Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s2.t4.8

c6.s2.t4.8

¹ Kūrca simply means a cluster of something, but not necessarily a cluster of true bones. In the case of the hands and feet, it is a cluster of small bones; but in the case of the neck, it refers to the cluster, or series, of imperfect cartilaginous rings which compose the windpipe (trachea), and apparently a similar view was held of the structure of the penis.—There are several other passages in the Compendium of Suśruta which confirm his doctrine of there being only four clusters in the hands and feet. They occur in the sixth chapter, on the ‘vital spots’. There Suśruta speaks of 27 such spots in the sinews (*snāyu-marmāni*, Jīv. ed., p. 337, cl. 10) and 44 such spots causing weakness (*vaikalya-karaṇī marmāṇi*, Jīv. ed., p. 338, cl. 13). These numbers will not work out correctly, unless the clusters included in them are counted as being only four. The peculiar force of these passages lies in the indirectness of their evidence.