Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s4.t1: § 43. Statement in the Atharva Veda

Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s4.t1

Language: English

§ 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.*).

Cites (6)

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