhita
One of the primary teachings of this was how diseases are the result of imbalance in chakras or energy focal points of the body. It forms the foundation of all the medical procedures to follow. The text also included unique approaches to physical issues besides covering anatomical details and the techniques of surgical procedures. Each chapter covers some method or procedure to operate on bodies including 300 surgical procedures, 120 surgical instruments, mentioning 1120 diseases, conditions, injuries, ailments and their respective cure and treatment. Furthermore, it covered 700 medicinal herbs, their uses, doses, method of application, taste, efficiency and possible side effects. Sushrut was also the one to coin the term Salya tantra, translating to surgical science as Ayurveda on its own kept operation and cutting into bodies as the last resort, as opposed to him.
Sushrut’s major contributions were through plastic surgery, especially rhinoplasty. Rhinoplasty refers to the reconstruction of the nose after breakage or fracture. It was also done to simply change the look of the nose to fit into the present beauty standards. Nose has always been a symbol of respect in Hindu culture and hence it was desirable to have an ideal nose back then.
