Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s4: D. The System of the Vedas

Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s4

Language: English

c6.s4.t1 § 43. Statement in the Atharva Veda — 20 parts

D. The System of the Vedas

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§ 42. The Statements in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa

1. It may be useful to present in their entirety those passages from the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa to which I have briefly referred in some of the preceding paragraphs. They occur in the tenth and twelfth sections (kāṇḍa) of that work, in the course of describing the erection of the fire-altar. In the building of it, 360 bricks were used together with the chanting of hymns consisting of a varying number of verses. With these bricks and hymns the body and certain of its parts are compared in a mystical way.

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2. Total Number of Bones. In the tenth section (kāṇḍa), fifth chapter (adhyāya), fourth paragraph (brāhmaṇa), and twelfth clause the total number of the bones of the human body is compared to the 360 bricks of the fire-altars, as follows¹:

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¹ The translations are taken from, or based on, Professor Eggeling’s Translation in the Sacred Books of the East, vols. iv and v.

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‘But indeed that fire-altar also is the body—the bones are the enclosing stones, and there are 360 of these, because there are three hundred and sixty bones in man; the marrow-parts are the yajuṣmatī bricks, for there are three hundred and sixty of these, and three hundred and sixty parts of marrow in man.’ (Vol. iv, p. 387; Original Text in § 99, cl. 1.)

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Again in Section XII, 3, 2, clauses 3 and 4:

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‘There are three hundred and sixty nights in the year and three hundred and sixty bones in man; and these (two) now are one and the same;—there are three hundred and sixty days in the year, and three hundred and sixty parts of marrow in man, and these (two) now are one and the same. And there are seven hundred and twenty days and nights in the year, and seven hundred and twenty bones and parts of marrow in man, and these (two) now are one and the same.’ (Vol. v, p. 169; Original Text in § 99, cl. 1.)

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3. Bones compared to Hymns. The number of bones in certain parts of the body are compared to certain hymns in Section XII, 2, 4, clauses 9–14, as follows (Original Text in § 99, cl. 3):

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‘(9) The three-versed hymn-form (trivṛt) is the head (śiras), whence that (head) is threefold—skin, bone, and brain. (10) The fifteen-versed hymn-form (pañcadaśa) is the neck-bones (grīvāḥ); for fourteen of these are the transverse processes (karūkara); and their strength (vīrya) is the fifteenth; hence by means of them, though small, man can bear a heavy load. Therefore the fifteen-versed hymn is the neck-bones. (11) The seventeen-versed hymn-form (saptadaśa) is the breast (uras); for there are eight costal cartilages (jatru) on the one side, and eight on the other, and the breast-bone (uras, sternum) is the seventeenth.

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Therefore the seventeen-versed hymn is the breast. (12) The twenty-one-versed hymn-form (*ekaviṃśa*) is the abdominal portion (*udara*) of the spine. For within the abdomen there are twenty transverse processes (*kuntāpa*), and the abdominal portion of the spine is the twenty-first. Therefore the twenty-one-versed hymn is the abdominal portion of the spine. (13) The thrice-nine-versed (or 27-versed) hymn-form (*triṇava*) is the two sides (*pārśva*). There are thirteen ribs (*parśu*) on the one side, and thirteen on the other; and the two sides make up the thrice-ninth (or 27th). Therefore the thrice-ninth hymn is the two sides. (14) The thirty-three-versed hymn-form (*trayastriṃśa*) is the thoracic portion (*anūka*) of the spine; for there are thirty-two transverse processes (*karūkara*) in it, and the thoracic portion of the spine is the thirty-third. Therefore the thirty-three-versed hymn is the thoracic portion of the spine.' (Vol. v, pp. 163-5.)

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4. *Position of Costal Cartilages.* The position of the costal cartilages is described in Section VIII, 6, 2, clauses 7 and 10, as follows:

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'(1) The *triṣṭubh* (metres) are the breast-bone (*uras*): he (i.e. the sacrificer) places them on the range of the two *retaḥsic* (bricks), for the *retaḥsic* (bricks) are the back-bones (*pṛṣṭi*), and the back-bones lie over against the breast-bone. (10) The *bṛhatī* (metres) are the ribs (*parśu*); the *kakubh* (metres) are the thoracic vertebrae (*kikasa*). The *bṛhatī* he places between the *triṣṭubh* (metres) and *kakubh* (metres), whence these ribs (*parśu*) are fastened, at either end, to the thoracic vertebrae (*kikasa*) at the back and (interiorly) to the costal cartilages (*jatru*) in front.' (Vol. iv, p. 114; Original Text in § 99, cl. 4.)

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5. *Date of Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, and its Relation to Charaka and Suśruta.* The traditional author of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* is Yājñavalkya, who is said to have flourished at the court of Janaka, the famous king of Videha, and contemporary of Ajātaśatru, king of Kāśī (Benares). The latter, the celebrated ruler of Magadha and Kāśī, was a contemporary of Buddha. His accession took place approximately in 491 B.C. Accordingly Yājñavalkya may be dated about 500 B.C.¹ The anatomical comparisons, quoted above, show that in his time both the medical schools of Ātreya and Suśruta were in existence, and that he possessed some knowledge of their respective theories on the skeleton. For he derived from Suśruta the allotment of seventeen bones to the breast (§§ 33, 34), Ātreya-Charaka counting only fourteen (§ 4); while he got the total of 360 bones of the skeleton from Ātreya, Suśruta having only 300. In his choice of particulars from the two systems, of course, he was guided by the requirements of his mystic treatment of the fire-altar. As to Suśruta’s surgical text-book, it may be noted that Yājnavalkya was a native of Eastern India, and that Indian surgical science, in all probability, took its origin in that part of India (§ 2, cl. 3).

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¹ On the dates see Weber's *History of Indian Literature* (3rd English ed.), pp. 116 ff.; Prof. Eggeling's Translation of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* in vol. xii of the *Sacred Books of the East*, Introd., pp. xxxv ff.; Prof. Rhys Davids' *Buddhist India*, pp. 12-16;

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6. *Acquaintance with Suśruta.* Yājnavalkya’s acquaintance with the system of Suśruta is further shown by the curious circumstance that he counts 360 marrow-parts, that is, as many as there are bones. Clearly, he believed that every bone contained a ‘marrow-part’. This belief is closely related to Suśruta’s doctrine, which also ascribes what may be called a ‘marrow-part’ to every bone. Charaka has left no statement on the subject, but Suśruta, in the Introductory Section (*Sūtra Sthāna*) of his text-book (ch. xiv, verse 6, Jīv. ed., p. 48; Original Text in § 99, cl. 2), teaches that ‘from fat (*medas*) originates bone, and from the latter marrow (*majjā*)’. In the Anatomical Section (*Śārīra Sthāna*, ch. iv, cl. 9, Jīv., p. 319; Original Text in § 99, cl. 2), he further states that ‘fat (*medas*) occurs in the abdomen, and in both the small and large bones of all beings’; and, *ibid.*, cl. 10, he explains that ‘the fat which is found in the interior cavity of the large bones is called marrow (*majjan*), while that which is found in all other bones is called bloody (*sa-rakta*, or red) fat; further the grease (*sneha*) which attaches to clean flesh (of the abdomen) is known as suet (*vasā*), while in all other conditions fat (*medas*) is simply denoted grease (*sneha*)’. In the view of Suśruta, therefore, all bones contain the same fatty tissue (*medas*): only it is red in the small bones, and yellow in the large ones, the Mr. V. Smith’s *Early History of India*, pp. 26 ff.; Messrs. Hoernle and Stark’s *History of India*, p. 21.

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latter kind being distinguished as marrow (*majjan*). The author of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* only differs in employing the term *majjan* in the sense in which Suśruta uses the term *medas*.¹

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¹ It deserves notice that also modern Anatomy distinguishes between red and yellow marrow, the latter being found in the medullary cavity of the long bones, the red in the cancellous parts of those bones as well as in all other bones. The red marrow has its name from the blood-vessels in it, while the yellow has its name from the oil gradually developed in it. The yellow kind is what is popularly known as marrow, and which Suśruta distinguishes as *majjan*. See Gerrish, *Textbook of Anatomy* (2nd ed., 1903), pp. 53, 113.

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7. *Confused Counting in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa.* In the enumeration of the bones of the trunk, the author of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa*, not being a medical man, but a theologian, is rather confused. The items of his count are:

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| In the Neck | . | . | 15 bones |
| ,, Breast | . | . | 17 ,, |
| ,, Lower Spine | 21 | . | 54 ,, |
| ,, Upper Spine | 33 | . | |
| ,, Ribs | . | . | 27 ,, |

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Here the first two items are correct, being taken from Ātreya-Charaka (§ 4) and Suśruta (§ 35) respectively. But the numbers of the bones of the spine and the ribs, 54 and 27 respectively, are very strange. It almost looks as if they were due to a misreading, or false recollection, reversing the true numbers 45 and 72.² The former (i.e. 45) is the total of the bones of the spine in the system of Ātreya-Charaka (§ 4), while the latter (i.e. 72) is the total number of the ribs with their sockets and tubercles in both systems, of Ātreya as well as of Suśruta.

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² Misreading would be an obvious solution, if we could assume that at the time of the composition of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* the system of numeral notation based on ‘the value of position’ was already known. With the older system of notation by means of distinct signs for the tens and for the units, the theory of misreading is far less intelligible. It must, then, be a case of false recollection.

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8. *Continuation.* But further, the principle of counting is no less confused. Suśruta counted the bones of the breast on a principle different from that on which he counted the bones of the neck and back (that is, of the whole spine). The breast he counted by taking it to consist of a median bone (*sternum*), giving off an equal number of branch bones (*costal cartilages*)

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on either side. But in the spine, he counted each vertebra separately without any median column. Ātreya-Charaka, less correctly, had applied the former method of counting also to the neck (§ 61). In the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, even more confusedly, it is extended to the whole of the spine. The latter is supposed to consist of a median column, divided into an upper (anūka) and a lower (udara) portion, either of them giving off an equal number of branch bones (transverse processes) on either side.

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9. Continuation. As to the ribs, the very non-anatomical view is taken of counting the collar-bones as a species of ribs, and thus obtaining a total of thirteen ribs on either side of the sternum. This explanation of the otherwise unintelligible count of thirteen ribs has been suggested by Professor Eggeling in his Translation of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xliv, p. 164, footnote 2), and is undoubtedly correct. The fanciful count itself, of course, is due to the mystical exigencies of the author of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa.

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10. Continuation. Finally, another quite non-anatomical procedure of the same author is the description of the head (or rather, cranium, śiras) as consisting of skin, bone, and brain.

§ 43. Statement in the Atharva Veda

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1. The hymn on the creation of man, which is referred to in § 2, cl. 2, is the second in the tenth book of the Atharva Veda. Its composition is traditionally ascribed to a certain sage (ṛṣi) Nārāyaṇa. This sage is the traditional author also of the famous hymn on the sacrifice of man (puruṣa-sūkta), which is found both in the Rigveda and the Atharva Veda, and is regarded as ‘one of the very latest poems of the Rigvedic age’—an age ‘which can hardly be less remote than 1000 B.C.’¹ It seems probable that he is identical with the Nārāyaṇa, to whom Indian medical tradition ascribes the composition of certain very ancient medical formulae,² and who, from all these considerations, comes within the semi-mythical period of the history of Indian medicine (§ 2, cl. 2).

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¹ See Rigveda, x. 90, and Atharva Veda, xix. 6; Professor Macdonell’s Sanskrit Literature, pp. 44, 47, 133.

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² One formula for the preparation of a medicated oil has the very early authority of the Bower MS., Part III, verses 37-53. Another formula for preparing a compound powder is recorded in

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2. The initial eight verses of the hymn in question run as follows¹ (Original Text in § 100):

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¹ Several of the Sanskrit terms, occurring in this hymn, are very rare. On these and other philological matters my *Studies in Ancient Indian Medicine*, No. II, in the *Journals of the Royal Asiatic Society* for 1906, pp. 915 ff., and 1907, pp. 1 ff., may be consulted.

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Verse 1. By whom were fixed the two heels of man? By whom was the flesh constructed? By whom the two ankle-bones; by whom the slender digits; by whom the apertures; by whom the two sets of long bones, in the middle? Who made their bases?

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Verse 2. How did they (the devas) make the two ankle-bones of man below, and the two knee-caps above? The two legs, furthermore—how, pray, did they insert (them)? and the two knee-joints—who conceived them?

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Verse 3. A four-sided (frame) is formed by their ends being firmly knit together. Above the two knees (there is) the pliant abdomen. The two hips and the two thighs that there are, who has created them, (those props) through which the trunk becomes so firmly set up?

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Verse 4. How many devas, and who among them, contributed to build up the (bones of the) breast and the (cartilages of the) windpipe of man? How many disposed (the ribs of) the two breasts; who, the two shoulder-blades? How many piled up the neck-bones; how many, the back-bones?

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Verse 5. Who constructed the two arms of his for the exertion of strength? Which deva hoisted the two collar-bones on his trunk?

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Verse 6. Who pierced the seven apertures in the head: the two ears, two nostrils, two eyes, the mouth—these (organs of sense) in whose surpassing might quadrupeds and bipeds walk their way in all directions?

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Verse 7. For within the two jaws he fixed the tongue, and installed the far-reaching mighty voice. The devas pervade the

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Mādhava's *Siddhayoga*, ch. xxxvii, verses 18–25 (p. 307), and Dṛḍhabala's complement to the *Charaka Saṃhitā*, *Cikitsita Sthāna*, ch. xviii, verses 122–9 (p. 649, ed. 1895).

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(three) worlds, they dwell in the waters, but which of them conceived it?

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Verse 8. Whoever first constructed that brain of his, the brow, the facial bone, the cranium, and the structure of the jaws, and having done so, ascended to heaven, who of the many devas was he?

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3. The significance of these verses comes out very clearly, when the system of the bones of the human body disclosed in them is compared with the osteological systems of Ātreya-Charaka and Suśruta. The three systems are shown in the subjoined Table, the arrangement of which follows the order of the verses in the hymn of the Atharva Veda. The systems of Charaka and Suśruta, in columns V and VI, are quoted from § 7 and § 34 respectively; and the bracketed numbers in the columns refer to the order of the bones in those paragraphs.

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4. It will be noticed in the preceding table that while the several items, taken singly, do not follow one another in the Atharvic column IV in exactly the same order as in the Charakiyan and Suśrutiyan columns V and VI, they do so nevertheless, if regard is had mainly to their grouping in the Atharvic verses (col. I). The only exception to this rule is the collar-bone (No. 16 in col. II), which occupies a rather different place in columns V and VI. It is not difficult, however, to see the reason of this exception. The Atharvic hymn mentions the collar-bone, in verse 5, in connexion with the mention of the upper limb (bāhu) which serves to join it to the trunk.

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5. A much more important point to observe is that, as the table shows, the system of the Atharva Veda more nearly approaches the system of Ātreya-Charaka than that of Suśruta. The only point of agreement in the Atharvic and Suśrutiyan systems is that both content themselves with a brief reference to the bones of the upper extremities (as being alike to those of the lower extremities), but do not enumerate them separately as the Charakiyan system does. This, however, is a merely formal and unimportant point. A really important circumstance is that the Atharvic system shares with the Charakiyan one of the most striking points, in which the latter differs from the system of Suśruta, namely, the assumption of a central facial bone in the structure of the skull (Nos. 17 and 18 in the Table; see also § 11, cl. 5; § 13, cl. 4; § 17, cl. 4; § 23, cl. 3 b). This is a point which will be found fully explained in § 66. It may be added that the Atharvic term pratiṣṭhā for the base of the long bones (No. 5 in the Table) obviously agrees with the Charakiyan term adhiṣṭhāna, and widely differs from the Suśrutiyan kūrca. The closer agreement of the system of the Atharva Veda with that of Ātreya-Charaka is nothing more than might have been expected from their closer chronological position, as explained in § 2, cl. 4. The two circumstances suggest mutual confirmation.

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6. It also deserves notice that the Atharvic system knows only of two bones as constituting the shoulder-girdle—viz. the collar-bone (aṃsa, No. 16 in the Table) and the shoulder-blade (kaphoda, No. 13). It thus serves to confirm the correctness of omitting the item *aṃsa* from the osteological summary of Charaka (§ 6, and § 25, Note). The two systems, of the Atharva Veda and Ātreya-Charaka, being in other respects in such close agreement, it becomes increasingly probable that the latter system likewise knew only of two bones in the shoulder, viz. the collar-bone (*akṣaka*, No. 17 in § 7) and the shoulder-blade (*aṃsa-phalaka*, No. 16, *ibid.*).

Linked texts (7)

Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Atharvavedasaṃhitā — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit
Carakasaṃhitā — Agniveśa (Āyurveda) & Caraka, Sanskrit
Suśrutasaṃhitā — Suśruta & Nāgārjuna (siddha/alchemist), Sanskrit
Siddhayoga (Vṛndamādhava) — Vṛnda, Sanskrit
Bower Manuscript — Sanskrit
Śatapathabrāhmaṇa — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit

Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s4: D. The System of the Vedas

Contents

D. The System of the Vedas

§ 43. Statement in the Atharva Veda

Linked texts (7)