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India takes pride in presenting the first surgeon to the world in 4th Century B.C- Sushruta.
Sushruta was the father of plastic surgery and an expert in anesthesia. An expert in removing cataract, urinary stones and treating fractures, he was the first to perform a caesarean. It was midnight when an anguished traveler frantically knocked at Sushruta’s door. His disfigured nose was profusely bleeding. Sushruta led him inside, washed his face with water, squeezed the juice of a medicinal plant on his nose and offered him some wine. He then measured his nose with a leaf, cut a strip of flesh from the stranger’s cheek with a knife and forceps. The man moaned, but the wine had numbed his senses. He bandaging the cut cheek and inserted two pipes into the nostrils and transplanted the flesh to reconstruct the disfigured nose. He then dusted the nose with powder liquorice, red |
sandalwood and extract of Indian barberry. The nose was bandaged with cotton, sprinkled with refined sesame oil. That was the world’s first plastic surgery performed nearly 26 centuries ago, the art he mastered from Divodasa Dhanvantari in Varanasi. |
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He has authored Sushruta Samhita - a medical treatise where he lists 101 types of surgical instruments. He named surgical tools after animals or birds they resemble. Even today, the medical community uses the name _ Crocodile forceps and Hawk-bill forceps Surgical Instruments used by Sushruta
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Shushruta has described surgery under eight heads Chedya (excision), Lekhya (scarification), Vedhya (puncturing), Esya (exploration), Ahrya (extraction), Vsraya (evacuation) and Sivya (Suturing). |
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Forerunner to Archimedes & Einstein |
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Kashyapa lived in the 6th century B.C. From his childhood, Kashyapa displayed a keen sense of observation. Minute things attracted his attention. Kashyap once accompanied his father to a pilgrimage to Prayag. He noticed that thousands of pilgrims littered its roads with flowers, grains of rice which they offered at the temples. While everybody else was busy offering prayers, or bathing in the Ganges, the young Kashyapa started collecting the grains (Kana) of rice that littered the streets. Muni Somasharma, a learned Sage noticed and asked him why he was counting discarded grains. Kashyapa replied that howsoever miniscule an object might be, it nevertheless is part of the universe. This reply of the young Kashyapa deeply impressed Muni Somasharma |
who said that one day Kashyapa would grow into a celebrated philosopher and said that in recognition of Kayshapa’s unusual sense of perceiving miniscule objects he would henceforth be Kanada, from Kana which means a grain. |
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> Kanada was the first expounder of the atomic concept in the universe. |
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Kanaada propounded Vaiseshika sutras(Peculiarity Aphorisms). They are a blend of science, philosophy and religion. This wisdom stuns the Modern Scientist that Rishi Kanaada could make such profound observations on Atomic Science in the 6th Century B.C. |
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India’s first satellite was named ‘Aryabhatta’. It was in appreciation of Aryabhatta’s contributions to astronomy and mathematics. Born in 476 BC in Kerala, Aryabhatta completed his studies at the university of Nalanda, which was then a great center of learning. When his treatise Aryabhattiya was recognised as a masterpiece, the then Gupta ruler Buddhagupta, made him head of the university. Aryabhatta was the first to deduce that the earth is round and that it rotates on its own axis, creating day and night. He declared that the moon is dark and shines only because of sunlight. Solar and lunar eclipses, he believed, occurred because of the shadows cast by the earth and the moon. In mathematics Aryabhatta’s contributions are equally valuable. He gave the value of pi as 3.1416, claiming, for the first time, that it was an approximation. And he was the first mathematician to give the tables of Sines. His method to find a solution to indeterminate equations of the type |
ax-by=c is also recognised the world over. He also devised a novel method to express large numbers such as 100,000,000,000 in words. He developed this method to write unwieldy numbers in poetic form. The concise but somewhat difficult-to-grasp Aryabhatiya also dealt with other aspects of mathematics and astronomical calculations, namely, geometry, mensuration, square root, cube root, progression and celestial sphere.
He also wrote Aryabhattasiddhanta. A text book for day-to-day astronomical calculations. Even today Aryabhatta’s astronomical data are used in preparing panchangs (Hindu Calendars). |
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Varahamihira was the best-known and most respected astrologer of India. He flourished during the sixth century. He was a resident of Ujjain, also know by the names Avanti in Western Malwa. He was the son and pupil of Adityadasa. |
His encyclopedic knowledge and his lively presentation of subjects, as dry as astronomy, make him a celebrated figure all over. He died in 587AD. |
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Thursday, January 11, 2007
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