Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s2.t1.16

c7.s2.t1.16

5. In this connexion it may be useful to identify two other terms occasionally used by Suśruta, namely *aṃsa-kūṭa* and *aṃsa-pīṭha*. The former occurs in a passage of the sixth chapter of the Anatomical Section (*Śārīra Sthāna*), in which Suśruta describes two ‘vital spots’ (*marman*) of the body (see the Original Text in § 97, cl. 5), called by him *apalāpa* (apparently the upper attachment of the coraco-brachialis muscle: see Figs. 295, 303, 304, in Dr. Gerrish’s *Textbook of Anatomy*, 2nd ed., pp. 274 and 277). These two vital spots (one, of course, on either side of the body) he says are situated ‘below the two summits of the shoulder’ (*aṃsa-kūṭa*). The ‘two summits of the shoulder’ (Fig. 22), are the two acromion processes of the right and left scapula, below which the caraco-brachialis attachment is situated. The *aṃsa-pīṭha*, lit. shoulder-seat, is mentioned in a passage in the fifth chapter of the Anatomical Section (Original Text on § 97, cl. 6), in which Suśruta describes eight kinds of differently shaped joints.² There two joints are described as being *sāmudga*, that is shaped like a round casket (*samudga*).