The Realm Of Ayurved - XIV

 

 

 

 

 

 

“A good surgeon possesses courage and presence of mind, has a hand free from perspiration, enjoys tremor-less grip of sharp and good instruments and a mindset to carry his surgical operation to successful culmination to the advantage of the patient. He is the person to whom the life of an individual patient can be entrusted.The surgeon should respect the absolute surrender of the patient and treat the person as his own off-spring. ...” - Sushruta Samhita

 

SUCH wisdom can be read in its fullness in the ancient Sushruta Samhita, the ancient book on Ayurved almost fully available for modern-day researchers. Respected as the world’s first surgeon, Maharshi Sushruta was known to have perfected the science of ayurvedic surgery whose details are simply amazing. The range of surgeries Ayurved had perfected can astonish any modern mind -- from countless small procedures to complex operations that included organ transplant as well. Detailed notings are available in Sushruta Samhita as well as in other texts including the Vedas explaining the importance of surgery as an essential method redemption from pain and ailments of different kind. And it is necessary to insist that all the knowledge found in different ancient texts is not just a body of information, but also demonstrates the detailed study and research that was undertaken by proponents of Ayurved. These references prove that Ayurved is a complete science whose knowledge suffered from lapse of collective memory in modern times.

 

Yet, enough evidence, too, is available to rekindle that knowledge of the ancient science of wellness. Ancient history has detailed references to Ashwini Kumar as Gods’ doctors offering not just medicinal redemption from illness but also conducting various complicated surgical operations successfully and gracefully. The surgical science perfected by Ayurved discusses not just operations but also insist upon certain qualities that the surgeon should possess and demonstrate in practical terms. Various texts also offer the definition of a good nurse and describe the details of good patient care and pre- and post-operative management of the patient. Enough references also are available describing the kind of psychological counselling is needed to prepare the patient to undergo surgical operation by helping the person to get past the normal anxieties. Shalya Tantra or Shalya Chikitsa, thus, was (is) a complete scientific domain that reached its pinnacle in ancient India through research and study over countless thousands of years whose timeline is beyond even the wildest imagination of the modern mind. But those ancient texts also indicate time and again the need of continued research so as to add more depth to the overall knowledge of surgery as a means of complete remission from serious illnesses.

 

This beings us to an important consideration that Ayurved embodies in terms of human wellness. It pertains to the manner in which the practitioners of Ayurved should look at their own science -- as an area of knowledge that has descended straight from the Divine. The practitioners of this science were expected never to rest on their laurels but to continue their efforts to become more perfect and more humanely oriented towards the suffering brethren. In the past half of a century, many successful efforts have been made even to organise exhibitions of surgical instruments that the practitioners of ayurvedic surgery used traditionally. Ayurvedic surgery was conducted in different segments as per the need of the individual patient. Many ayurvedic doctors are performing countless surgeries even today much to the complete satisfaction of the patient. This scribe has personally seen not just the successful end-results but also the in-process surgical operations conducted by modern practitioners of Ayurved. He can assert in retrospect that he was simply amazed by the good outcome that included a high sense of mental well being of the person who underwent the complicated surgeries.

 

The purpose of this series is to bring to fore the truth about Ayurved as a complete science. But science is something that is never static or fossilised. It is a fluent domain that keeps alive the search and study for greater perfection. Ayurved, too, has been on e such science in constant search of finer and greater perfection. This search of excellence has been one of the core values of Ayurved, too, as it is of modern medicine or any other science. But this series is also aimed at bringing to light a fundamental difference between Ayurved and modern medicine. While modern medicine operates from the outer end of the wellness spectrum -- that is symptoms -- Ayurved thinks from the origin of the reason of illness (as a matter of scientific approach). In ayurvedic surgery, too, a similar approach is followed in treatment. The purpose, therefore, is assert the importance of understanding the core thought of Ayurved. (To be continued)