The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c13.28

c13.28

One and the same comparison is proposed in the *Timaeus* and in Suśruta. Plato says that the gods have “dug canals in our body, similar to those established in the gardens, so that it may be watered, as by the course of a stream” (77c-d). Suśruta does not bring in the demiurge but says that by the presence of vessels “the body is like a garden or like a field with water-drains”.¹ But it is evident that such a comparison is so natural that it could have come to the minds of both Plato and Suśruta quite independently.