Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s3.t2.15

c7.s3.t2.15

At the same time, it may be noted that Sāyaṇa, in his great commentary on the Rigveda, commenting on the first of the two above-quoted passages, explains jatrubhyaḥ by grīvābhyaḥ. He, therefore, took jatru to mean the neck (grīvā). If his interpretation should be preferred, it might refer to the cartilaginous rings of the trachea of which there are from sixteen to twenty (Fig. 24). But the important point is that in the opinion of Sāyaṇa jatru does not denote the clavicles. In the Epics and Purāṇas, jatru seems to have always the meaning of the anterior part of the neck or the throat. Thus Mahābhārata, III. 713, jatrudeśe vgavāsīdat, i. e. he fell on his throat; and Bhagavat Purāṇa, VIII. 11¹⁴, jatrāv=atāḍayat, he struck him in the throat. The singular number shows that the clavicles are not intended. Again, in Rāmāyaṇa, I. 1¹² and V. 32¹⁰, we find the phrase dṛḍha-jatru, and in Bhagavat Purāṇa, I. 19²⁷, the phrase nigūḍha-jatru, both meaning ‘strong-necked’, in the description of a hero. Here, indeed, the late commentators Rāmānuja and Śrīdhara expressly interpret jatru of the two clavicles, using that word in the dual number. Thus Rāmānuja on Rāmāyaṇa, I. 1¹², says: Jatruṇī vakṣo-’ṃsa-sandhi-gate asthinī, i. e. ‘The two clavicles are the two bones which constitute the connexion between the breast (sternum) and the shoulder (acromion).’ Similarly Śrīdhara, commenting on Bhagavat Purāṇa, I. 19²⁷, says: Kaṇṭhasya adho-bhāgayoḥ sthite asthinī jatruṇī, i. e. ‘The two clavicles are the two bones which are situated on both sides of the lower part of the throat.’ But though in these explanations Rāmānuja and Śrīdhara have obviously in view the traditional medical definition of jatru, as above quoted from the commentaries of Daḷḷana and Aruṇadatta, they understand that definition in the false sense to which, as we shall see below, the celebrated Indian dictionary, the Amara-koṣa, had given currency. Anyhow, in the passages of the Epics and Purāṇas, commented on by them, the most natural interpretation of jatru is that it means the throat or windpipe.