Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s3.t3.3

c6.s3.t3.3

3. The question suggests itself whether Vāgbhaṭa I himself might not be the author of the Traditional Recension of the statement of Suśruta on the bones of the human body. The evidence is not sufficient to return a decided answer; but whatever evidence there is seems certainly to point in that direction. The statement of Suśruta (§ 27) gives the aggregate of the bones contained in Nos. 2, 3, 4 of his list, but does not detail the number of bones of each item: sole (tala), cluster (kūrca), and ankle (gulpha). Whoever fixed the details so as to make the sole (tala) to include not only the five long bones (śalākā) but also the base (sthāna), must have been led to do so by noticing that the list of Charaka mentions the base (sthāna), while the list of Suśruta does not name it. He concluded, therefore, that Suśruta’s term sole (tala) must cover both the long bones (śalākā) as well as the base (sthāna). In other words, whoever fixed the details proceeded on the principle of adding to the list of Suśruta such items from the list of Charaka as did not appear to be contained in it explicitly. This, as has been shown in § 39, is precisely the principle on which Vāgbhaṭa I worked in constructing his own list. It seems probable, therefore, that it was Vāgbhaṭa I who for the purpose of preparing his own list, constructed the Traditional Recension of the list of Suśruta.