Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t7.6

c6.s1.t7.6

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.