Color, Complexion, and Prognosis in an Early Sanskrit Medical Manual

Abstract

Medical and cultural practices associated with what we might call “prognosis” are a part of daily existence in contemporary India, but prognosis as a medical discipline was first delineated in an elaborate way in the Indriya-sthana, which constitutes the fifth book of the Caraka-samhita, the earliest medical manual in Sanskrit, composed at some point during the first or second century C.E. The Indriya-sthana is called such for two possible reasons. First, the indriyas are the six organs of sense – sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and mind – and this part of the text brings all six senses into account in the prognostic process. The physician must rely on his sensory perceptions in arriving at a prognosis, and must also calculate his patients’ prognoses by evaluating their own sensory faculties, as well. Second, Sanskrit commentators explain that the word indriya is derived from indra, and old synonym for prana, or “vital breath.” This paper will explore various indicators of confounded perception, how the materials in the Indriya-sthana’s twelve chapters form a regular semiotic system, and how they ultimately detail and early formulation of a “poetics” of reading the dying body.