Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t6.6

c6.s1.t6.6

(*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.