Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t18.3

c6.s1.t18.3

3. But in two striking points of terminology, the Non-medical Version differs from the Medical Version, whether of Charaka or of Bheḍa. These are: first, the use of the term sthāla (No. 1 in § 16) or sūkṣma (§ 22, cl. 4 a) to signify the sockets of the teeth, where the two Medical Versions have the term ulūkhala. Secondly, its use of the term ghanāsthikā to denote the nose, which is not found in the two Medical Versions. The latter term has been a puzzle to all commentators. They simply refer to it as ‘the so-called ghana bone’ (ghana-saṃjñam-asthi), but do not attempt to explain it. But seeing that there exists a Sanskrit word ghrāṇa, or Prākrit ghāṇa, meaning ‘smelling’ or ‘nose’, it may be suggested that ghanāsthikā represents the Sanskrit word ghrāṇ-āsthikā, lit. smelling bone, which in the ordinary Prākrit would take the form ghāṇatthikā, but in the North-Western Prākrit, or the well-known Vernacular Sanskrit of those parts, which were the home of the school of Ātreya, might very well have been ghanāsthikā.