Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s1.t3.9

c7.s1.t3.9

6. It might be thought that Vāgbhaṭa I derived his doctrine that there are eight *kūrca*, two in either hand and two in either foot, from the circumstance, above referred to, that the small bones of the carpi and tarsi are placed in two rows. One would thus obtain eight rows of small bones, two in either hand and two in either foot; and it might be thought that Vāgbhaṭa I wanted to express that circumstance by his count of eight *kūrca*, or rows. In support of this view it might be said that Vāgbhaṭa I also counts four *gulpha*, or ankle-bones, as well as four *maṇibandha*, or wrist-bones (§ 37). Seeing that there are actually two malleoli (or ankle-bones) in either leg, and two styloid processes (or wrist-bones) in either forearm, it seems a very plausible conclusion that Vāgbhaṭa I was really thinking of the four malleoli and four styloid processes when in his list of bones he enumerates four *gulpha* and four *maṇibandha*; and similarly that he was thinking of the eight rows of small bones in the two carpi and tarsi, when he counted eight *kūrca*. But such a view would credit Vāgbhaṭa I with more consistency and more accurate knowledge of anatomy than he really possessed. How little of both qualities his statement on the skeleton exhibits has been already shown in § 38. A striking proof of his imperfect knowledge of the skeleton is the circumstance that in his list (§ 37) he enumerates both *adhiṣṭhāna* and *kūrca* as two distinct kinds of bone. By the former he understood the carpus and tarsus. This is clear from the term *pratibandhaka*, or interlocker, by which he calls them. He says: ‘There are five long bones, and one bone interlocking them’ (Original Text in § 93). This shows that (whatever Ātreya-Charaka’s view of the real nature of *adhiṣṭhāna* may have been) Vāgbhaṭa I took it to be a single undivided bone, on which the five long bones articulated. But as he had thus provided for the carpus and tarsus, it is difficult to understand what he could have imagined the additional *kūrca* to be. Seeing that all actually existing bones (Figs. 6 and 7), phalanges, metacarpus (or metatarsus), carpus (or tarsus), and styloid processes (or malleoli) were already covered by the terms *aṅguli*, *śalākā*, *pratibandhaka* (or *adhiṣṭhāna*), and *maṇibandha* (or *gulpha*), there was no bone left to be named *kūrca*. It may be doubted whether Vāgbhaṭa I had any idea as to what the Suśrutiyan term *kūrca* meant. He certainly failed to see that it signified the equivalent of the Charakiyan term *adhiṣṭhāna*; and his anatomical knowledge was too imperfect to prevent that failure. It thus came to pass that, dominated by his desire of combining the two systems of Suśruta and Charaka, he not only superfluously counted the *kūrca*, by the side of his *pratibandhaka* (Charaka’s *adhiṣṭhāna*), but actually duplicated its numbers, counting eight *kūrca* instead of four.