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Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t7: § 10. Harmonization of Gangādhar's Recension

Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t7

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§ 10. Harmonization of Gangādhar's Recension

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In his commentary, Gangādhar makes a strenuous attempt to harmonize the actual total, 368 or 370, of the several items of his list with the required total 360. It involves a very forced manipulation of the list, which will now be explained. His procedure is as follows. It divides itself into five steps. The first step refers to the extremities. Excluding Nos. 1 and 2 as well as Nos. 5 *a* and 5 *b*, the remaining numbers down to No. 16, give us 128 bones, that is to say, thirty-two bones for each of the upper and lower extremities. Next, adding Nos. 1 and 2, that is, sixty-four bones, the total is raised to 192. The third step refers to the posterior part of the trunk. Transferring No. 18 (*tālu*, palate) to a subsequent step, and counting No. 20 *a* (the vulval and penis-bones) as a single item (for woman and man respectively), we obtain, from No. 17 to No. 21, a total of forty-two, which added to the previous total 192, raises it to 234. The fourth step refers to the head and neck. Transferring Nos. 23 (*jatru*) and 27 *a*, *b*, *c* (ribs, &c.) to the next step, but adding the previously omitted No. 18 (palate), and counting from No. 22 to No. 29, we obtain a total of thirty-five, which added to the previous total 234, makes up 269. The fifth step refers to the anterior portion of the trunk. Here come in the previously omitted Nos. 23 (*jatru*) and 27 *a*, *b*, *c* (ribs, &c.), to which is added No. 30 (breast-bones). These give a total of ninety-one, which, added to the previous total 269, finally results in the required total 360.

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This scheme of harmonization is open to several serious objections:

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1. It throws out of the count the two items No. 5 *a*, bases of the long bones, and No. 5 *b*, backs of the hands and feet.

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Gangādhar would appear to have realized (what has been already pointed out in § 9) that these two numbers merely duplicate the items enumerated as Nos. 7 *b* and 4 respectively. For the bones of the back of the hands and feet (No. 5 *b*) are precisely the long bones (No. 4), and the bases (No. 5 *a*) are the clusters (*kūrca*, No. 7 *b*). So far Gangādhar, undoubtedly, is right; but his error is that he counts only two clusters. The subjoined tabular statement makes this perfectly plain:

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| | *Extremities.* | *Upper.* | *Lower.* |
| No. | 3. Nails (*nakha*) | 10 | 10 |
| ,, | 4. Long bones (*śalākā*) | 10 | 10 |
| ,, | 5. Phalanges (*aṅguli*) | 30 | 30 |
| ,, | 7 *a*. Heels (*pārṣṇi*) | — | 2 |
| ,, | 7 *b*. Clusters (*kūrca*) | 2 | — |
| ,, | 8. Wrist-bones (*maṇika*) | 4 | — |
| ,, | 9. Ankle-bones (*gulpha*) | — | 4 |
| ,, | 10. Forearms (*aratni*) | 4 | — |
| ,, | 11. Legs (*jaṅgha*) | — | 4 |
| ,, | 12. Knee-caps (*jānu*) | — | 2 |
| ,, | 13. Elbow-pans (*kūrpara*) | 2 | — |
| ,, | 14. Thighs (*ūru*) | — | 2 |
| ,, | 15. Arms (*bāhu*) | 2 | — |
| | Totals | 64 | 64 |

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This gives, as Gangādhar explains, a total of thirty-two bones for each of the four extremities, and a grand total of 128. But it will be noticed that he counts only the clusters (*kūrca*) of the hands, that is, as we should call them, the carpal bones. He omits the other two *kūrca*, that is, the clusters or tarsal bones of the feet. In their place, he counts two *pārṣṇi*, that is, the heel-bones of the feet; for, as will be seen from the table, Gangādhar's arrangement of the bones of the extremities proceeds on the principle of homology. Now the heel-bones do belong to the tarsal cluster of bones, but, though they are its prominent constituents, they do not exhaust the cluster. The truth is that Gangādhar's recension of the statement of Charaka is a faulty adaptation to the scheme of Suśruta, which, as will be shown in the sequel (§ 49), consistently counts four *kūrca*, or clusters of small bones. The genuine schemes of both, Suśruta and Charaka, are consistent, each in its own way; but the recension of Gangādhar is inconsistent, and proves itself thereby not to be the genuine recension of the scheme of Charaka.

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2. With regard to the term *kūrca*, as used in the recension of Gangādhar, there is a special grammatical difficulty. The clause in question, *dve kūrcādhas*, is very difficult to construe. The only construction grammatically legitimate is to supply *asthīni*, that is, *dve asthīni kūrca-adhas*, or ‘two bones below the *kūrca*’. This, however, yields no intelligible sense. In order to give the sense which Gangādhar wishes to extract from it, the clause should read *dve kūrce adhas*, i. e. ‘two *kūrca* below (*scl.* the long bones)’; and this form of the clause could become *dve kūrcādhas* only through a very anomalous double *sandhi*, or contraction; viz. *kūrce adhas* = *kūrca[y]adhas* = *kūrcādhas*. Even so, the difficulty remains that *kūrca*—a word apparently first used by Suśruta in its anatomical application—is not neuter (*dve kūrce*), but masculine (*dvau kūrcau*); see Suśruta’s Compendium, *Śārīra Sthāna*, chap. vi, clause 29 (Jīv. ed., p. 340). Avināsa Chandra, in his glosses to Gangādhar’s recension which he adopts in his edition of Charaka’s Compendium, apparently takes *kūrcādha* to be a single noun, synonymous with *kūrca*, but there exists no such noun in Sanskrit, and even if it did, the clause should read *dve kūrcādhe*.

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3. A further difficulty in Gangādhar’s scheme of harmonization is that it takes no account of the term *aṃsa*, shoulder, which his recension couples with the fifteenth item. The clause of that item reads *dve (scl. asthīni) bāhvoḥ s-āṃsayoḥ*, i. e. ‘two bones in the arms together with the shoulders’. It seems obvious that arm and shoulder could not well be considered as constituting a single bone. Gangādhar avoids the difficulty by calmly ignoring the presence of *aṃsa*, shoulder, and explaining the clause to mean that ‘there is one bone in each arm’. On the other hand, Avināsa Chandra, in his glosses, counts *aṃsa*, shoulder, separately. Consequently, with his counting two bones in the arms, and two in the shoulders, the list works out a total of even 370 bones. Seeing that the recension of Gangādhar nowhere mentions the shoulder-blades (*aṃsa phalaka*), it does seem not impossible that by the term *aṃsa* it intended to indicate those bones. If so, the dilemma presents itself: did Gangādhar intend shoulder-blade (*aṃsa*) to be counted separately from arm (*bāhu*), or to be taken as constituting with it but a single bone. In the former case, retaining in other respects Gangādhar’s scheme of harmonization, the total works out at 362 bones (that is, Gangādhar’s 360 plus the two *aṃsa*). In the latter case, we have the incongruity of treating arm plus shoulder-blade as a single bone. In either case, the recension of Gangādhar stands self-condemned as an incongruous and inconsistent compilation.

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4. While, as we have just seen, the shoulder-blade, though such a prominent bone of the human body, is not given any distinct recognition in the recension of Gangādhar, the collar-bone, on the other hand, is counted twice over, under the denominations *akṣaka* and *jatru* in Nos. 17 and 23. The pair of *akṣaka* Gangādhar explicitly defines in his commentary as being *kaṇṭhādho ’ṃsakau*, that is, ‘the two shoulder-bones below the throat.’ This definition only fits the collar-bones. Anyhow, it fits them better than the shoulder-blades. It is also the usual interpretation of the term *akṣaka*, given by other commentators who refer it to the collar-bones. As to the term *jatru*, Gangādhar gives no definition of it; but it is to be noted that, while the genuine recension of the statement of Charaka treats it as denoting a single bone, the recension of Gangādhar uses it as the name of a pair of bones. It will be shown in the sequel (§ 62) that when used in the latter way the term always refers to the collar-bones. The duplication of the collar-bones in the recension of Gangādhar is obviously fatal to its claim of being a genuine presentation of the text of Charaka.

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