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312 Speculations in the Medical Schools (CH. Even when the plant-bodies are chewed and powdered the souls residing in them as stations of passage do not suffer pain; for they are only in contact with these plant-bodies (candra-mandalaskhalitānām vrihy ādi-samślesa-mātram tad-bhāvah).
We thus see that it is only the Sāņkhya and the Vedānta that agree to the existence of a subtle body and are thus in accord with the view of Caraka. But Caraka is more in agreement with the Vedānta in the sense that, while according to the Sāmkhya it is the tan-mātras which constitute the subtle body, it is the fine particles of the gross elements of matter that constitute the subtle bodies in the case both of the Vedānta and of Caraka. The soul in one atomic moment becomes associated successively with ākāśa, air, light, heat, water, and earth (and not in any other order) at the time of its entrance into the womb.
Foetal Developments. When the different elements of matter in conjunction with the subtle body are associated with the self, they have the appearance of a littlelump of mucus(kheța-bhūta) with all its limbs undifferentiated and undeveloped to such an extent that they may as well be said
i Bhāşya of Sankara, 11. i. 25, also II. i. 22–27.
2 Caraka-samhitā, iv. 4.8. Cakrapāņi, commenting on this, says that there is no special reason why the order of acceptance of gross elements should be from subtler to grosser; it has to be admitted only on the evidence of the scripturesayam ca bhūta-grahana-krama āgama-siddha eva nātra yuktis tathā-vidhā hydayangamāsti.
* In the Garbha Upanişad, the date of which is unknown, there is a description of foetal development. Its main points of interest may thus be summarized: the hard parts of the body are earth, the liquid parts are water, that which is hot (uşna) is heat-light (tejaḥ), that which moves about is vāyu, that which is vacuous is ākāśa. The body is further said to depend on six tastes (sad-āśraya), sweet (madhura), acid (amla), salt (lavana), bitter (tikta), hot (kațu) and pungent (kaşāya), and it is made up of seven dhātus of chyle (rasa), blood (sonita) and flesh (māmsa). From the six kinds of rasa comes the sonita, from soņita comes māmsa, from māmsa comes fat (medas), from it the tendons (snāyu), from the snāyu bones (asthi), from the bones the marrow (majjā), from the marrow the semen (sukra). By the second night after the union of semen and blood the foetus is of the form of a round lump called kalala, at the eighth night it is of the form of a vesicle called budbuda, after a fortnight it assumes the form of a spheroid, pinda; in two months the head appears, in three months the feet, in four months the abdomen, heels and the pelvic portions appear, in the fifth month the spine appears, in the sixth month the mouth, nose, eyes and ears develop; in the seventh month the foetus becomes endowed with life (jīvena samyukto bhavati), in the eighth month it becomes fully developed. By an excess of semen over blood a male child is produced, by the excess of blood a female child is produced, when the two are equal a hermaphrodite is produced. When air somehow enters and divides the semen into two, twins are produced. If the minds of the parents are disturbed (vyākulita-mānasah), the issue becomes either blind or lame or dwarf. In the ninth month, when the foetus is well developed
no special ka-samhitā, Iv. 4.), 1:25, also In.
