Sushruta

Ayurveda is against modern medicine, right?

Well, what if I told you the first organised surgeon in the world drew his knowledge from Ayurveda itself?

Meet Sushruta - and here’s his story.

Sushruta was a physician and surgeon who lived on the banks of the Ganga river in Varanasi around 600 BCE.

He captured his surgical and medical expertise in the Sushruta Samhita - the world's earliest encyclopaedic guide to medicine and surgery.

This book details the diagnosis of hundreds of diseases, exact procedures for 300 types of surgical operations, 120+ surgical instruments including their specs and dimensions, and prescriptions for over 700 medicinal drugs from plants, minerals, and animals.

Sushruta performed complex procedures like nose reconstruction, plastic surgeries, cataract removal, tooth extraction, piles and fistula operations, foetus extraction during pregnancy complications, and trauma care like cleaning & suturing wounds, repairing jaw fractures, and even doing full amputations.

He laid down protocols for well-lit and sterile operating spaces, surgical ethics, and detailed the use of clean sutures made from bark fibres, cotton, hair, and animal sinews - with surgical tools forged from metal and sterilised by fire.

Since cutting open dead bodies was taboo, Sushruta devised a respectful method for anatomical study - soaking cadavers in water and gently scraping tissue layer by layer to observe the body’s structure.

His Samhita laid the foundation for generations of surgeons. So it's a shame we think Ayurveda is lesser than modern medicine.

Our ancestors weren't blind believers - they were scientists who studied the body deeply, while still honouring the soul.