Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s1.t7.3

c7.s1.t7.3

2. The term *kūrpara* is peculiar to Suśruta, who expressly defines it as denoting the homologue of *jānu*, the knee-cap (p. 72), and who may, therefore, have been the first to use it as a denotation of the olecranon process. The term *kapālikā* is peculiar to Ātreya (Charaka and Bheḍa). It means, literally, a small shallow dish, and is therefore identical in meaning with patella, the Latin name of the knee-cap. It well describes the appearance of the olecranon process, which presents, in the ventral view, a concave surface, the so-called great sigmoid cavity (Fig. 8). Accordingly, in this treatise, it has been rendered by ‘elbow-pan’.