Susruta

Sushruta

Sushruta was an ancient physician and surgeon who lived around the 6th century BC. He made important contributions to the field of plastic and cataract surgery.  He is famous for writing the ‘Sushruta Samhita', one of the most important early books on medicine and a key text of Ayurveda. This work covers many subjects, including surgery, diet, anatomy, children’s health, and treatment of poisons. Although he is well known for plastic surgery and cataract operations, his book explains all areas of medical care. Modern scholars have long studied the text to learn about early clinical practice and the history of surgery.

Early Life and Historical Background

The exact date of Sushruta and the origin of the Samhita are uncertain. Traditional accounts place Sushruta in a very early period of Indian medicine. Also, many modern scholars suggest a composition or compilation date ranging from the first millennium BCE to the early centuries CE. The text itself shows layers of material that were added over time, so it is best seen as a work that grew in stages rather than a single-author book written at one moment.

Sushruta learnt from his teacher Dhanvantari. He studied in a school where students observed corpses to understand the body parts. This helped him understand bones, muscles, and veins well. Sushruta wrote that students should practise their hands with fruits and cloth before actual practice. (Wikipedia contributors, n.d.)

He lived in an era when Indians had extensive knowledge about plants and sky observation. Sushruta combined surgery with healthy food and cleanliness to keep patients healthy. His school taught eight kinds of cuts: removing bad parts, scratching the skin, making holes, peering inside, removing stones, removing fluids, closing wounds, and mending bones.(Sushruta, n.d.)

Sushruta Samhita

The Sushruta Samhita is one of the most important ancient medical texts in India. This text is a major work of Ayurveda, and it is believed to have been compiled by the physician Sushruta in the 6th century BC. The Sushruta Samhita is a comprehensive treatise on medical knowledge, encompassing topics such as anatomy, health, disease, treatment, and surgery. The text is divided into 186 chapters and includes information about hundreds of diseases, their causes, symptoms, and treatments. (Wikipedia contributors, n.d.)

The most remarkable aspect of the Sushruta Samhita is that it is a majorly focused on surgery. The text describes over 300 surgical procedures and includes information about 120 surgical instruments made of metal and other materials. Sushruta has described techniques for the treatment of wounds, the setting of broken bones, skin grafts, and even plastic surgery and cataract surgery.

The book also teaches students how to learn through practice. Sushruta advised young surgeons to train first on fruits, vegetables, and animal parts before touching a patient. Alongside surgery, the text covers important subjects such as diet, hygiene, poisons, childbirth, child care, and the development of the human body. Because of its depth and clarity, the Sushruta Samhita remains a respected and influential medical text.

The Sushruta Samhita is arranged in many sections (called sthanas) that deal with theory, the description of the body, diagnosis, treatments, and surgical operations. Major parts include:

Sutra-Sthana: Introduces the basic principles of medicine and surgery: how a student should be trained, how to use instruments, basic treatments, and even cauterisation and the use of medicinal plants.

Nidana-Sthana: This section deals with the causes, symptoms and diagnosis of diseases.

Sarira-Sthana: It deals with human anatomy, embryology, and the structure of the body, in other words, understanding the body before treating it surgically.

Cikitsa-Sthana: This section discusses treatments, therapies, surgical operations, bone setting, and management of various diseases.

Kalpa-Sthana: It focuses on toxicology, poisons, and their remedies.

Uttara-Tantra: The final part, added later by redactors, includes sections on eye, ear, nose and throat diseases, mental disorders, and other fields like paediatrics and geriatrics.

Together these sections make the Samhita a comprehensive manual of health care in its tradition, covering both internal medicine and operative practice. (Sushruta, n.d.)

Surgical techniques and instruments

Sushruta is best known for the surgical material in the Salya-sthana. The text describes a wide range of operations, from wound treatment and setting broken bones to more complex procedures such as removal of cataracts and reconstructive operations of the nose (rhinoplasty). The book lists many surgical instruments, and classical counts run into dozens or more and explains how to make and use them. The clear, practical style of the instructions suggests that students were trained by hands-on practice and close supervision. (Sushruta, n.d.)

Anatomy and dissection

Unlike other ancient medical systems, which are largely theoretical, Sushruta Samhita is very observational. It contains detailed anatomical descriptions and suggests that dissections of dead bodies should be done for study. This approach helped surgeons understand the anatomy of the body before performing any surgery and made this text very empirical compared to other texts of its time. (Sushruta, n.d.)

Medical theory and other topics

Beyond surgery, Sushruta’s book treats general medical theory in the Ayurvedic framework. It discusses the three humours which are vata, pitta, kapha, the use of medicinal plants and minerals, diet and lifestyle, poisoning and antidotes, and methods of diagnosis. Later sections cover eye and ear diseases, mental disorders, paediatrics, and care of the elderly. In this way the Saṃhita functions as both a surgical manual and a general medical encyclopaedia.(Sushruta, n.d.)

Education and practice

The Saṃhitā offers a detailed plan for training a surgeon. The students are advised to learn from a teacher, observe surgeries, practise on models (like vegetables or body parts of animals), and then slowly progress to actual patients. The text stresses the importance of cleanliness, proper preoperative care, and postoperative care, features that are similar to the cautious, patient-centred approach to modern surgical training. (Gandhi et al., 2024)

Legacy

Sushruta is often called the “father of surgery” in popular descriptions because of the breadth of surgical knowledge preserved in the Saṃhita. Whether Sushruta was a single historical person or a name given to a tradition of medical teachers, the text that bears his name records a high level of practical skill and learning. Its combination of anatomy, operative detail and concern for patient care makes it a remarkable document in the history of medicine. (Dave et al., 2024)

References

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Sushruta. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved February 3, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sushruta

Sushruta. (n.d.). Sushruta Samhita [Digital text]. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/sushrutasamhita

Sushruta. (n.d.). The Sushruta Samhita (Vol. 1) [PDF]. Internet Archive. https://dn710605.ca.archive.org/0/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.43171/2015.43171.The-Sushruta-Samhita--Vol1.pdf

Sushruta. (n.d.). English translation of the Sushruta Samhita [PDF]. Internet Archive. https://ia801609.us.archive.org/35/items/englishtranslati00susruoft/englishtranslati00susruoft.pdf

Sushruta. (n.d.). Sushruta Samhita: Critical edition [PDF]. Internet Archive. https://dn790009.ca.archive.org/0/items/sushrutasamhita/sushruta_samhita_critical.pdf

Gandhi, M., et al. (2024). Sushruta: The father of surgery and ancient medical innovations. Journal of Surgical History, [Volume if available], Article PMC11000756. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11000756/

Dave, T., Habte, A., Vora, V., Sheikh, M. Q., Sanker, V., & Gopal, S. V. (2024). Sushruta: The father of Indian surgical history. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Global Open, 12(4), e5715. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11000756/