Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s1.t8.6

c6.s1.t8.6

3. The main interest of this commentary lies not so much in the explanations which it gives of the several items of the list of bones, as in the evidence it affords of the state of the text of Charaka in the eleventh century. The value of the explanation is much impaired by its apparently fragmentary character. Out of the thirty items in the list of Charaka (§ 4), it comments only on twelve (viz. Nos. 1-6, 12, 17, 19, 21, 25 *a, b, c*, 28). For no less than eighteen items (Nos. 7-11, 13-16, 18, 20, 22-4, 26, 27, 29, 30) we have no comment; and as there are among them some not quite transparent terms (e. g. Nos. 9, 13, 18, 27), it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the text of the commentary has not been preserved intact.