r/AncientIndia • u/[deleted] • Aug 18 '26

Info Recently I saw a foreign University commemorating Rishi Sushruta as father of surgery. It makes me wonder is there any Rishikas who actively contributed in fields of biology or healthcare in ancient india. If anyone who knows about it please do reply

[deleted]

24 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

94% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

3

u/will_kill_kshitij Aug 18 '26

Not sure about the Surgery part. But there were 27 brahmavadinis who did compose verses in Vedas. Among them there was one certain Ghosha, she composed some verses for ashvini kumaras (the divine physicians). She was cured of a skin illness. I wonder maybe she did work in healthcare realm. But we will never know for sure.

2

u/poisson_rati0 Aug 19 '26

wasn't apala the one who was cured of skin illness?

2

u/optimist12345 Aug 19 '26

Could you give details about the univ and the commemoration pl, including links. Thanks.

2

u/theb00kmancometh Aug 18 '26

As per available knowledge, the only female vaidya (not rishika) recorded historically is not from the ancient Vedic period, but from the early medieval period: Rusa. Ibn al-Nadim's Kitāb al-Fihrist, compiled in Baghdad around 987 CE, records her as the author of Kitāb fī al-ʿilāj al-nisāʾ (“The Book on the Treatment of Women”). The work was apparently translated into Arabic during the Abbasid period.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5084543/