Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s2.t3: § 30. Continuation

Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s2.t3

Language: English

§ 30. Continuation

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1. In respect of the matter of the statement, the Traditional Recension labours under three great difficulties.

In the first place, the list is incomplete. It omits two of the most conspicuous bones of the skeleton, namely, the shoulder-blades (*aṃsa-phalaka*, No. 16 of Charaka’s list in § 4). It also omits the two eyeballs (*akṣi-kośa*). In omitting these two items Suśruta’s list, as it stands in the Traditional Recension, is inconsistent with another statement of his. Immediately following the list of bones in which Suśruta enumerates them according to their position in the body, he continues with another list dividing the bones into five classes according to their shape. This class-list (Original Text in §§ 88, 89) runs as follows:

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‘These bones are of five kinds, namely, pans (*kapāla*), sharp-ones (*rucaka*), tender-ones (*taruṇa*), ornaments (*valaya*), and reeds (*nalaka*). From among them the pan-shaped bones occur in the knees, elbows, hips, shoulders (*aṃsa*), cheeks, palate, temples, interiliac space (i.e. sacrum), and cranium. The sharp

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bones are the teeth. The tender bones occur in the nose, ears, neck ¹, and eyeballs (*akṣi-koṣa*). The ornament-shaped bones occur in the hands, feet, sides, back, abdomen, and breast. The remainder of the bones are termed reed-shaped.’

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¹ The reference, of course, is to the *jatru* or *kaṇṭhanāḍī*, the windpipe in the neck; see § 62, cl. 3.

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2. A comparison of the two lists, as given in the subjoined table, shows that all the items of the number-list reappear in the class-list with the exception of two which the latter contains in excess.

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² See the preceding note. The neck contains two organs, the neck-bones or cervical column, and the windpipe. In the class-list, of course, the latter is intended. The former, being a portion of the vertebral column, counts with No. 11, and belongs to the ornament-shaped class. The use of the term *grīvā* here is rather inaccurate, as it is usually employed to denote the cervical column.

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3. Seeing that the class-list is intended to distribute all the items of the number-list into five kinds, it is evident that the number-list, in the form in which it is found in the Traditional Recension, cannot be correct, but that, in its original and genuine form, it must have contained those two additional items: No. 24, shoulder-blades, and No. 25, eyeballs. It is true that, with reference to No. 24 in the class-list, the Traditional Recension employs the term *aṃsa*, which, in the Compendium of Suśruta, ordinarily denotes the collar-bone; but from the context it is quite obvious that, in the present case, it can refer only to the shoulder-blades. For the bones, here called *aṃsa*, are classed as pan-shaped (*kapāla*)—a description which is applicable only to the shoulder-blades. The collar-bones could only be described as reed-shaped (*nalaka*); and these bones, therefore, must be taken as referred to in the last class or the ‘remainder’ of the list. In literary Sanskrit the word *aṃsa* denotes, in a general way, the shoulder; in medical Sanskrit, at least of the Compendium of Suśruta, the several parts of the shoulder have specialized names: *aṃsa* is the collar-bone, *aṃsa-phalaka* (or *aṃsa-ja*), the shoulder-blade; *aṃsa-kūṭa*, the acromion process, and *aṃsa-pīṭha*, the glenoid cavity. The author of the Traditional Recension would seem to have been a person, who was imperfectly familiar with the anatomical terminology of Suśruta, and used the term *aṃsa* in the undefined literary sense; or more probably it is a scribal error for *aṃsa-ja* or *aṃsa-phalaka*. For a fuller discussion, see §§ 55, 56.

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4. As regards the eyeballs, the class-list explicitly enumerates them among the ‘tender’ bones. In agreement herewith, speaking of the structure of the eye in the Supplementary Section (*Uttara Tantra*) of his Compendium, Suśruta describes the sclerotic coat of the eyeball as made of bone (*asthi*). The statement in question, describing the eye as seen in the sagittal section (Fig. 1), runs as follows:

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‘The outer one of the protecting covers¹ of the pupil consists of a luminous fluid, and the next one of flesh. The third is

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¹ *Paṭala* denotes the protecting covers of the *dṛṣṭi*, or pupil, the supposed seat of vision. The composite nature (the ‘tunics’, incl. retina, choroid) of the 4th cover does not seem to have been known to the early Indian anatomists; nor the lens, which they thought to be a morbid accumulation of phlegm.

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made of fat, and beyond it there is one consisting of bone.’ (Original Text in § 96, cl. 2.)

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It may be noticed also as a significant fact that the Non-medical Version of the system of Ātreya (§ 16) includes the eyeballs in the list of bones of the human body. The genuine list of Ātreya, as handed down by Charaka (§ 4) and Bheḍa (§ 12), does not count the eyes among the bones. The author of the Non-medical Version of that list, therefore, must have obtained the eyes from some other source; and this source cannot well have been any other than Suśruta’s statement on the skeleton. If so, it follows that the latter statement, at the time of the

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[Figure: FIG. 1. DIAGRAM OF THE EYE, in Sagittal Section. a-b. Optic Axis.
1. Outer cover, Bāhya paṭala, of luminous fluid, Tejo-jala (Aqueous humour).
2. Cover of muscle, Piśita paṭala (Ciliary body).
3. Cover of fat, Medas paṭala (Vitreous humour).
4. Cover of bone, Asthi paṭala (Sclerotica). 5, 6. Covers of eyelids and eyelashes, Pakṣma-vartma paṭala.]

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composition of the existing Law-book of Yājnavalkya, must have differed from the now existing Traditional Recension, and must have included the eyes in its list of bones.

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5. It is clear, then, that Suśruta’s list of bones of the human body, in its genuine form, must have contained four additional bones; viz. two shoulder-blades and two eyeballs. As regards the shoulder-blades, it has been shown in the preceding paragraph that their omission, in all probability, is due to a misreading of the term samjña for amsaja. As to the eyes, they would appear simply to have dropped out of the penultimate clause (§ 27) which should run: ‘one each in either cheek, eye, ear, and temple.’

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NOTE.—With regard to the terms which occur in the class-list, *nalaka* means a reed, but not necessarily a hollow reed; it may be solid like the male bamboo. As used by the Indian anatomists it denotes any long bone, whether tubular or solid. Suśruta does not specify the bones which he likens to a *nalaka* or reed, but only says that they are ‘the remainder’, that is, that they are all those bones which do not fall into any of the other four classes. The process of exhaustion thus indicated shows that he classed as ‘reed-like’ bones the following—the phalanges, the metacarpals and metatarsals, the bones of the forearms, legs, arms, and thighs, the collar-bones and the jaw-bones. The commentators Dallana (ed. Jīv., p. 576) and Gayadāsa (Cambridge MS., Add. 2491, fol. 49 *a*, line 3), following a doctrine of Bhoja (Original Text in § 96, cl. 3), include the clusters, ankle-bones and wrist-bones among the ‘reed-like’ bones. But seeing that these particular bones have not the smallest resemblance to reeds, their inclusion only proves the total want of experimental knowledge of them on the part of Bhoja and the commentators.

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*Valaya* is the name of a certain kind of personal ornament, such as bracelets, anklets, necklets, waist-bands, &c. They are well seen on the figures of the Bharhut Stūpa (of about the 2nd century A. D.), called Chulakokā and Suchiloma, shown in Figs. 2 and 3.¹ Suśruta states that these *valaya* bones are found in the hands and feet, and in the sides, back, abdomen, and breast. Those in the hands and feet are the clusters (carpus and tarsus), wrist-bones (styloid processes), ankle-bones (malleoli) and heels : they resemble bracelets and anklets. The latter are shown in Fig. 2. The other bones indicated by him are the ribs, the bones of the vertebral column, also the costal cartilages and sternum, all of which resemble a necklace (Fig. 2), and the pubic arch which resembles the bow of a waist-band (Fig. 3).

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¹ Reproduced from Sir A. Cunningham’s Report. See also Professor Hultzsch, in the *Journal of the German Oriental Society*, vol. xl, p. 63, No. 26.

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By the term *taruṇa*, tender bones, cartilages are denoted.

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FIG. 2

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FIG. 3

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Goddess Chulakoka

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Yaksha Suchiloma

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(From the Stûpa of Bharhut)

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The statement of Dr. Wise (*Hindu System of Medicine*, p. 52) that ‘the difference [between Suśruta’s total 300 and Charaka’s total 360] is owing to their counting the cartilages with the bones’ is hardly correct. Both writers include cartilages in their counts, though in different ways. The difference in their totals is mainly due to Charaka’s counting the thirty-two sockets of the teeth as separate bones, and his including the twenty nails, neither of which are admitted in the count of Suśruta. See § 38, col. IV in the Table (p. 93).

Linked texts (4)

Carakasaṃhitā — Agniveśa (Āyurveda) & Caraka, Sanskrit
Bheḷasaṃhitā — Bheḷa, Sanskrit
Yājñavalkyasmṛti — Yājñavalkya, Sanskrit
Bhōja