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Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s2.t2: § 29. Difficulties and Inconsistencies of the Traditional Recension

Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s2.t2

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§ 29. Difficulties and Inconsistencies of the Traditional Recension

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1. The Traditional Recension of the statement of Suśruta is beset with many difficulties and inconsistencies, both in respect of form and matter, which render it impossible to accept it as the genuine production of Suśruta.

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2. As regards the form, there are two points which deserve consideration. In the first place, with reference to the bones of the trunk, the Traditional Recension states that they are distributed over ‘the pelvic cavity, sides, back, abdomen, and breast’ (§ 27). That this is the true reading of the Traditional Recension is proved by the fact that the two medical works, Śārīra Padminī and Bhāva Prakāśa, which adopt the statement of Suśruta, giving it, however, in a versified form of their own (§§ 26, 36), also name the abdomen (udara) in this connexion. The mention of the abdomen as a seat of bones may well cause surprise, and a suspicion that there must be some error in the text. The suspicion is confirmed when we find that in the subsequent enumeration of the bones in their several seats, the collar-bones (akṣaka) take the place of the abdomen (udara). As the collar-bones form a part of the shoulder-girdle, it suggests itself that the Sanskrit text of the statement of Suśruta, in its original and genuine form, must have read amsa, shoulder, instead of udara, abdomen. A very probable explanation of the origin of the error in the Traditional Recension may be given. In the classification of the bones according to their shape (§ 30), the text of the Traditional Recension has the compound word pṛṣṭh-odara (i. e. pṛṣṭha, back, and udara, abdomen). In this connexion the introduction of the term udara, abdomen, has a good reason. It is to indicate the position of the pubic arch (§ 60, cl. 2) as located in the anterior (or ventral) part of the pelvis. The latter organ comprises five bones (§ 27), viz. the two hip-blades (nitamba), the sacrum (trika), the coccyx (guda), and the pubic arch (bhaga). These five bones belong to two different classes: the hip-blades and the sacrum (incl. coccyx) belong to the pan-shaped (kapāla), while the pubic arch belongs to the ornament-like (valaya). Hence, in classifying them according to their shape, the term śroṇi, pelvis, indicative of their common locality, could not be used; but each bone had to be indicated by its peculiar locality. Hence the sacrum and coccyx are indicated by the back (pṛṣṭha), and the pubic arch by the ventral part (udara) of the pelvis. The compiler of the Traditional Recension, failing to understand this, introduced the term pṛṣṭh-odara also into the enumeration of the bones according to their position in the body. But here the term is quite out of place. For the common locality of the five bones is already defined by the term śroṇi, pelvic cavity, while the locality of the bones of the shoulder-girdle (aṃsa) is entirely ignored. It can, therefore, hardly be doubted that the reading pṛṣṭh-odara, back and abdomen, of the Traditional Recension is an erroneous substitute for the true reading pṛṣṭh-āṃsa, back and shoulder.

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3. In the second place, it will be shown in the next paragraph that the Traditional Recension omits all mention of the two shoulder-blades. These have their seat in the shoulder-girdle along with the collar-bones. One expects, therefore, in the enumeration of the 117 bones of the trunk, to find them mentioned in the clause respecting the collar-bones. As a fact, however, the Traditional Recension, while mentioning the two collar-bones, omits the shoulder-blades altogether. But it is noteworthy that the clause in question is worded in a very peculiar way. The Recension says: ‘two in what is called the collar-bone’ (dve akṣaka-saṃjñe).¹ The expression ‘what is called’ (saṃjñā) is not employed in connexion with any other part, or bone, of the body. Yet there is nothing in the name akṣaka, for collar-bone, that calls for the use of the phrase saṃjñā, ‘what is called.’ It suggests itself that that word saṃjñā is a false reading, and that in all probability a word expressive of the missing shoulder-blades originally stood in its place. The ordinary term for shoulder-blade is aṃsa-phalaka; but the shorter word aṃsa-ja, literally ‘shoulder-born’, or ‘issuing from the shoulder’, would not be inappropriate, and might also be used. It is significant that the Non-medical Version of the system of Ātreya employs a synonym of the latter word, *aṃsa-samudbhava*, ‘issuing from the shoulder,’ to denote the shoulder-blade (see No. 13 in § 16). It will be shown in § 33, with respect to another point, that the Non-medical Version betrays marks of having been influenced by the system of Suśruta; and it suggests itself that the author of that Version was led to the choice of the term *aṃsa-samudbhava* by the occurrence of the synonymous term *aṃsa-ja* in the statement of Suśruta. It may be suggested, therefore, that, in the latter statement, in its original form in which we may suppose it to have left the hand of Suśruta, the clause respecting the collar-bones probably ran (not *dve akṣaka-saṃjñe*, but) *dve akṣak-āṃsaje*, ‘two in the collar-bones and shoulder-blades’¹; and that the word *aṃsaje* became corrupted into *saṃjñe*.

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¹ Saṃjñe is here taken as the locative singular. It might also be taken as the nominative dual, ‘two so-called collar-bones.’ The argument is not affected thereby.

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¹ Or alternatively, ‘two collar-bones and two shoulder-blades.’

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