Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t17.8

c6.s1.t17.8

3. In connexion with the late date of the introduction of the Non-medical Version into the Institutes of Vishnu, it is instructive to note the attempts that have been made, in some manuscripts of that work, to amend the text so as to remedy the great defect of the omission of the arms. As to the omission of the wrist-bones it appears never to have been realized by any one, copyist or commentator. Among the seventeen MSS. enumerated in § 14, there are four, Nos. 4, 12, 13, 17 (see § 84), which offer a curiously emended text. They omit the clause referring to the thighs and shoulder-blades (ūro-'ṃsayoḥ, No. 66 in Professor Jolly's edition, and Nos. 12, 13 in the table in § 20), and instead of the clause referring to the long bones (pāṇi-pāda-śalākāśca, No. 59 in the edition, and No. 3 in the table) they substitute the clause: 'two arms, two forearms, two thighs' (dve bāhū, dve prabāhū, ūru-dvayam). But this emendation is no real improvement; for though it introduces the arms (bāhu), and retains the thighs (ūru), it eliminates the shoulder-blades (aṃsa), and reduplicates the forearms (prabāhu) which had already been mentioned under the term aratni (No. 63 in the edition, and No. 8 in the table).² But though the emendation is not a success, it at all events proves that the text of the Institutes, so far as the list of the bones is concerned, was not considered too sacred to be altered. In the case of the Law-book of Yājñavalkya, as shown in § 21, though the commentators recognized the omission of the arms, they were unwilling to meddle with the time-honoured text, and accordingly had recourse to shifts of interpretation. The fact that there was no reluctance to meddle with the text of the Institutes of Vishnu, would seem to show that in that work the list enjoyed no right of inviolability, but was known to be of recent introduction.