Page 52 - Science India August 2022

COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2.0
Swatantrata ka Amrut Mahotsava
shastra. For instance, we come across the following:
“Stenapaardaarikayoh saachivya- karmani striyaah sangraheetaayaash- cha karnanaasaacchedanam pancha- shato vaa dandah; pumso dvigunah” (4.10.10)
Meaning: A male adulterer as well as the woman who voluntarily yields herself for adultery shall have their ears and nose cut off or pay each a fine of 500 panas, while the male adulterer shall pay double the above fine.
Even as recent as of 2010, the ac- claimed Time magazine featured young Afghan girl, Bibu Aisha, whose nose and ears were amputated because she tried to escape her husband. It is interesting to note that several languages have in- ternalised such an association with nose and thus we have idioms like, ‘keep one’s nose clean’, ‘poke one’s nose’, etc., in English and similarly we have phrases like ‘naak kat jaana’ used in day-to-day parlance in the Indian languages. If one were to believe all what the Jesuit Father Giuseppe de Rovato wrote about Nepal, much to the chagrin of the nationalists of that country, the account of rechris- tening Kirtipur to Naskatapur (mean- ing: ‘city with people having cut-nose) by the Gorkhas on ultimately being successful in dethroning the relentless Newar kings, stands testimony to the mass scale nasal mutilation to afflict in- sult on the captured population.
Thus, we see that rhinotomy or the mutilation of nose was commonplace. The human barbarity of nasal amputa- tion was to be met with the human in- genuity of rhinoplasty and it was Bharat that was the beacon of hope and promise in restoring the lost dignity through its creative feat of plastic surgery.
It is widely agreed across the world that the first ever complete description of rhinoplasty is found in India in the medical texts like the Sushruta Sam- hita by Rishi Sushruta and Ashtanga Hridaya by Vagbhata. (Note: There are many scholars from Europe and America (S. C. Almast for one) who have written in their articles that the first ever account of nasal reconstruc- tion is found in the text of Ramayana,
particularly where Ravana consoles his sister Surpanakha and orders the royal physician to restore the nose. Several Indian authors have propagated this fact by further citing them. But I could not find any shloka in the entire text of Ra- mayana which indicated the nasal recon- struction.) In the ‘Sutrasthana’ chapter of the Sushruta Samhita, Rishi Sushruta writes thus:
fo”ysf”krk;kLRoFk ukfldk;k o{;kfe lU/kkufof/ka ;FkkorA~
Image Courtesy: The Principles of Surgical Practice: Sushruta Samhita and its Importance to Present Day Surgery
fl¥p~ ns l—fÙkykuke~ A
?kr` a p ik¸;% l uj% ltq h.ksZ fLuX/kks fojPs ;% l ;Fkkis n”s Ae AA
:<a p l U / k k u e iq k x r a L ; k Ù k n / k ’Z k ”s k a r q i uq f u —Z U r rs ~ A ghukaiuqo/ZkfZ;raq;rrs lekapd;qknZfro)`eklake~AA
A range of surgical instruments used by ancient surgeon Sushruta, as depicted in various treatises explaining his seminal Sushruta Samhita
52 SCIENCE INDIA AUGUST 2022
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