The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c9.91

c9.91

The constituents of the body recognised by the Veda are those which Āyurveda has also recognised. The majority comes within the same sense and the notions concerning them are, properly speaking, not anatomical but commonplace. Such are the blood (*lohita*), the flesh (*māṃsa*), the bone (*asthi*), the narrow of the bone (*majjan*), the fat (*medas*) and the sperm (śukra). But others correspond less to the observations of the anatomists and are nearer the theoretical conceptions and the fact that they are found simultaneously in the Veda and in Āyurveda is quite characteristic of the rôle played by the old ideas of the former in the formation of the latter.