Susruta was probably the first surgeon in the world to classify and describe, in detail, surgical instruments, their methods of manufacture, quality control, maintenance, and their specific uses in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. He was also the first surgeon to describe endoscopes such as rectal, aural, nasal, and vaginal specula. First evidence of brain surgery in Bronze Age Harappa is reported by A. R. Sankhyan and G.R Shug in a scientific correspondence to Current Science. The communication states that it is the first report of its kind to unequivocally present a case of ancient brain surgical practice, known as trepanation, observed 4300 years ago in a Bronze Age Harappan skull. A decade ago, a Neolithic skull from Burzahoma in the Kashmir Valley was reported to have multiple trepanations, the first case from the Indian subcontinent. Trepanation, also called trephination or trephining, has been the oldest craniotomic surgical procedure practiced by mankind since the Stone Age, involving drilling or cutting through the skull vault of a living or recently deceased person.

Blunt Instruments invented by Sushruta.

Sharp Instruments invented by Sushruta

Aggalayya’s Stone Inscription is a stone inscription in Telugu-Kannada Script is incised on three sides of a stone pillar set up in the village named Saidapur village, Yadgirigutta mandal (Bhuvanagiri Taluk), Nalgonda District of Andhra Pradesh. This inscription, which portrays the practice of surgery by select vaidyas in the medieval period, it evidenced by the subjoined inscription, which alludes the greatness of a surgeon named Aggalayya who flourished under the patronage of the Chalukya King Jayasimha II (A.D. 1015-1042) The mention of Aggalayya in an inscription, as a surgeon-physician in this context, shows that the practice of surgery was not completely given up by medieval period. It provides a glimpse of how surgeons and physicians held a high status during the reign of the Chalukya King Jayasimha. Aggalayya taught surgery to students from across India and served under four dynasties, earning the title 'Samanta Raja.'

Figure 1 – Aggalayya’s Stone Inscription (1034 AD to 1074 AD )

While specific, individualized tools used by Aggalayya are not listed in the provided text, his era practiced Sastra-vaidya (surgery) based on the principles of Sushruta Samhita. Archaeological findings from similar periods in South India, specifically the Taxila Museum, provide examples of the types of instruments used at that time:

• Maṇḍalāgra: A disc-shaped blade instrument.
• Eśaṇī: Surgical probes.
• Sūcī: Needles with eyes for suturing.
• Saṁdaṁśayantra: Gripping instruments or forceps.
• Tālayantra: Spatula-type instruments with handles.

These instruments, including those for cutting, probing, and suturing, were used for various procedures, including vascular, rectal, and ophthalmic surgeries.

Figure 2- Surgical instruments in the Taxila Museum.

Indian Surgical Instruments (published in the Indian Medical Gazette in 1877 )

Among the pioneers who defended the scientific heritage of Ayurveda during the colonial era, Vaidyaraj Prabhuram Jivanram (1832–1902) stands as a monumental figure. A scholar of Vedanta, practicing Ayurvedic Vaidya, and realized yogi, he worked to rescue Indian medical knowledge from distortion at a time when European narratives often dismissed India’s surgical achievements.
One of his most remarkable contributions is the rare monograph “Forceps Used by the Ancients of India” (Bombay, 1892), edited with notes by his erudite son Vishwanath Prabhuram Vaidya. Printed in English, Sanskrit, and Gujarati, it is among the earliest scholarly attempts to document, analyze, and defend India’s ancient obstetric and surgical instruments as described in the Sushruta Samhita and related traditions. Today, copies survive only in a handful of repositories, including holdings in London—making it a treasure of Ayurvedic and world medical history. In this extraordinary monograph, Vaidya Prabhuram challenges the assumption that obstetric instruments were purely European inventions of the early modern period. He compares Sushruta’s Sandamsa (extractive tongs) and Anigraha, along with related techniques of rotation, traction, and controlled extraction, with their European counterparts—arguing that classical Indian obstetrics documented sophisticated tools and methods long before they were widely recognized in Europe.
He writes with clarity and conviction:

“The application of forceps in case of difficult labor, the different turning, flexing, and gliding movements, and other obstetric operations… were first systematically described by Sushruta long before fillets and forceps were dreamt of in Europe, and thousands of years before Christ.”
— Prabhuram Jivanram Vaidya, Forceps Used by the Ancients of India (1892)

The medical students in ancient India were trained to perform real surgery by observing mock surgeries on gourds, watermelons, and cucumbers. These resident students were from the Sushruta school (6th century BCE) and were known as Saushrutas. The students were trained in surgery for a minimum of 6 years, during which they were taught the principles of the “Susruta Samhita.”

The image is from a 15th-century copy of the “Sushruta Samhita” kept at the Odisha State Museum, Bhubaneswar.

Quiz time

What were surgical instruments broadly classified into by Sushruta?

Answer – Yantra (blunt) and Shastra (sharp)

Farrukhsiyar ( 1683 –1719), was the tenth Mughal Emperor of India from 1713 to 1719.In 1717, Farrukhsiyar issued a farman (royal order) giving the British East India Company the right to reside and trade in the Mughal Empire. They were allowed to trade freely, except for a yearly payment of 3,000 rupees. This was because William Hamilton, a surgeon associated with the company cured Farrukhsiyar of a disease.

10th Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar ( 1683 –1719)

William Hamilton was a Scottish surgeon, associated with British East India Company (EIC), who travelled to India in the first half of the 18th century. He was a part of the delegation that went from Calcutta, the base of the company, to meet Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar in his court in Delhi in 1715. The surgeon was called to treat a swelling in the groin of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar, which he treated successfully. In October 1715, the emperor again suffered from violent pain and feared it would be a fistula. Hamilton's treatment was again successful. As a result, in December 1715 Emperor Farrukhsiyar was finally able to perform the wedding of his beloved daughter with the daughter of the Rajah of Jodhpur, which had been delayed by his recurrent illness

The Surgeon Hamilton received the professional charges for his royal treatment to the Emperor on the eve of wedding as “an elephant, a horse, five thousand rupees in money, two diamond rings, a jewelled aigrette, a set of gold buttons, and models of all his instruments in gold."

But not deeming these sufficient, Farrukhsiyar asked Hamilton to name any reward “he wished for”. The good surgeon, however, proved to be an extremely unselfish man. He immediately asked the emperor to grant the British East India Company mission the objective with which they had arrived from distant Calcutta. The company's delegation was placed in high regard in the royal court of Farrukhsiyar. In April 1717, the emperor's farman (grant) was issued, meeting all the requests that the company had made in its petitions. Permission was granted to purchase 38 villages surrounding the three already held by the company (Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata, the predecessor of modern Calcutta). The company was also granted trading privileges in Bengal and further fortification of Calcutta.This grant was instrumental in the setting up of business and the colonisation of Bengal, later to be followed by the rest of India, by the East India Company.

After the grant, Farrukhsiyar expressed his wish to retain William Hamilton in Delhi as his personal surgeon, but Hamilton refused to stay. Hamilton promised to the emperor that after a visit to Europe he would return and join him as his personal surgeon.

Hamilton died in Calcutta on 4th December 1717. He was buried at the churchyard of St. John's Church, Calcutta. The inscription tells the story of his curing a "Malignant Distemper" of Farrukhsiyar.

Quiz time

In 1645, Jahanara Begum, the favourite daughter of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, was severely burnt when her clothing caught fire in an accident during a dance performance.Local healers had failed to cure her, and, at the advice of vizier Assad Khan, the Emperor requested an English surgeon to treat Jahanara. Who was the surgeon?

Answer – Gabriel Boughton

Inscription stone

St John’s Church, Kolkata

Jivaka, also known as Jivaka Komarabhacca, is revered as one of the earliest and most accomplished surgeons and physicians of ancient India. Flourishing around the 5th century BCE, he is best remembered as the personal physician of Gautama Buddha and the royal doctor to King Bimbisara of Magadha. Though Jivaka was the official personal physician of the Buddha. There is a saying that the Buddha did not make him a monk; he accepted him as his lay disciple because the Buddha wanted him to remain free to tend to sick people. Jīvaka was born in Rajagraha to a courtesan named Shalavati. Deemed unwanted, he was abandoned shortly after birth. Prince Abhaya, son of King Bimbisara, found the infant alive and adopted him—hence the name Jīvaka (“the living one”) and the epithet Komārabhacca (“raised by a prince”)

Educated at the legendary medical university of Takshashila, Jivaka mastered surgery, internal medicine, and herbal pharmacology. Ancient Buddhist texts credit him with performing complex surgical procedures, including abdominal surgery, cranial interventions, wound management, and treatment of intestinal obstruction—remarkable feats for his era.

Surgery for fistula-in-ano was performed on King Bimbisara. This is the procedure that made him famous, as though the surgery for fistula-in-ano was practiced before, but caused a high degree of incontinence. King Bimbisara, a husband to several young wives, became a subject of ridicule because of staining of his underclothes with blood. No royal physician would dare suggest an invasive procedure. Jivaka approached the king with an instrument called “nakha sastra” which has often been wrongly translated as a fingernail, but the actual instrument is one finger in breadth and two to nine fingers in length with a cutting edge. It appears that Jivaka probably made an incision into the fistula, which subsequently healed. The king was pleased with his “grandson” and appointed Jivaka as the royal physician. This eventually led to Jivaka becoming the physician to the Buddha himself. As Jivaka had cured the old king of his ailment, he was again offered payment, which was declined. The king thereupon gifted Jivaka a Palace with a garden full of mango trees and other fruit trees, and a small village within the district. Jivaka was to later build a monastery in this garden for Buddhist monks.(Jivakambhavana)

Craniotomy (Susabadho) to remove what were probably parasites (“panaka”) or clots was one of Jivaka’s other famous operations, which is mentioned in almost all the texts. He performed this on a merchant who was suffering from intense chronic headaches. Jivaka operated on a youth whose intestines had gotten “entangled.” and diagnosed as volvulus. Jivaka did a laparotomy, derotated the intestines, and sutured them back in their proper position. There is a similar description for a strangulated hernia.

A splinter of rock was embedded in Buddha's foot after being hurled by his rival, Devadutta. It was extricated using a small knife “Khaja” by Jivaka. Surgery for hydrocele by Jivaka was called as ‘andavuddhi’. The surgery involved opening the covering of the testicles and removing a hard “bija.”

Jivaka had come across a wealthy merchant whose wife had been unwell for seven years. He had gone to the merchant's house and announced that he was a Vaidya who had come to treat the patient. The merchant's wife had inquired from her security guard about the nature of the Vaidya who had come, and was informed that he was quite young. She had been treated by the most reputed scholars of the city and was hesitant to trust the youthful stranger. However, Jivaka had endeavoured to win her trust and had informed her that he would not request any payment to begin with, but with confidence had told her that she might pay him whatever fee she thought fit, once she was completely cured. With this, the merchant's wife had agreed to be treated by him. As had been taught him during his training, he was said to have firstly applied the technique of “Ashtavida Pariksha" – the eightfold method of examination of a patient. (This constituted examination of the nadi, that is the pulse, the mala, which is the bowel movements and excreta, the mutra, which is the urine, jinva, the tongue, and rupa the patient's body,etc.) Eventually, Jivaka diagnosed that the lady primarily needed treatment for the recurrent headaches. He treated her for a sinus condition with a nasya – an extract of herbs with ghee, and after a while her condition improved. He continued with treatment that completely rid her of her seven-year-long ailments. She was reported to have paid him in 16,000. Kahapanas, silver coins, and so did her grandson and his wife; and her husband gave her in addition, even more coins, servants, a horse and a carriage. Now enriched as he was, Jivaka returned to Magadha to the palace of Prince Abhaya.

There is a similar story that happened in Northern India when Jivaka was summoned by one of the kings who ruled the northwestern part of India, Sibi. A blind Brahmin approached King Sibi and asked for eye donation. The Brahmin asked him because the king had already earned the reputation of a big philanthropist, donating anything you ask for. The king sent a word for Jivaka, and he came and removed both the eyes of the king and fixed them to the Brahmin. This is recorded in the Buddhist chronicles. This is probably the first instance of the organ donation in those days.

Beyond technical skill, Jivaka embodied ethical medical practice. He treated the poor without charge, emphasized compassion toward patients, and integrated moral responsibility into medical care. His approach aligns closely with modern principles of medical ethics, beneficence, and patient-centered care.

Jivaka is also regarded as a pioneer of traditional Indian medicine, influencing early Ayurveda and Buddhist medical traditions across Asia. In many Southeast Asian countries today, he is still venerated as the “Father of Medicine” and a patron saint of healers.

In essence, Jivaka represents the timeless ideal of the surgeon-scholar—scientifically skilled, ethically grounded, and deeply humane—a legacy that continues to inspire modern surgical practice.

The remains of Jivaka’s vihara in the city of Rajgir (Bihar) are still visited by hundreds of people from all over the world.Jīvaka thus occupies a foundational place in the history of Indian surgery—not merely as “the Buddha’s doctor,” but as the earliest historically contextualized exemplar of the Indian surgical tradition. Jivaca is considered as the father of traditional Thai Medicine.

Quiz time
What is one of the most famous surgical procedures Jivaka is credited with performing?

Answer: Surgery for fistula-in-ano on King Bimbisara.

Reference:
1. Zysk KG. Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1991.
2. Meulenbeld GJ. A History of Indian Medical Literature. Groningen: Egbert Forsten; 1999–2002.
3. Filliozat J. The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and Its Greek Parallels. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal; 1964.
4. Wujastyk D. The Roots of Ayurveda. London: Penguin Classics; 2003.
5. Basham AL. The Wonder That Was India. London: Sidgwick & Jackson; 1954.
6. Bhishagratna KK, trans. The Sushruta Samhita. Varanasi: Chowkhamba; 1907.