mana in heart or head?

[Dipak Bhattacharya]

My previous mail reached blank! The Reply button did not work too. Perhaps the present one sent not as a reply may reach.
<"Dissection" refers specifically to the medico-surgical exploration of the body for the goals of medicine or forensic science.  It doesn't mean just cutting up a body, or cutting up a body for ritual or other purposes.>
I need not tell that there is a usage -- 'Dissect: 1.methodically cut up a body or plant in order to study its internal parts 2. analyse in minute detail' COED 11th ed. 2006.
This usage will not die in spite of attempts to limit the scope of employing the word. See for example, Walt Disney's, True Life Adventures where he occasionally speaks of one insect (particularly a spider) dissecting the body of another or injecting some anaesthetic into it for eating it. (The word 'injection' too has a medical sense and a general one.) 
The purpose may be different and the discovery incidental or by chance. The result might be the same. Many discoveries came as part of search made for a different purpose. The importance of the result is not diminished. As to what made the tantrikas make enquiry, the tantric idea of sahasraara (ushniishkamala in Mantranaya) as located in the ceiling of the skull, an old idea, may be relevant.
<I am not aware of any tantrik descriptions of dissection at all, and would be very interested to see chapter and verse.  My guess is that DC (whose work I value) was either wrong, or thinking of Bhela, or exaggerating.> and <Finally, discourse on the brain in ancient Indian texts, including medical texts, is extremely limited.>
The first guess may be or may not be correct. Better consult DPC. Unfortunately I am not in a position to do so at present. 'Ancient Indian texts' is a big and vague term denoting anything composed during three thousand years. Sweeping subjective remarks on their character do not help.
<it is my belief that such remarks as exist about the brain (mastiṣka, mastuluṅga), including the tantric (but non-āyurvedic) concept of semen storage in the brain, are likely to have originated in China>
Mahaaciina has indeed been referred to in some of the Tantras, particularly in the encyclopaedic ones. As far as I know architectural influence has been guessed too. Influence on anatomical ideas is unlikely

--- On Wed, 8/4/09, Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK> wrote:


From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: mana in heart or head?
To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
Date: Wednesday, 8 April, 2009, 4:43 PM



I am not aware of any tantrik descriptions of dissection at all, and would be very interested to see chapter and verse.  My guess is that DC (whose work I value) was either wrong, or thinking of Bhela, or exaggerating.

There is a subsidiary, but important point here.  "Dissection" refers specifically to the medico-surgical exploration of the body for the goals of medicine or forensic science.  It doesn't mean just cutting up a body, or cutting up a body for ritual or other purposes.  I made this point in more detail in my paper:
Wujastyk,D. (2002). "Interpreter l'image du corps humain dans
l'inde pre-moderne," in Bouillier,V., Tarabout,G. (ed.) Images du corps
dans le monde Hindou. Paris: CNRS Editions, 71-99.

As we all now know, following the perception and art-historical discoveries of the late 20th century, what you see is determined by what you know and what you expect to see.  Thus, cutting a body for ritual purposes, one finds 33 parts, because there are 33 participants who each need to be given an part.  This is not dissection.

Finally, discourse on the brain in ancient Indian texts, including medical texts, is extremely limited.  It's function was certainly *not* known, and it was viewed as some sort of fatty tissue (vasā(-chaṭā)).

Nobody has explored this adequately to my knowledge, but it is my belief that such remarks as exist about the brain (mastiṣka, mastuluṅga), including the tantric (but non-āyurvedic) concept of semen storage in the brain, are likely to have originated in China, and come to India probably through communications from Buddhist monks.  (However, these ideas also occur in the Timaeus, so that has to be taken into consideration.)  The idea of brain-semen is present in nascent but clear form in the medical manuscripts from tomb 3 of the Mawangdui burials of 168 BC (Don Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, 1998), and can be traced in later Chinese literature from that time.  This is many centuries earlier than the occurrence of the ideas in India.

Best,
DW

-- Dr Dominik Wujastyk

long term email address: wujastyk at gmail.com




On Wed, 8 Apr 2009, Dipak Bhattacharya wrote:

> It is very difficult to remember the exact details but at least this much can be said with certainty that the late Debiprasad Chattopadhyay had pointed out in the Lokayata Darshan (Beng.Calcutta 1956) or in its English version Lokayata:A Study in Indian materialism (Calcutta,1959), perhaps in both, that Tantrikas who desected human bodies held that the location the mind was in the skull. In fact their discovery was that the brain is responsible for thought. I read the books in the sixties. DB
??
> --- On Wed, 8/4/09, Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK> wrote:
> 
> 
> From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK>
> Subject: Re: mana in heart or head?
> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> Date: Wednesday, 8 April, 2009, 2:33 PM
> 
> 
> Hi, Peter,
> 
> The Bhelasamhita is unique in being an ancient Skt text that locates mind,
> manas, in the head (between the palate and the skull).  References in
> Bhelasamhita ch.8, e.g.,
> 
> śirastālvantaragataṃ sarvendriyaparaṃ manaḥ 2cd
> 
> and
> 
> ūrdhvaṃ prakupitā doṣāḥ śirastālvantare sthitāḥ 10ab
> 
> Best,
> Dominik
> 
>


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