Anatomy (sharira)

A footnote explains an opening (dvāra) as a passage by which wastes and other matter go out and in.

The body is said to be of three kinds, thin, stout and medium, of which the medium body is the chief.

Stout and thin bodies are called very blameworthy and unfit for carrying loads, riding horses and similar work, while the medium body is useful in all conditions and in every way.

The introduction says the living body is built from a vast number of extremely subtle atoms (paramāṇu), present in the order of billions (a mathematician put their number at thirty abja). All bodily activity is due to them; the final parts of the liver, spleen, unduka, grahaṇī, heart, lungs, sahasrāra and nāḍīcakra are of this atomic form; atoms form the cells (ghaṭaka) of organs, cells form organs and organs form systems (maṇḍala), the main ones being the vātamaṇḍala, respiration, digestion, blood circulation and excretion. A footnote quotes Caraka Śārīra 7 that the body's parts, counted as atoms, are innumerable because they are so many, so subtle and beyond the senses.

The body has nine openings: two in the eyes, two in the nose, two in the ears, one in the mouth, one at the anus and one at the genital.

The body is said to have twenty nails.

A footnote says the measures of fat and the other substances given here and later are the greatest amounts possible in a healthy man's body, and may be lower or higher in the healthy and the sick.

The body is said to hold three añjali of fat (vasā).

The introduction says the Yajurveda describes the mantra-accompanied offering of particular parts of sacrificial animals, and that its Brāhmaṇas and Āraṇyakas, especially the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, use anatomical terms in many places.

It says Suśruta laid down that the surgeon should gain knowledge of the body by properly dissecting a dead body, that many authors before and in his time worked to build anatomical knowledge, that later authors followed Suśruta's account of the body, and that it is useful to both physicians and surgeons.

Opening chapter 3, the author says he will first describe the body, following the teachers' instruction.