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Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t6: § 9. Inconsistencies and Incongruities of Gaṅgādhar’s Recension

Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t6

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§ 9. Inconsistencies and Incongruities of Gaṅgādhar’s Recension

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1. Gaṅgādhar’s recension of the statement of Charaka is full of inconsistencies and incongruities. To begin with, the sum of the several items of the list does not agree with the total stated at its conclusion. The latter is 360, while the former is either 370 or 368, according as No. 16 is counted separately, or together with No. 15, though the wording of the clause in the original seems to imply that Nos. 15 and 16 are to be taken as a single item. The attempt of Gaṅgādhar to remove this inconsistency will be explained in the next paragraph. In the meantime, other inconsistencies are now enumerated in the order of their occurrence in the list of Gaṅgādhar.

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(a) Nos. 4 and 5 *b* are obviously the very same bones, that is to say, the long bones of the metacarpus and metatarsus. It makes no difference whether they are considered from the inner side (palm, or sole, No. 4) or from the outer side (back, *pṛṣṭha*, No. 5 *b*) of the hand or foot.

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(b) Similarly Nos. 5 *a* and 7 *b* are the identical bones of the carpus and tarsus. This will be fully explained in the sequel (§ 49). Here it may be noted that *kūrca*, or cluster, is the term for these bones which was introduced by Suśruta in substitution of Charaka’s term *adhiṣṭhāna* (or *sthāna*), base (§ 28). Its appearance in the recension of Gaṅgādhar proves that that recension cannot possibly represent the genuine text of Charaka, but that it was prepared subsequently with a knowledge of the terminology of Suśruta. This remark also applies to Gaṅgādhar’s use of the term *kūrpara* for elbow-pan (olecranon, No. 13); see §§ 21, 28.

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(c) In No. 20 *a*, the distinction between the so-called ‘vulval bone’ (*bhagāsthi*) and the ‘penis-bone’ (*meḍhrāsthi*) involves an obvious anatomical absurdity. Neither the vulva nor the penis is a bony structure. It has arisen from a misunderstanding of Charaka's term *bhagāsthi*, which refers to the pubic bone, i.e. the pubic arch (§ 60). The word *bhaga*, by itself (but not in conjunction with *asthi*, bone) denotes also the vulva, &c., or the external female sexual organs; and the term *bhagāsthi*, having been erroneously identified with the term *bhaga*, led further to the erroneous fabrication, and introduction, of a term *meḍhrāsthi*, or ‘penis-bone’, for the male sexual organ (§ 60). The anatomical misconception involved in this procedure alone must be fatal to any claim of Gangādhar's recension to represent the genuine text of Charaka.

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(*d*) The principle of enumeration involved in Nos. 20 *b*, 20 *c*, and 21, differs entirely from that of Charaka's genuine No. 22 (§ 4) which counts forty-five back-bones. It will be shown in the sequel (§ 59; see also § 19) not only that the principle of counting which underlies the system of Gangādhar's recension presupposes a knowledge of Suśruta's principle of counting the back-bones, but that it applies that principle in an unintelligent way.

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(*e*) No. 23 is affected by a double incongruity. The recension of Gangādhar counts two *jatru*. From this circumstance it is clear that he understands the word *jatru* to refer to the two collar-bones. Now this is a comparatively late meaning of the word which is not traceable farther back than the Amarakosa, a Sanskrit vocabulary of uncertain date, but probably written in the early part of the sixth century A. D. At all events, as will be shown in the sequel (§ 62), in the early medical works, *jatru* uniformly refers to the neck, or the windpipe in the neck. Its use, therefore, in the sense of collar-bone proves that the recension of Gangādhar cannot represent the genuine text of Charaka. Moreover, its use in that sense involves the further incongruity of counting the collar-bones twice; for No. 17, *akṣaka*, also refers to the collar-bones.

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(*f*) No. 26 *a, b, c, d*, as will be shown in the sequel (§ 66, see also pp. 37 and 40), imply a view of the bones of the skull utterly at variance with that indicated in the genuine text of Charaka—a view, moreover, which presupposes a knowledge of Suśruta's views, imperfectly understood.

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(g) No. 27 *a, b, c*, likewise, is affected by a double incongruity. One is of the formal kind: the ribs are pitchforked into the midst of the bones of the head, standing as they do between No. 26, brows, eyes, cheeks and nose, and No. 28, temporal bones. Moreover, as will be shown in the sequel (§ 58), the terms of the three parts of No. 27, which, as given in the genuine text of Charaka, are perfectly intelligible and correct, convey no consistent or intelligible meaning in the recension of Gaṅgādhar.

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(h) No. 30 is open to several objections. It counts 17 breast-bones against 14 of Charaka’s genuine text (§ 4, No. 24); and its larger count presupposes a knowledge of the system of Suśruta. The position of the breast-bones, too, at the very end of the list, after the bones of the head, is very curious. It is to be noted, however, that on this point the recension of Gaṅgādhar follows the arrangement of the list as given in the Non-medical Version of Yājñavalkya’s Law-book and the Agni Purāṇa (§ 16, No. 27). This circumstance, combined with the fact that in his commentary Gaṅgādhar refers to those two non-medical works by name, supports the surmise that the recension of Gaṅgādhar is not based on any manuscript authority, but is an ill-judged construction of his own.

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2. On three points, however, Gaṅgādhar is undoubtedly right in his reconstruction. One of these refers to No. 16, *aṃsa*, shoulder. The traditional text of the statement of Charaka had erroneously duplicated that item (§ 6). The recension of Gaṅgādhar corrects that error; though, curiously enough, it does so by omitting the more accurate term *aṃsa-phalaka*, shoulder-blade. This curious circumstance clearly points to the use, by Gaṅgādhar, of the existing traditional text of Suśruta’s Compendium in the preparation of his recension of the statement of Charaka. For in that traditional text the term *aṃsa* is employed (though erroneously, as shown in §§ 30, 55, 56) in the sense of *aṃsa-phalaka* to denote the shoulder-blade. The second point refers to No. 8, where the recension of Gaṅgādhar reads ‘four wrist-bones’ instead of the ‘two wrist-bones’ of the traditional recension. Here, too, in all probability, his emendation is right (see § 52). The third point refers to the position of No. 23, *jatru*. As pointed out in § 5, this item is misplaced in the traditional list. The recension of Gangādhar, though it misinterprets the term, assigns to the item its correct place immediately after No. 22, *grīvā*, neck-bones. In doing so—it may be noted again—Gangādhar simply follows the guidance of Yājñavalkya's Law-book and the Agni Purāṇa (§ 16, No. 20).

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