A human anatomical figure. Drawing, Nepalese, ca. 1800 (?).

This is entirely drawn from the Ayurvedic understanding of the human anatomy, unlike other Indian images of the human body. The channels and organs drawn on the torso are specified as in Ayurvedic literature, with organs named as receptacles for one or other of the organic fluids. The text captions are extracts from the Bhāvaprakāśaḥ, written between 1550 and 1590 by Bhāvamiśra. However, the organs in Ayurveda, are seen in a much wider context than in the West. They are the seats of the humours (wind, bile and phlegm) and do not generally engage in the kind of processing which modern western biomedicine expects of an 'organ'