Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t6.4

c6.s1.t6.4

(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.