Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t7.9

c6.s1.t7.9

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.