Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s3.t3.2

c6.s3.t3.2

2. It has been shown in the preceding paragraph that the list of the bones of the human body as constructed by Vāgbhaṭa I is substantially identical with the lists of Charaka and Suśruta as we possess them in the manuscripts of the present day. Moreover, at least three corruptions of the latter two lists, viz. the repetition of *aṃsa*, shoulder, in the list of Charaka (§ 6), and the omission of the shoulder-blades and the eyeballs in the list of Suśruta (§ 30), must have existed in their texts already in the time of Vāgbhaṭa I; for, as explained in the two preceding paragraphs the construction of his list presupposes them. Accordingly both lists, in their traditionally corrupted form, must be anterior to the date of Vāgbhaṭa I whatever the latter may be. On the other hand, it has been shown (pp. 76, 79, 85), regarding the omission of the shoulder-blades and eyeballs, and the count of seventeen bones in the neck, that the Non-medical Version of Atreya’s system presupposes the knowledge of a recension of Suśruta’s text which was more correct, and therefore presumably older than the corrupt traditional text. Similarly the Non-medical Version which ignores the erroneous repetition of *aṃsa*, shoulder (§§ 6, 16, 17), presupposes the knowledge of an older and more correct recension of the text of Charaka. Accordingly at the time when the Non-medical Version was composed, both the lists of Charaka and Suśruta must have existed in the earlier uncorrupted form, and the corrupt recension, traditionally handed down, must have come into existence at a later date: that is to say, between the date of the Law-book of Yājñavalkya, which contains the Non-medical Version, and the date of the construction of the list of Vāgbhaṭa I. As the date of the Law-book is about 350 A.D. (§ 14), the origin of the two traditional recensions cannot be placed earlier than the fourth century A.D.