Susruta Samhita - Mandhata Global

l88 THE SUSIIRUTA SAMIIITA. [Chap. VI.
be avoided from its situation in making any incision
about the Stanamula, Manivandha or Gulpha-Marma.
Similarly a space of three fingers should be avoided
from the Hridaya, Vasti, Kurchcha, Guda or Nabhi
Marma ; and a space of four fingers should be avoided
in respect of the four Sringatakas, five Simantas and
ten Marmas in the neck (Nila etc.) ; a space of half
a finger being the rule in respect of the remaining (fifty-
six).* Men, versed in the science of surgery, have laid
down thfe rule that, in a case of surgical operation, the
situation and dimension of each local Marma should
be first taken into account and the incision should be
made in a way so as not to affect that particular Marma,
inasmuch as an incision, even extending or affecting,
in the least, the edge or the side of the Marma, may
prove fatal. Hence all the Marma-Sthanas should be
carefully avoided in a surgical operation. 8i.
The amputation of a hand or a leg may not prove
fatal whereas a wound in any of the Marmas situated
therein is sure to bring on death. The vessels become
contracted in the case of a cut in the leg or in the hand
of a man, and hence the incidental bleeding is compara-
tively scantier. Therefore it is that a cut in any of these
parts of the body, however painful, does not necessarily
prove fatal, like the lopping off of the branches of a
tree. On the contrary, a man pierced into in any such
Marmas, as the Kshipra or the Tala, suffers from excessive
* Some are of opinion that a surgical operation (in the case of the
remaining fifty-six) should be made, leaving a space equal in measurement
to the dimensions of a palm (from the affected part). Gayadasa, having
learnt from Bhoja, explains that a space of two fingers should be left (from
the affected part) in making surgical operations of the ten marmas, namely,
the two Gulphas, the roots of the two breasts, the four Indravastis, and the
two Manivandbas.