Surgical instruments of the Hindus, by Mukhopadyaya

[Allen W Thrasher]

Dominik,

I very vaguely remembered some such assertion, but my chances of remembering where and by whom are nil.  Or could there be another book with illustrations of surgical instruments which were alleged by the author or editor to be reproductions of ancient illustrations?  Another vague memory was of a plate or two solely of alleged ancient Indian instruments, in a style both cruder and less realist than Mukhopadhyaya's.  But if you don't know of any such allegation I expect my memory played tricks on me.

This raises in my mind some general thoughts on illustrations traditions in India, but I think I'll post another note starting a new thread on that.

Allen





Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D.
Senior Reference Librarian
Team Coordinator
South Asia Team, Asian Division
Library of Congress, Jefferson Building 150
101 Independence Ave., S.E.
Washington, DC 20540-4810
tel. 202-707-3732; fax 202-707-1724; athr at loc.gov
The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress.

>>> Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK> 07/12/08 6:52 PM >>>

I am not aware of such a suggestion.   From memory, the book won a prize 
from the Univ. of Calcutta in about 1913.  The drawings and illustrations 
are an important element of the book, and they are partly original 
drawings by GM himself, or else by an artist working for the publisher, 
and partly reproductions from European histories of surgery and medicine. 
But GM is straightforward about this: he doesn't claim that the 
artwork is older than his book or anything like that.

I'd be interested to know more about the source of this suspicion, if it 
comes to mind.

Best,
Dominik

-- 
Dr Dominik Wujastyk
Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow
University College London



On Fri, 11 Jul 2008, Allen W Thrasher wrote:

> Is there some suspicion that there is an element of hoax in Girindranath 
> Mukhopadyaya's "Surgical instruments of the Hindus"?  I seem to remember 
> something of the sort.
>
> Allen
>
>
>
> Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D., Senior Reference Librarian
> South Asia Team, Asian Division
> Library of Congress, Jefferson Building 150
> 101 Independence Ave., S.E.
> Washington, DC 20540-4810
> tel. 202-707-3732; fax 202-707-1724; athr at loc.gov
> The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress.