English
Each of our limbs and organs had their germs in the semen of the father, and, when the disease or defect of the father is so deep-rooted as to have affected (upatapa) the germ part of any particular organ in the seed, then the child produced out of the semen is born defective in that limb; but, if the defect or disease of the father is so superficial that his semen remains unaffected, then the disease or defect is not inherited by the son. The child does not owe sense-organs to his parents; he alone is responsible for the goodness or badness of his sense-organs; for 1 Caraka-samhitd, 1v. 3. 21. elbidsIv. 3 22; 23. 310 Speculations in the Medical Schools [cH. these are born from his own self (atma-janindriyant). The presence or absence of the sense-organs is due to his own destiny or the fruits of karma (daiva). So there is no definite law that the sons of idiots or men with defective senses should necessarily be born idiots or be otherwise defective!. The self (Ziman) is conscious only when the sense-organs exist. The self is never without the sativa or the mind-organ, and through it there is always some kind of consciousness in the self?. The self, as the agent, cannot without the sense-organs have any knowledge of the external world leading | to practical work; no practical action for which several accessories are required can be performed unless these are present; a potter who knows how to make a jug cannot succeed in making it unless he has the organs with which to make it?. The fact that the self has consciousness even when the senses do not operate is well illustrated by our dream-knowledge when the senses lie inoperative’. Atreya further says that, when the senses are com- pletely restrained and the manas, or mind-organ, is also re- strained and concentrated in the self, one can have knowledge of all things even without the activity of the senses®. The self is thus of itself the knower and the agent. This view of Caraka, as interpreted by Cakrapani, seems to be somewhat new. For the self is neither pure intelligence, like the purusa of the Samkhya-yoga, nor the unity of being, intelligence and bliss, like that of the Vedanta. Here the soul is the knower by virtue of its constant association with manas. In this, however, we are nearer to the Nyaya-Vaisesika view. But in the Nyaya-Vaisesika view the soul is not always in contact with manas and is not always conscious. The manas in that view is atomic. The view that the 1 Caraka-samhitd, IV. 3. 25. 2 Thid. iv. 3. 26, na hy-asattvah kadacid Gtmda sattva-visesac copalabhyate jnana-visesah. Cakrapani, in commenting on this, says that our knowledge of the external world is due to the operation of the sense-organs in association with the mind-organ. If these sense-organs do not exist, we cannot have any know- ledge of the external world, but the internal organ of mind is always associated with the self: so the knowledge which is due to this mind-organ is ever present in the self (yat tu kevala-mano-janyam atma-jndnam, tad bhavaty eva sarvada). It seems that both sattva and manas are used to denote the mind-organ. 3 The word karya-jnadnam in Caraka-samhitd, 1v.3.27, has been explained by Cakrapani as karya-pravrtti-janaka-bahya-visaya-jnanam. The knowledge that the self has when it has no sense-organs operating in association with the mind has no object (nirvisaya); in other words, this knowledge which the self always has is formless. S bids We 3aa ke > vinapindriyaih samadhi-balad eva yasmat sarvajfio bhavati; tasmaj jfia-sva- bhava eva nirindrivo ’py Gtma (Cakrapani’s Caraka-tatparya-tikd, Iv. 3. 28-29). . XIII] The Foetus and the Subtle Body 311 soul has always a formless consciousness has undoubtedly a Vedantic or Samkhyaic tinge; but the other details evidently separate this view from the accepted interpretations of these schools. The theory of the soul, however, as here indicated comes ‘as a digression and will have to be discussed more adequately later on. On the subject of the existence of subtle bodies we have already quoted the views of different Indian schools of philosophy for the purpose of suggesting comparisons or contrasts with the views of Caraka. Before concluding this section reference must be made to the Vedanta views with regard to the nature of subtle bodies. According to the Vedanta, as interpreted by Sankara, the subtle body is constituted of five particles of the elements of matter (bhitta-sitksmath), with which are also associated the five vayus, prana, apana, etc.1 Those who perform good deeds go to the region of the moon, and those who commit sins suffer in the kingdom of Yama and then are again born in this world?. Those who, as a reward of their good deeds, go to the kingdom of the moon and afterwards practically exhaust the whole of their fund of virtue and consequently cannot stay there any longer, begin their downward journey to this earth. They pass through akasa, air, smoke and cloud and then are showered on the ground with the rains and absorbed by the plants and again taken into the systems of persons who eat them, and again discharged as semen into the wombs of their wives and are reborn again. In the kingdom of the moon they had watery bodies (candra-mandale yad am-mayam sariram upabhogartham arabdham) for the enjoyment available in that kingdom; and, when they exhaust their good deeds through enjoyment and can no longer hold that body, they get a body which is like @ka@sa and are thus driven by the air and come into association with smoke and cloud. At this stage, and even when they are absorbed into the body of plants, they neither enjoy pleasure nor suffer pain. A difference must be made between the condition of those who are endowed with plant-bodies as a punish- ment for their misdeeds and those who pass through the plant- bodies merely as stations on their way to rebirth. In the case of the former the plant life is a life of enjoyment and sorrow, whereas in the case of the latter there is neither enjoyment nor sorrow. 1 The Bhasya of Sankara on the Brahma-siitra, 111. i. 1-7. 2 Ibid. 11. i. 13. 312 Speculations in the Medical Schools [cH. Even when the plant-bodies are chewed and powdered the souls residing in them as stations of passage do not suffer pain; for they are only in contact with these plant-bodies (candra-mandala- skhalitanam vrihy adi-samslesa-matram tad-bhavah)'. We thus see that it is only the Simkhya and the Vedanta that agree to the existence of a subtle body and are thus in accord with the view of Caraka. But Caraka is more in agreement with the Vedanta in the sense that, while according to the Samkhya it is the tan-matras which constitute the subtle body, it is the fine particles of the gross elements of matter that constitute the subtle bodies in the case both of the Vedanta and of Caraka. The soul in one atomic moment becomes associated successively with dasa, air, light, heat, water, and earth (and not in any other order) at the time of its entrance into the womb?. Foetal Development?. When the different elements of matter in conjunction with the subtle body are associated with the self, they have the appearance of alittle lump of mucus (kheta-bhiita) with all its limbs undifferentiated and undeveloped to such an extent that they may as well be said 1 Bhdsya of Sankara, 111. i. 25, also 111. i. 22-27. 2 Caraka-samhita, tv. 4.8. Cakrapani, commenting on this, says that there is no special reason why the order of acceptance of gross elements should be from subtler to grosser; it has to be admitted only on the evidence of the scriptures— ayam ca bhita-grahana-krama dGgama-siddha eva natra yuktis tatha-vidha hrdayangamastt. 3 In the Garbha Upanisad, the date of which is unknown, there is a descrip- tion of foetal development. Its main points of interest may thus be summarized: the hard parts of the body are earth, the liquid parts are water, that which is hot (usna) is heat-light (tejah), that which moves about is vayu, that which is vacuous is Gkaga. ‘The body is further said to depend on six tastes (sad-asraya), sweet (madhura), acid (amla), salt (lavana), bitter (tikta), hot (Ratu) and pungent (Rasdya), and it is made up of seven dhdtus of chyle (rasa), blood (Sonita) and flesh (ma@msa). From the six kinds of rasa comes the Sonita, from Sonita comes mamsa, from mamsa comes fat (medas), from it the tendons (sudyu), from the snayu bones (asthi), from the bones the marrow (majja), from the marrow the semen (sukra). By the second night after the union of semen and blood the foetus is of the form of a round lump called kalala, at the eighth night it is of the form of a vesicle called budbuda, after a fortnight it assumes the form of a spheroid, pinda; in two months the head appears, in three months the feet, in four months the abdomen, heels and the pelvic portions appear, in the fifth month the spine appears, in the sixth month the mouth, nose, eyes and ears develop; in the seventh month the foetus becomes endowed with life (jivena samyukto bhavati), in the eighth month it becomes fully developed. By an excess of semen over blood a male child is produced, by the excess of blood a female child is produced, when the two are equal a hermaphrodite is produced. When air somehow enters and divides the semen into two, twins are produced. If the minds of the parents are disturbed (vyakulita-manasah), the issue becomes either blind or lame or dwarf. In the ninth month, when the foetus is well developed XIII] Foetal Development 313 not to exist as to exist.