The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c10.5

c10.5

*Observation* (दर्शन—*V\u00E1chaspati and Udayana*).—The entire apparatus of scientific method proceeded on the basis of observed instances carefully analysed and sifted. This was the source of the physico-chemical theories and classifications, but in Anatomy the Hindus went one step farther; they practised dissection on dead bodies for purposes of demonstration. Ingenious directions are given, *e.g.*, the body must be first disembowelled and wrapped round with the *kusa* and other grasses, then kept immersed in still water for seven days, after which the medical student should proceed to remove the layers of the skin with a carefully prepared brush made of the fresh elastic fibres of green bamboos, which will enable the tissues, vessels and ducts to be observed. Post-mortem operations as well as major operations in obstetric surgery (the extraction of the fœtus, etc.) were availed of for embryological observations (*e.g.*, it is stated that the rudiments of the head and the limbs begin to appear in the fœtus in the third month, and are developed in the fourth; the bones, ligaments, nails, hair, etc., becoming distinct in the sixth), and also embryological theories, *e.g.*, the indication of sexual character in the second month by the shape of the fœtus, the shape of a *round* joint indicating the male sex, and an *elongated* shape the female sex (*cf.* Charaka, Sútrasthána, Chap. IV.—द्वितीये मासि घनः सम्पद्यते पिण्डः पेश्यर्बुदं वा। तत्र घनः पिण्डः पुरुषः स्त्री पेशी अर्बुदं नपुंसकम्। Chakrapáni notes: घनः कठिनः। पिण्डो ग्रन्याकारः। पेशी दीर्घमांसपेश्याकारा। अर्बुदं वर्तुलोन्नतम् *loc. cit.*). In Phonetics (as in the Prátisákhyas, *circa* 600 B.C.), in Descriptive and Analytical Grammar (as in Pánini), and in some important respects in Comparative Grammar (as in Hemachandra's Grammar of the Prákrita Dialects), the observation was precise, minute, and thoroughly scientific. This was also the case in Materia Medica and in Therapeutics, especially the symptomology of diseases. In Meteorology the Hindus used the rain-gauge in their weather forecasts for the year, made careful observations of the different kinds of clouds and other atmospheric phenomena (*e.g.*, they estimate the heights of clouds, the distance from which lightning is ordinarily visible or the thunder is heard, the area of disturbance of different earthquakes, the height to which the terrestrial atmosphere extends, etc.; *vide* Varáhamihira, Srípati, and the authorities quoted by Utpala). In Astronomy the observation was, generally speaking, very defective, as in the determination of the solar and the planetary elements, and this was probably due to the lack of practical interest, but the determination of the lunar constants entering into the calculation of lunar periods and eclipses, matters in which the Hindus had a practical ceremonial interest, reached a remarkable degree of approximation (much above Græco-Arab computations) to the figures in Laplace's Tables, which can only be explained by the circumstance that in the case of these constants the Hindus carried out for more than a thousand years a systematic process of verification and correction by comparison of the computed with the observed results (like the navigator's correction of the course of the ship at sea), a process which was termed दृग्गणितैक्य. In Zoology the enumeration of the species of Vermes, Insecta, Reptilia, Batrachia, Aves, etc., makes a fair beginning, but the classification proceeds on external characters and habits of life, and not on an anatomical basis. In Botany the observation was mainly in the interests of Materia Medica, and the classification was as superficial as possible. (*Vide* my Paper on the Hindu Classification of Plants and Animals.)