Ganesh Ji Ka Plastic Surgeon Kaun Tha?
Narendra Modi, Prime Minister · 2014-10-25
Inaugurating the Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital in Mumbai, speaking to an audience of doctors and medical professionals.
Exhibit A · The claim
“It is said in the Mahabharata that Karna was not born from his mother's womb. This means that even at that time, genetic science was present. We all worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant's head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.”
Exhibit B · What the record says
Genetics as a field dates to Gregor Mendel's pea-plant experiments in the 1860s, and modern reproductive science considerably later than that. Plastic surgery as an evidence-based medical discipline has real ancient roots (Sushruta, writing in India around the 6th century BCE, described actual reconstructive nose surgery), but the Ganesha and Karna stories are religious mythology, not surgical case reports. Treating incidents from an epic as literal medical history was widely challenged by scientists and doctors at the time, including members of the Indian Science Congress.
Sushruta really did do reconstructive surgery around 2,600 years ago. He did not, as far as the record shows, staple on an elephant's head.
The JUMLE