Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s3.t1.19

c6.s3.t1.19

7. There is a further inconsistency in Vāgbhaṭa’s omitting to count the two eyeballs (*akṣikośa*) in his number-list, while he mentions them in his class-list of the very same bones (Original Text in § 93) which he adopts from Suśruta. He also adopts from Suśruta the description of the outer cover, or shell, of the eyeball as made of bone (§ 30, Original Text in § 96, cl. 2). The fact is interesting, because it shows that the text of the Compendium of Suśruta, on which Vāgbhaṭa I based his anatomical theories, was already in his time in a corrupt state. It is not probable that if Vāgbhaṭa I had found the eyeballs included among the bones in the number-list of Suśruta, he would have omitted them from his own number-list, while it is quite credible, considering his other inconsistencies, that he should not have recognized their wrongful omission from the list of Suśruta.