Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s2.t6.34

c6.s2.t6.34

3. Comparing the above list with that given in the preceding paragraph, it will be seen at once that it is really an attempt made by Gaṅgādhar to restore the genuine text of the statement of Suśruta. Moreover, it is made on much the same lines, though some of the more important defects of the Traditional Recension have escaped his attention. Thus he still counts four heels, instead of two, and omits the two shoulder-blades; and consequently his aggregates for the four extremities and the trunk are 108 and 126, instead of the true aggregates 106 and 128. He also fails to notice the omission of the two eyeballs; and hence, to make up the required total 300, he wrongly counts eleven neck-bones instead of nine. On the other hand, he rightly recognizes the error of the Traditional Recension in respect of the true number of the clusters and ankle-bones, and thus arrives at the true aggregates seven and twenty-seven, instead of ten and thirty. Similarly he recognizes the error with respect to the number of the bones of the breast and palate, restoring their true numbers seventeen and two, instead of eight and one. Further, he recognizes the misreading *udara*, abdomen, for which, however, he substitutes the insufficient reading akṣa (short for akṣaka), collar-bone.¹ On the other hand, his failure to realize the omission of the shoulder-blades prevented him from recognizing the misreading involved in the phrase akṣaka-samjñā (§ 29).