Prashant Pol
About two or two and a half years ago, on October 25, 2014, while inaugurating the Sir HN Reliance Foundation’s Hospital in Mumbai, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a statement that, “India taught the world plastic surgery”. His words were, “It is said in the Mahabharata that Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means in the times in which the epic was written genetic science was very much present. We all worship Lord Ganesha; for sure there must have been some plastic surgeon at that time, to fit an elephant’s head on the body of a human being”.
The so called liberals raised a hue and cry over his statement. Shekhar Gupta, the former editor of The Indian Express, had criticised Modi in his column titled ‘In National Interest’ in India Today. In his column, he had said that even though Modi Government talked of modern technology, these people actually embraced the old-fashioned ideas of the RSS.
Shekhar Gupta said that taking pride in the inventions in old Vedic period was turning the clock back. It was very wrong and ridiculous to claim that ‘India imparted fundamental knowledge to western nations’. Some lines from his article in India Today were—“It was possible that someone may have imagined things like plastic surgery, transplanting animal organs in humans, stem cell research, surrogate mothers etc., but to say that we had all these is not only ridiculous but dangerous also”.
About three weeks prior to that, Karan Thapar had taken up the same issue in his column in the daily ‘The Hindu’. In his article titled ‘Two faces of Mister Modi’, he had criticised Modi bitterly. Karan Thapar said that “India’s Prime Minister should not say such baseless and mythological things and that too while inaugurating a hospital. In short, making such statements when plastic surgery has no basis in our Hindu books is violation of the Article 51 (h) of the Constitution of India. This Article confers the right on every Indian citizen to uphold ‘scientific’ temper. Modi is speaking utterly unscientific and hence, to condemn Modi’s statement becomes necessary”.
Both Shekhar Gupta and Karan Thapar had mentioned plastic surgery hence I tried to gather information on it and I got astonishing information.
In the war with Hyder and Tipu Sultan in India, the Britishers discovered two new things (of course, this is written by them only). One was the rocket used in war and another was plastic surgery.
The history of this discovery of plastic surgery by the Britishers is very interesting. Hyder Ali-Tipu Sultan and Britishers fought four big battles during the 30 years spanning from 1769 to 1799. During one of the battles, Tipu’s army captured a Maratha warrior named Kawasji and four Telugu bazarbunge. Tipu’s army cut off noses of all these five persons and sent them back to the Britishers.
After a few days, an English commander saw some marks on the nose of an Indian trader. After some queries, the commander found out that the trader had committed ‘some deeds’ because of which his nose was severed. However, the trader had got his nose refitted by a vaidya (doctor). An astounded British commander sent for that Marathi vaidya (belonging to kumbhar or potter community) and ordered him to make Kawasji and other four men’s noses look original.
This operation took place near Pune at the order of the Commander. Two British doctors named Thomas Cruso and James Findlay witnessed the operation as it was performed. Both of them sent a report of the operation ‘performed by an unknown Marathi doctor’ to Madraz Gazette and it was published. Gentleman, a montly published from London, reprinted the article that appeared in Madraz Gazette in its issue dated October 1794. Someone named BL had reported the news in this issue. Some pictures relating to operation were also given along with the article. JC Corp, a young British surgeon, performed two operations after being inspired by this article in the same fashion and they were successful. Greffe, a German surgeon, also carried out two successful plastic surgeries after hearing this. And thus the western world, especially Britain, got to know plastic surgery. These operations helped a lot during the World War I.
Edwin Smith Papirus is found to mention plastic surgery first time in the western world. However, the references to plastic surgery since thousand years are found in Roman books .
Of course, these operations are very ancient for India. Sushrut, the surgeon, has explained this operation in minute details about 2750 years ago. In it, a leaf of a tree is taken and put on the nose. It is given the shape of a nose. And then the leaf is cut where required; skin of the same size is taken out from cheek, forehead or hand and leg. The skin is layered with specific medicines and it is bound where necessary. Layers of specific medicines are laid on both places—the fitted skin and from where it is taken out. New skin comes up at both places after about three weeks and this transplant of skin is completed. The ‘unknown Marathi doctor’ had performed operation on Kawasji in the mentioned pattern.
India knew very well the technique to improve the deformity in nose, ears and lips. In the past, the lobe of ear would pierce after inserting a heavy jewellery. The practice of fitting skin of the cheek in such ears was prevalent. These operations were performed in India as late as till 19th century. Kangra district in Himachal Pradesh was famous for such surgeries. It is said that word Kangra itself was formed through Kan+Gadha (Gadha in Hindi means preparing). Dr SC Almast has written extensively over the ‘Kangra Model’. He had himself met Dinanath Kangadhia, the vaidya who performed operations on nose and ears. He has penned his experiences. These Kangadhias, who kept the records of generations till 1404, were considered expert surgeons in plastic surgery. British explorer Sir Alexader Cunningham (1814-1893) has written widely on the plastic surgery procedure in Kangra. The reference is also found that a vaidya named Bidha performed operations in Kangra during Akbar’s reign.
The books Sushruta Samhita and Charak Samhita were translated in Arabic about 1100 years after Sushrut. This happened in 8th century. It went to west Asia with the name of ‘Quitab-e-Susrud’.
Later this information reached to Europe the same way as other branches of science like mathematics and Astronomy reached there through Arabs. The information of this operation reached to Italy in 14th-15th century via Arabia-Persia (Iran) and Egypt. It was on the basis of this information that Branca family on Sisily Islan and Gaspere Tagliakosi started operations of ears and noses. However, they had to stop them because of heavy opposition from church. And hence, the Europeans remained ignorant about the plastic surgery till 19th century.
Atrya Upanishad in Rigveda is considered one of the oldest Upanishads. This Upanishad describes how an embryo is formed in the uterus. It says that initially a part of face comes into existence, then nose, then eyes, ears and other organs are formed. Observations with the help of modern science and with the help of tools like sonography show that a child is formed in the same manner. Now, where did our forefathers get this knowledge from?
Thus, the solid evidence that plastic surgery existed in India at least 2500-3000 years ago has been found. Knowledge of anatomy and its treatment was the domain of India. But we have been denying our own rich heritage with the mistaken assumptions that discoveries made in western world are the real modernity and things received from our old knowledge are embarrassing and outdated ones.
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