To remove the many kinds of shalya in the body, instruments, knives, caustics and fire are used. Surgery has eight acts, excision, incision, scraping, puncturing, probing, extraction, draining and suturing, which a physician skilled in surgery performs with suitable instruments according to rule, as often as each stage of disease requires; the great heron-beak instrument (kankavaktra) is used to extract foreign bodies such as arrows and thorns.
Names and synonyms
- Sanskrit
- अष्टविध शस्त्रकर्म
- Hindi
- आठ प्रकार के शस्त्रकर्म
- English
- The eight surgical acts
Ingredients and preparation
How it is used
Performed with the knives and instruments suited to each act.
सकलतनुभृतां कर्मेव कर्माष्टभेदं।
Indicated for, as the text says
- Abscess (vidradhi)(विद्रधि (भेदन, विस्रावण))
शस्त्र कर्म के छेदन, भेदन, लेखन, वेधन, एषण, हरण (आहरण) विस्रावण, सीबन इस प्रकार आठ भेद है।Source wording as converted, Chapter 14 · p. 248 · v. 30-31.Safety
- Needs a trained practitioner. This procedure or preparation is of a kind that should only be carried out under qualified supervision.
Pregnancy, breastfeeding, children, older adults, kidney or liver disease and other medicines all call for professional advice before any traditional remedy is used.
Questions and answers
What are the eight surgical acts listed in verses 30 and 31?
Excision, incision, scraping, puncturing, probing, extraction, draining and suturing.
Detailed answer and sourcesAll references
Every page and verse of the source that this entry draws on.
Quick facts
- Content type
- Procedure
- Source pages with records
- 1
- Pages naming it
- 0
- Chapters
- Chapter 14
- Extraction tasks
- T12
- Record id
- method_ashtavidha_shastrakarma_p320