The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c11.5

c11.5

Anatomy possesses an extremely ample vocabulary in the Veda, but quite a large number of terms in use are only metaphorical designations and all of them have not survived. Many of the internal organs are named, notably in the texts referring to the sacrifice of the horse. But the principal lists of anatomy are found in the hymns which establish similarities between the human or the animal body and the various parts of the universe, considered as the immense body of man or animal. A certain number of notions concerning the constitutive elements of the organism, which have been preserved in classical medicine, come from the Vedic tradition: that of organic sap, the *rasa*; that of the vital sap, seat of vigour, the *ojas*; that of bile conceived as liquid fire.