On Anatomical Enumeration and Difference in Early Sanskrit Medical Literature

Abstract

What does it mean to inventory all the components of the human body, and what do those inventories tell us about medical ideas and practice? I compare the lists of body parts in the śārīra-sthānas (sections relating to the body) of the Caraka-saṃhitā (ca. first century CE) and the Suśruta-saṃhitā (ca. second century CE). Rather than provide a detailed list of differences, I contemplate what these differences “mean” in terms of counting as a practice and of how we might think about these two texts as articulations of the concerns of the “theorist-physicians” of the Caraka-saṃhitā and the “anatomist-surgeons” of the Suśruta-saṃhitā. How might a close comparative reading of these passages—an “emic” reading, if you will—shed light on medical practice in early India and its relationship with metaphysical concerns, issues of selfhood, sexual “difference,” and the problem of understanding what cannot be seen with the naked eye?