Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t7.8

c6.s1.t7.8

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.